01.12 pm, Thursday May 17 2012

Govt derides LNP leadership plan

20:42 AEDT Tue Feb 14 2012
By Larine Statham, State Political Reporter
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Queensland Labor has used parliament to play up the leadership uncertainty in the opposition.

The Liberal National Party's unelected leader, Campbell Newman, refuses to discuss who would lead the party if he doesn't win the seat of Ashgrove on March 24.

If the LNP gains the 14 seats it needs to win government but Mr Newman doesn't win his, the state will be without a clear option for the premier's job.

Premier Anna Bligh on Tuesday used question time to ridicule the strategy.

"Either you have a plan B which you are keeping from Queenslanders or you have no plan B and that equals chaos," she said.

"If you do not know who your leader is, you cannot govern Queensland.

"Of the nine frontbenchers, six of them have been a leader and the other three want to be.

"What we have seen is Borbidge-Sheldon, Watson-Horan, Quinn-Springborg, Quinn-Flegg, Seeney-Flegg, Springborg-Flegg, Springborg-McArdle, Langbroek-Springborg, Seeney-Nicholls, Newman-Seeney.

"Every one of them a champion. Dynamic duo after dynamic duo."

Education Minister Cameron Dick joined in the ridiculing, listing possible LNP leadership scenarios as though he was calling a horse race.

"Plan B, the member for Callide. Yeah, but no, but yeah, but maybe," he said, before detailing plans C to G.

Ms Bligh said Jeff Seeney was possibly the only opposition leader in Australian history to release a statement saying he never wanted to be premier.

"But his deputy has not ruled it out," she said.

Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser has on numerous occasions said he has no aspirations to be premier.

In Townsville on Tuesday, reporters asked Mr Newman who would lead an LNP government if he wasn't elected.

"I've been asked this on numerous occasions. My answer will always be the same," he said.

"And I say to you that we will not win the state election if we don't win Ashgrove and seats just like it."

The opposition tried to use question time to ask how the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry missed conflicting evidence about when Wivenhoe Dam operators moved to a strategy to save Brisbane and Ipswich from floods.

Labor went on the counter-attack, digging up evidence that Brisbane City Council - under Mr Newman's leadership - had wanted dam releases kept to a minimum before the floods.

The opposition also tried to quiz the premier on the Queensland Health fraud case, only to have the question ruled out of order for reasons of sub judice.

Mr Newman was in north Queensland on Tuesday to discuss foreign fly-in fly-out workers.

Roads Minister Craig Wallace reckons Mr Newman hasn't driven the Bruce Highway for 25 years.

He said he nearly fell off his chair after hearing Mr Newman say Bowen was north of Cairns on a recent radio interview.

"Campbell Newman doesn't care about regional Queensland. He doesn't even know where Bowen is," Mr Wallace said.

"Bowen is about 550km south of Cairns and you'd think the bloke who aspires to be premier would have a basic knowledge of the geography of Queensland."

A spokeswoman for Mr Newman said the LNP leader was well aware of the geography along the coast.

She accused Mr Wallace of playing "schoolyard politics" instead of upgrading Queensland's Bruce Highway.

"Unlike Craig Wallace, Mr Newman cares about motorists and other road users that are putting up with an unsafe, flood-prone highway under this tired, 20-year-old Labor government," the spokeswoman said in a statement.

 

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