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| Mike Crook |
BRISBANE -- "The major parties in the upcoming Queensland election stand for the neoliberal status quo. What the people really need is a radical transformation of the system," the two endorsed Socialist Alliance candidates for the Queensland state election said on January 27.
The two candidates, Mike Crook, running for the seat of Sandgate, and Liam Flenady, contesting South Brisbane, issued an initial joint statement, following the announcement by Labor Premier Anna Bligh that the election would be set for March 24.
After an almost unbroken reign of 22 years, the Queensland ALP appears to be facing an electoral rout in the coming poll. The latest opinion poll, released in the January 27 Courier-Mail, shows Labor making up some ground, but still trailing the Liberal-National Party by 59 to 41 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.
Labor currently holds 51 seats, to the LNP 31, with Independents the rest, out of a total of 89 seats in the Queensland Parliament. Bligh called the election, close to three years after the previous poll, after new revelations delayed the release of the final report of the inquiry into Queensland's disastrous floods in January 2011.
The March 24 date means that Queensland council elections, originally due for March 31, will now be delayed until April 29. Any adverse findings in the flood inquiry report are likely to have a major impact during the campaign.
"One of the biggest issues arising from last year's floods is the failure of the private insurance companies to pay out on fair claims," Crook and Flenady said. "We are calling for the re-establishment of a state-owned insurance company to offer automatic coverage for floods, fires and cyclones, and take on the greedy private insurance corporations."
"We also want to put up front an alternative to the ALP government's sell-off of public assets, with the support of the LNP opposition. The Socialist Alliance calls for QR (Queensland Rail) National and other privatised state enterprises, to be re-nationalised under workers' and public control."
"SA will also be campaigning against the Coal Seam Gas industry; demanding no new coal mines and the phase-out of existing mines, with large-scale creation of green jobs; and a total overhaul of the public transport system," Crook and Flenady said.
"These are just some of the key policies we will be advancing in this campaign," they added. "To implement this program of radical change we are calling for a government genuinely accountable to the people: For a government of the 99 per cent, not the 1 per cent!"
For more information on the Queensland Socialist Alliance election campaign, or offers of assistance and financial support, contact 07 3831 2644, or 0423 741 734 , or email:brisbane@greenleft.org.au.
