NEWS
By Don Gordon-Brown
Honeymoon periods are fondly remembered, by grooms and governments alike, because they don’t last for long.
The Newman Government sometime in the future when it’s under the pump will no doubt look back misty eyed to when it was first elected in 2012. They’ll marvel at how great they had it for a little while. And they’ll probably remember how they got away relatively unscathed with that media stunt surrounding its alleged multi-billion dollar NorthBank plan.
The Courier-Mail deputy editor Des Houghton in a recent triumphant “exclusive” used the paper’s front page and then a two-page spread not far inside to laud what it declared as the Newman Government’s first major infrastructure project.
But by the TV news that night, the “exclusive” had been exposed as just“ex”. It turned out that the artist’s impression was stale news indeed: it was drawn up for the previous Labor government many years ago and rejected by that government.
The Premier on Channel 9 news when asked about the artwork’s history replied: “News to me”.
And Works Minister Bruce Flegg flustered his way through the mess with this piece of nonsense: “This is an artist’s impression that is for, as an aid, for discussion, ah, it is .. it is not something that’s been put out to a plan”.
Or as the Premier helpfully added: “It remains to be seen if we will be selling anything.”
So the artwork shown in the Courier-Mail page (above) and all the numbered arrows pointing to where buildings might come and go in Newman’s grand plan had nothing to do with reality at all. A bit of dated and discarded nonsense.
Indeed, as this issue of The Independent went to press, there’s been no additional media coverage of what the Newman government’s grand plan for NorthBank might even be. If there is one.
So to get back to our honeymoon analogy, can you imagine what would have happened if that truly awful Bligh government – one renowned for recycling old news as new initiatives, sometimes several times over – had seduced a senior journalist in arguably one of the world’s finest newspapers with such fluff .
Des is an old mate of mine and my guess is that he would have been rightly livid. But he is a rabid old Tory – if Des had ridden with Genghis Khan, the Mogul leader would have been scarcely visible across the battlefield on Des’s left flank– but he’s got the conservative government he craved.
Disappointed maybe but Des is noting if not loyal. By the next day, he had forgiven such tacky bedroom antics and had moved on moved on.
He found a new front-page exclusive – James Packer’s “trump card in BCD overhaul” i.e. a second casino for the CBD, which we suspect has about as much chance of happening as the old Labor plan for NorthBank.
Des did find space on the inside spill of that yarn for a very gentle jibe at the love of his life: “Mr Newman has admitted a glossy artist’s impression of this multi-billion dollar CBD revitalisation project was prepared for the former Beattie Government and did not show his own plans.” Not really the stuff of the truly jilted, was it?.
But in this sorry saga, there is more to worry about than Des Houghton being taken for a bad ride or the fact that no-one at his newspaper twigged as to the graphic’s origins.
It’s the way this new Premier has quickly learn the ropes from Anna Bligh, and of course before her the master of spin over substance Peter Beattie.
To grab this old plan and to tout it as your government’s first big, big plan shows that the need to be seen to be doing something, so soon after such a successful wedding to the people of Queensland, is more important than actually doing anything substantial.
He and his government already seem so satisfied with themselves and their performance that they can’t even contemplate Queenslanders might divorce them.
Stick to those beliefs and a marriage annulment might happen much faster than they think possible.
