Friday 30 October 2009

In Question Time

Looks like someone's following the carry on in the ALP on CairnsBlog...


LAWRENCE SPRINGBORG:

  • My question without notice is to the Premier.

    I refer to moves within the Labor Party to boot out Labor member and ETU organiser Stu Traill for opposing the Premier on privatisation.

    Will Labor’s former state president, Ron Monaghan, also be booted out of the Labor Party, or is it a fact that Mr Monaghan is only mouthing opposition to privatisation in public and saying something else behind closed doors?

PREMIER ANNA BLIGH:

  • I thank the honourable member for the question. I am not aware of any moves to cancel the membership of any member of the Australian Labor Party on this or indeed any other issue.

    One thing I can say about the Australian Labor Party is that it is a very broad church. As uncomfortable as the church might be, it is a very broad one. It has a remarkable elasticity.

MR LUCAS:

  • How is Gary Hardgrave going?



PREMIER ANNA BLIGH:

Unlike the LNP, which, in the council chambers this week, was disciplining one of its councillors; unlike poor old Gary Hardgrave, who served the Liberal Party as a federal member, and what thanks does he get? He gets disciplined. So the LNP is in the business of disciplining its former members of parliament.

MR LUCAS:

  • They kicked another bloke out last week for criticising the Lord Mayor.

PREMIER ANNA BLIGH:

  • They kicked another bloke out last week for criticising the Lord Mayor. Mr Traill is welcome to express his views on whatever he wishes, and I reserve my right to disagree with him on a regular basis. That is what the Labor Party is about--a party of ideas, and these matters are a matter for the party.

    What an extraordinary turn of events we have had this morning. The member for Southern Downs is here selling himself as the champion of the Electrical Trades Union.

    This is the mentor who led the party that took their superannuation, that took their houses--the hero, the political mentor of the member for Southern Downs. The ETU were not happy when you owned SEQEB, I can tell you that much.

    We have seen the member for Southern Downs try to reinvent himself so many times. Once it was the young socialist worker from Russia. Then he reinvented himself as ‘the Borg’.

    Now he seeks to be the worker’s champion, the champion of the ETU. It gets less convincing with every reinvention.
  • NB: Stu Traill isn't the Messiah. He's just a very naughty boy.

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