It’s been a year of ups and downs in Queensland politics, to use a phrase most popular with elected officials. State political reporter Daniel Hurst regurgitates the best quotes of 2011.
Spin cycle
“Most people whom I have met think it is fair enough to pay politicians well, but a lot of people would think that if you gave them a seatless unicycle and they paid their way to come to parliament that would be too much.”
– Colourful Labor stalwart Rob Schwarten acknowledges his call for MPs to be paid more is a tough sell.
Hair today, gone tomorrow
“I don’t dye my hair. It’s how it is.”
– Paul Lucas tackles the big issues, unprompted, as he announces his resignation as deputy premier and retirement at the next election.
Rum fun
“When I'm drinking rum, someone else will be doing the job, doesn't matter where I am drinking rum.”
– Parliamentary Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney gets off topic after a series of mildly mischievous questions at a media conference in March.
More rum
“You don't think I want to work for a whole year only to sit down on f---ing election night with a bottle of rum between my knees, f---ing bawling my eyes out because [we] lost it by one seat which was Cairns.”
– LNP’s tough-talking party treasurer Barry O'Sullivan, in a leaked recording, reveals he’d get weepy over the prospect of his party falling short at the next election. He made the comments during a heated meeting with the party’s then Cairns candidate Paul Freebody.
Fast talking
“The overwhelming bulk of fast food purchases take place at fast food outlets.”
– Health Minister Geoff Wilson shows amazing insight as he explains why new health food information laws target big fast food chains rather than corner stores.
Mangled marriage message
“I think the member opposite is the Kim Karshadian [sic] of the LNP. [The] Kardashian can-do affair was a huge production, all glitz and glamour and a promise to ‘trust me, our marriage will last forever’. Well, the party is over.”
- Small Business Minister Jan Jarratt mixes up her Karshadians (incorrect) and her Kardashians (correct) as she attempts to reference the reality TV celebrity's short-lived marriage. The parliamentary question was about red tape.
Time for change?
“We need a new beginning.”
– Headline on Premier Anna Bligh’s media release regarding a Queensland Health overhaul sounds like it could be just as welcome on an LNP press statement.
Feeling faint
“Queensland is run today by drunks, punks and desperadoes headed by Anna Bligh with her dirt unit.”
– LNP leader Campbell Newman declares at an October 5 media conference, seconds before the candidate standing next to him collapses (and before revelations about LNP-commissioned dirt files emerge).
Blame game
“This is Anna Bligh’s fault as well you see.”
– Campbell Newman makes a quip about the fainting candidate’s ill-timed collapse, spawning the #annasfaulttoo hashtag in which Twitter users blame the Premier for rain, losing keys and inadequate iPhone updates.
System rocks
“The Bligh government has sacrificed the integrity of the Westminster system for their own cheap political gain.”
– Parliamentary Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney, who is effectively bench-warming for an LNP leader who does not yet hold a seat in Parliament, lectures MPs about the Westminster system during the final sitting week of the year.
Broken record
“There is something that schools could get out of Campbell Newman. We could look at his record for maths. He increased rates by 700 times for some ratepayers. We could use that for maths. Physics students can go down to the bankrupt tunnel and work out how sound travels in a completely vacant space. My personal favourite is the ‘Sun King’ in his square, the deserted and barren King George Square. Of course science students can go there to conduct experiments involving extreme heat.”
– Education Minister Cameron Dick is completely focused on his portfolio in Parliament.
Switcheroo
“We have seen nothing but terrible things on the conservative side of politics since Freddy Krueger got on the bus. It is like when you go to the video store—you think you are getting something but they put the wrong DVD in. Those opposite have put the DVD in thinking it was going to be The Sound of Music and they got Freddy Krueger instead.”
– Attorney-General Paul Lucas ribs the LNP over its bold switch to Campbell Newman as leader.
More horror movie talk
“What will we see next year with the next sequel? We will see ‘A Nightmare on George Street’ or we might see ‘Freddy Meets Mad Bob’. One thing is for sure: this is a horror movie on the other side that, like any good horror movie franchise, just keeps on, keeps on, keeps on. Whenever you think you can go to sleep or close your eyes, it just happens again.”
– Paul Lucas, who had some horror moments in charge of the health portfolio, sticks to his theme.
New man, new obsession
“I would go as far as to say that without Campbell Newman some ministers would have had nothing to say in reply to questions that they were asked.”
– Jeff Seeney mocks government ministers for being so obsessed with Newman that it’s all they ever talk about.
Civil debate
“This bill has nothing to do with anal sex.”
– Labor’s Pine Rivers MP, Carolyn Male, sets the record straight about what the same-sex civil unions bill is and isn’t about.
Village people
“They are not the only gays in the villages.”
– Women’s Minister Karen Struthers channels Little Britain as she declares that those in the crowded public gallery are not the only people in Queensland set to benefit from the civil unions bill.
Parliamentary pick-me-up
“The first time I met one of my best friends who comes to visit me regularly in parliament was in a former life when I was a full-time piano bar singer. He tried to pick me up. He would be one of the gayest people I have ever met in my life. I will never forget the first time he came in. He had the handbag, the lipstick and everything going on ... He has since changed his mind in terms of relationships and has gone on to marry his wife and they have four children. I want to tell members that he was a very good friend of mine when he was gay and now that he is straight he has also continued to be a very good friend of mine.”
– Independent MP Chris Foley adds a personal touch to his speech opposing same-sex civil unions.
Counting the cost
“The passing of this [civil unions] bill will not save Queenslanders money.”
– LNP shadow attorney-general Jarrod Bleijie. Perhaps he’s alluding to the sky-high cost of getting hitched and sharing a life together.
Jail my supporter
“Ann McDougall is anti-fluoride and I always say to her that she needs locking up, and she says to me, ‘Well, I do need locking up because I have come back to help you.’"
– Retiring Labor stalwart Rob Schwarten likely becomes the first person to call for the imprisonment of one of his loyal electorate staffers during his valedictory speech.
Special pleading
“If we look at the sentence that I have been given, I have served more time than anyone in the Watergate scandal. Al Capone only got 11 years.”
– Former Labor minister Gordon Nuttall, jailed for 12 years for receiving secret payments, corruption and perjury, protests his innocence during an historic address to the bar of the Legislative Assembly in May to answer contempt of Parliament charges.
A man of few words – used many times
“I think that [the producers] have shown such great perspicacity – you’ll notice that word, not many Cloncurry boys would be able to get their handle around that sort of word, perspicacity – but I think they showed great perspicacity on the issue and the idea behind the show of food imports, but it was funny that they lacked the perspicacity to realise that they had this potentially great actor available and they didn’t use him.”
– Concise maverick federal MP Bob Katter makes a brief plea for an acting role on the ABC’s At Home With Julia comedy series.
Heterophobia fears
“If gay people continue to attack my cultural values, knowing that it will cause myself and many others distress, then I will begin to think that they are in fear of me and people who share my tolerant western Christian democratic values. They would then have to explain their heterophobia.”
– Independent Burnett MP Rob Messenger feels threatened.
Strange bedfellows
"I think it helps if you've been delivering a budget for four days and it's a bit easier to sleep on cement if you haven't had much sleep I suppose ... it turns out that one of us snores."
– Treasurer Andrew Fraser counting sheep (and budget measures) to get to sleep next to LNP rival Tim Nicholls at an overnight charity event to help the homeless in June.
Death wish
“As I say—you would not expect me to say anything different—I want a return of a Labor government, I want to die under a Labor government and I want to die when I am 100.”
– Retiring Labor stalwart Rob Schwarten, 57, wishes for a Labor government in 2054.
Media spray
“I particularly will not miss the daily editorial lectures or the overuse and abuse of the word ‘crisis’.”
– Crisis-prone minister Stephen Robertson attacks the media during his retirement speech.
Lighter times
“I was just joking with my staff earlier that my first duty two weeks later was to preside over Y2K. I spent the new millennium in the disaster control centre at Kedron Park. As the lights of New Zealand stayed on, we knew that perhaps a lot of money had been spent in vain.”
– Retiring Labor MP Stephen Robertson recalls how the Y2K crisis was averted during his first ministerial job in emergency services.
Top of the class
“I had the pleasure of travelling from Garden City on the world-class South East Busway to and from the game on Sunday and then attending the world-class Suncorp Stadium.”
– Sports Minister Phil Reeves displays his world-class vocabulary.
The salesman
“As Terry Mackenroth once observed, he could put his hand up an S-bend and pull out a gold Rolex.”
– Paul Lucas heaps praise on former boss Peter Beattie’s salesman skills.
Bush politics
“We would only have one minister out here and that is Jeff Seeney – and he's the most hated man in the bush.”
– LNP stalwart Howard Hobbs lashes out at his own parliamentary opposition leader, angry at being dumped in a shadow cabinet reshuffle.
Don’t know why
“I do not know why anyone ever voted for me.”
– Startling self-doubt from Dorothy Pratt who has won five terms in office, first as a One Nation MP and then as an independent.
