After @warmbloodedfish laughed at his suggestion Jarrod Bleijie would be the next leader of the Qld LNP last week and with popular former MP Kate Jones throwing her hat in the ring for her former seat, Paul O’Driscoll has put together an analysis of the LNP leadership contenders.
AS WE ARE NOW about six months away from the next Queensland election, it is time to start contemplating what the political landscape might look like and who will be the major players.
Consistent polling is suggesting the result will be close as to who forms Government and that there are four possible outcomes:
- very slim majority LNP government;
- minority LNP government;
- minority ALP government; or
- very slim majority ALP Government.
Another thing we know is that the LNP will lose a swathe of seats in the Southeast, including Premier Newman’s seat of Ashgrove.
So, who will lead the LNP after the next election?
One term Premier? CanDo Kate Vs Campbell 'Bully' Newman, Ashgrove rematch: http://t.co/4U6P8aVNy0 #qldvotes #qldpol pic.twitter.com/yAhMQxeaMn
— David Marler (@Qldaah) September 28, 2014
To analyse this, we need to look at who are the major players who will survive the coming electoral onslaught and their position in the various factions of the LNP.
The first two major players are current Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney and Treasurer Tim Nicholls, while waiting in the wings are Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek, Transport Minister Scott Emerson, Health Minister Lawrence Springborg and Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie.
As for the factions — there are two major factions that come from the party’s name, the Libs and the Nats, but it’s the sub-factions that make up these two that will decide who could be Premier.
The Libs faction is made up of two groups in the greater Brisbane area — the Eastern Suburbs Sicilian Mafia Faction and the Western Suburbs Doctors Wives Faction. A line down Moggill Road defines the DFZ (DeFactional Zone) that separates these two groups.
As for the Nats, they are made up of several sub-factions based on locations everywhere else around the state.
First there is the Gold Coast White Shoe Brigade group; yes, they still exist and have even leached across the border to infect the Tweed Shire.
Next is the Sunshine Coast/Wide Bay Happy Clappers and then the Old Country Party group, which is split into the Old School Agrarian Socialists and the Developer Mates’ Dollar Factions.
This list of LNP MPs who would lose their seats ain't gonna help the unemployment figures in Qld. #qldpol pic.twitter.com/HCEacQzro7
— Not Campbell Newman (@Can_do_Campbell) June 30, 2014
Now to the players.
First off is Timmy Nicholls, who under the current Parliament easily has the numbers, even with the loss of two seats in by-elections. While Brisbane’s Bayside now has a ring of blue coloured seats, after the election it will be a different story. Tim’s blue ribbon seat of Clayfield will be surrounded by a sea of red coloured seats decimating his Eastern Suburbs Sicilian Mafia Faction Power Base.
On the other side of Moggill Road, Scott Emerson, if he survives, will be the favourite of the Western Suburbs Doctors Wives Faction. Unfortunately, the inner-city east-west rivalry will ensure neither is given the leadership job and, besides, the Nats will blame them for every seat lost.
The Gold Coast White Shoe Brigade will also suffer some losses from the election, including Verity “icky bogans” Barton to the tenacious Penny Toland in Broadwater. Former teeth-puller John-Paul Langbroek will be their pick, but their influence has waned since the heady days of Russ Hinze and Rob Borbidge. Also, the loss of Alex Douglas and the mess made by Ros Bates leave their standing questionable.
Former Queensland minister Ros Bates ‘misled parliament’ over son’s job http://t.co/6HRwGp3XIZ #nepotism pic.twitter.com/7zjpP20oJC
— Insouciantly Aussie (@geeksrulz) August 17, 2014
As the largest individual group, the Old School Agrarian Socialists have Lawrence Springborg as their main contender. His track record as leader and his reported ambition to move to the Federal Parliament means this faction will probably have to back one of the other candidates. One would assume they would swing their support behind their Old Country Party Group colleague Seeney, but most of them hate his guts.In fact, most of the parliamentary LNP hate Seeney’s guts and while his Developer Mates Dollar Faction is powerful, it is very small in numbers only to be rivalled by the soon to be decimated Eastern Suburbs Sicilian Mafia Faction. At the end of the day, not even Seeney’s threats and bullying will get him the numbers for the top job.
Now we come to Jarrod Bleijie, who is a favourite of Sunshine Coast/Wide Bay Happy Clappers Factional Leader Fiona Simpson. This group should be largely intact after the election, although it may suffer some scares from the PUP Push. Jarrod is seen by others in the faction as the halleluiah, let’s be praised, Elvis costume wearing, ballroom dancing Saviour.
Also, this is the group the Old School Agrarian Socialists are most likely to swing their support behind, thus making the current conveyancer … err… Attorney General, the most likely candidate to be the leader of the LNP in a post-Newman Parliament.
It should be noted that this theory was scientifically developed in discussions fuelled by beer with others, including Together Secretary, Alex Scott. It has been further refined by being mulled over 1, 2, … several glasses of red wine.
Paul O'Driscoll is a Together union delegate and executive member. You can follow Paul on Twitter @PODviews.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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VLAD the conveyancer blasted by former Qld Solicitor-General, who says Jarrod Beige should resign. http://t.co/obpSTRy708
— Dave Donovan (@davrosz) March 24, 2014
