Just curious though, cos I have no idea of who else to ask – did the Brisbane Times scoop the tv networks with a mobile phone at the Pauline Hanson press conference?

Beyond twittering – which I still don’t understand – has there been other technological innovations in this election? I understand some bigwig tech strategists from USA were in Brisbane not too long ago…

Do you happen to work for the public service?

@Brad – do you know what is involved in cleaning up an oil spill? Are you aware that you cannot deploy booms into stormy seas – they don’t have any impact and the operation would just endanger the lives of those trying to do it? Did you know that the initial report received by the government falsely claimed a much much smaller amount of oil had spilled than was the case, and that the amount they were originally notified would not have caused much of a threat at all? Do you know why the heavy machinery was ordered from the beaches? Did you think about the environmental impact they would have had on the numerous turtle egg nests that were removed before the machinery was allowed on the beach? Do you know what resources were used to do the cleanup – the hundreds of SES volunteers who did the last of the manual cleanup after the heavy machinery was finished doing what it could?

@Genevieve – I’m unsure what that link is supposed to show? That a tweet was removed because it is likely people will take it out of context? Isn’t that exactly what has been done here? Have you ever been to Mount Isa? I am originally from Townsville and have been to Mount Isa a number of times. The Leichardt River could very well be flowing and the area around it and the central business district of Mount Isa are often green. When I return to Townsville I don’t compare how green Townsville is with how green the Sunshine Coast is to form the basis of how green Townsville is at that time – I compare it to what it normally looks like or what it looked like on my previous visit. Is it maybe possible that Mount Isa was looking very green compared with the last visit the Premier made there? I don’t know that, therefore I take what the Premier said as a personal observation.

Taking comments out of context may seem like an easy way to score political points – and unfortunately for Joe and Joanne Lunchbucket it generally works because they don’t think beyond the comment. Saying that the global economic situation has no impact on us in Queensland is also a pretty dumbass thing to say, but just like these comments from the Premier I take that with a grain of salt because I don’t know the full context of it.

What I do know is the same parties that created a huge debt 12 years ago by doing something politically popular – paying off toll roads – instead of putting that money into infrastructure in areas like health, education, roads etc, are now asking us to put them back in because the problem they created hasn’t been totally fixed by someone else. They are telling us that somehow reducing payroll tax is going to increase jobs. How? Are you asking me to believe that companies are going to spend more to employ more people simply because get a reduction in their taxes that may amount to a small percentage of the additional staffing costs? That just makes no sense whatsoever. And how many jobs are going to be lost by cancelling existing projects to cut this 1 billion from the budget? How many jobs will be lost by privatising more services – a practice that has already seen drops in service levels and increases in prices to the consumer as well as reductions in staffing levels? In their own ads the LNP are claiming that the cost of electricity has gone up under privatisation yet their plan is to privatise more services? The number one cost to any business is its staff and privatised enterprises have to make a profit – you do the sums. And as a percentage how much has the cost of the other services mentioned in the LNP ads – water as an example – gone up compared to things like fuel and food that had MASSIVE hikes under the 12 years of the Howard circus?

Please go and do your homework people. Actually go and read the policies, do some math of your own, have a look at what has already been put in place over the past few years TO address the things Mr Springborg and Co. are calling their major issues – issues that I remind you again were initiated by their parties. Think logically about some of the proposals – like the payroll tax one. Anyone who actually does a logical analysis of these things in the light of the current global economic situation would very clearly see that a change would at best be a change for the same…