Queenslanders are going to the polls on 7th February 2004.
They will elect a unicameral, 89-seat Parliament for a (maximum) three year term.
Currently Labor's Peter Beattie is premier and has a solid 66 seats in the 89-seat Legislative Assembly.
The Liberals - a mere three seats! - and the Nationals - just twelve - have an almightly (read: virtually impossible) task to win government ahead of them.
Others are the largely dead two-member One Nation (Pauline Hanson's old party) and six independents.
Virtually all pundits are predicting a convincing Beattie win, with most also predicting a modest correction of sorts in terms of the conservatives gaining seats.
I think Labor will be unlucky to lose a dozen. It will continue to control the Parliament solidly.
Another three years of Peter Beattie for Queensland! I don't buy his line that he needs a mandate to fix the whoppingly big problems in the Families Department (what has Labor done more or less continuously to fix it since 1989???)
I am the first to admit though, that Beattie continues to deliver decent economic conditions, and the political 'anorak' in me respects him for another reason...
Although Beattie's electoral success in 2001 destroyed the Coalition, he was instrumental in helping the late great Denis Murphy revive the ALP in the aftermath of the 1974 Labor wipeout by the Coalition, as state secretary of the Labor Party during the eighties. In other words he gave Queenslanders a modern, bi-polar party system for the first time ever. Hopefully we'll get one again at this election.
Predictions anyone on the likely outcome?
http://www.ecq.qld.gov.au
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/
I think the Labor party will win easily. Many Queenslanders like Peter Beattie and will vote Labor because of him.
I think it was responsible to call the election and then who ever is elected decides how to handle the foster care problem.
I never knew that the Queensland the Premier could only serve three terms. What about Joh Bjelke Petersen? He was there for more then 15 years.
