I went to see Curtly McGee at the Woodford Correctional Centre last week. He was pretty banged up, swollen eyes, stitches in a cut above both eyebrows and fat swollen lips. He had two broken ribs. Breathing hurt. Laughing hurt. Talking hurt.
As blood dropped from his nose, Curtly asked me for fifty bucks. He wanted to buy smokes and soft drink. I said I’d give him a hundred if he wrote me another a political story.
Curtly smirked and padded his nose with a tissue. ‘I’d rather be getting beaten up on the inside than be at the mercy of the government on the outside,’ he said.
The following story was smuggled out of Woodford Correctional Centre by a sex worker two days ago. Her handwriting was appalling. Curtly, it must be remembered, is banned from reading and writing for two years…
Many of you won’t know who Curtly McGee is. He once was a great man, a powerful journalist with all the contacts. Now he’s just another criminal doing hard time. Despite the beatings and the time spent in jail, he remains one of the best political wits I know. This is his story.
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On March 22, two days before the 2012 state election, Campbell Newman remained on the move in his last days of frantic campaigning. The polls suggested he would annihilate the Labor Party. If Newman was smug or confident it barely showed.
But during that morning’s press conference at Burleigh Heads, Newman deceived all Queenslanders. His was so desperate to be elected asQueensland’s Premier that he lied.
Newman said he would hold the public service accountable for waste and inefficiency, but denied there would be forced redundancies. Restructuring, he said, would be achieved through natural attrition.
Just days out from the election,Queensland’s political journalists, agog with bloodthirsty lust and plotting their stories about Labor’s downfall, didn’t analyse Newman’s deceit.
Natural attrition in the public service is political code for thou who leaves shall not be replaced. The position is sacked even though the public servant isn’t.
That autumn morning at Burleigh Heads Newman kept lying, promising to get rid of Labor’s 2.5 percent wage rise cap.
‘Public servants who work hard are entitled to have their wages at least keep pace with inflation,’ Newman said. ‘What the government would ask for in return, if we’re the government, is for people to work to improve efficiency, better customer service and productivity gains and that’s a fair bargain.’
Newman punctuated his lies by claiming the LNP would increase the overall size of the public service by three percent.
‘The focus will be on putting more people into the front line,’ he said.
Politicians lie all the time. Newman is no different. The lies he told during that press conference have sent shockwaves throughQueensland. He can’t be trusted, and that’s no criticism. He is a politician, after all, but Newman has become worse than a bald, bare-faced liar.
He is playing with people’s lives.
There is an old cliché about politics that suggests society gets the government they deserve. The thing about clichés, though, is they only tell half the truth.
Queenslanders deserve the Newman Government by virtue of the election. Thousands of people voted for him. Thousands of those same Queenslanders are now shaking their heads and wondering what they did to deserve getting sacked.
Over and over, like a banal mantra, Newman keeps saying it isn’t his fault. He sounds like a jilted lover blaming the ex for his current failings and inability to trust.
The question all Queenslanders should be asking, though, is why they trusted him in the first place. Those Queenslanders must have short memories.
Back in January 2009, weeks before the election, the LNP led the opinion polls under former leader Lawrence Springborg. The polls gave Springborg enough confidence to discuss dismantling the public service during a press conference at parliament house.
‘We’re going to make 12,000 public servants de-necessary,’ he said.
The unlosable election was lost the moment Springborg uttered those words.
Anna Bligh must’ve instantly doubled over with laughter. To win, all she had to do was protect the public service. As the election neared, public sector unions organised marches and rallies in opposition to Springborg’s pre-election promise.
Technically, de-necessary isn’t even a word, but because it is different it isn’t easily forgotten. Yet it is amazing how many people forgot that immortal word when they sunk their ballot on March 24, 2012.
So many papers went into the slot without a thought. If Springborg wanted to get rid of 12,000 public servants, why would Newman be any different?
Newman was different, though. He proved his political savvy by lying during the build up to the election. Back in 2009 Springborg told the truth, and that’s what cost him the election.
The trouble with proverbs is proving their veracity. And a proverb, in reality, is nothing but a rebadged cliché. Because of the ancient Orient’s mystique, every cliché/proverb sounds better if it’s given the Chinese qualifier.
Chinese or not, the following proverb sounds as old as history and just as wise:
Being a politician is a difficult and unrewarding job.
Therefore the most qualified people don’t want to become politicians.
So we are constantly represented by the wrong people.
I believe the only people who are qualified to be politicians are the few among us who possess superior intellect, those who could learn how to remove an appendix, replace a head gasket and analyse a David Lynch movie.
Don’t be fooled into thinking politicians are smarter than the average human. They’re not. What most politicians have is a good memory, the ability to read and regurgitate. Newman, like all good political leaders, is a master at reading a hot issue brief and reciting it verbatim in front of the media.
It makes him appear smarter than he is. It makes him appear as though he is across all issues, when in fact it is his bevy of advisors who are feeding him the information.
In a primitive way, Newman is nothing but a figurehead, a talking figurehead if you life, capable of recanting information.
Most people alive can do that, but recently Newman can’t open his mouth without his size six foot getting stuck inside. After the honeymoon period, those first three blissful months in office, Newman has become gaffe prone.
He comparedQueensland’s economy toSpain, while his treasure Tim Nicholls was spruiking the state to overseas markets. After promising to keep the cost of living down, Newman advised the Prime Minister to introduce a tax to help fund her National Disability Insurance Scheme.
He also turned his back on singer Katie Noonan during her performance, which is indicative of how Newman feels about the arts.
The last month hasn’t been good.
The funniest moment, though, was when he complained that public servants were leaking information to the media about mass sackings and vicious funding cuts.
‘Across the public service we have people for whatever reason, who are busily leaking information out,’ Newman said. ‘My ministers can’t even ask for a briefing on options without someone choosing to inappropriately leak it.’
Those statements made Newman appear naïve, as though he expected loyalty from his public servants and didn’t know how the media worked.
Someone needs to explain, in simple terms, what happens when disgruntled people possess sensitive information about sackings and funding cuts (options, Newman calls them) and have access to journalists.
‘Unfortunately some people for their own political purposes continue to put material out, and the government has to work in the environment we’ve got,’ Newman said about the leaks.
He should be corrected. His government is working in the environment they created, one where they’re stripping millions from charities, from Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and sacking thousands of people.
At least 20,000 public servants (or full-time equivalent positions) will be sacked. That’s a lot of people losing their jobs in five months. The flow on effect will be dramatic. Families will suffer financial stress. Unemployment will rise. Queensland’s economy will suffer.
Amazingly, Tim Nicholls actually complained on the ABC’s morning show that the media kept focusing on the sackings. ‘There is other news to report,’ Nicholls said.
For a moment there was silence, then morning show host Steve Austin reminded Nicholls that mass sackings was actually big news, especially when the figure bandied about was 20,000, if not more.
By far, the worst thing Newman has uttered since becoming Premier was his braggarts boast that people in the street were thanking him for sacking people. It showed how totally out of touch Newman is with his uncertain society, and revealed the complete lack of compassion he has for his victims.
It really was an outrageous statement to make. To be fair, Newman has to learn as he governs, but he’s got to show commonsense, if not compassion. He has alienated the masses inside five months, and still the sackings and funding cuts go on. The mantra is always the same, Labor left us with debt, it is their fault, not ours.. It’s starting to sound like a copout now.
What we’ve got here is one of those relationships we’ve all had that are awesome for three months but by four months the whole thing has gone to hell.
I talk to a lot of people every day and can’t find one person who admits to voting for Newman.
What does that tell us about our society and our government?
I know many of you have heard this story before, but during the election campaign I debated many times whether or not to go public with information that may have scuttled Newman’s passage to premiership.
Back in 2008, when Newman was Brisbane’s Lord Mayor, a former staffer interviewed me for a job. The interview went well. If I wanted the job it would’ve been mine, and my life might’ve been different. There was one thing the employee said that bothered me.
‘How do you feel about a cover up,’ he said.
‘The kind that never get found out,’ I said.
‘They’re the best kind,’ he said.
It bothered me. As a journalist my charter was exposing the cover-ups. I didn’t want to be involved in hiding them. It left me wondering what kind of office Newman was running, and days later I rejected the job.
That is a true story, and one I debated many times during the election campaign. A few times I picked up the phone to dial the office of former minister Kate Jones, only to put the phone down in haste.
The accusation would’ve been easy to deny. The reasons are obvious. Firstly, Newman’s staffer asked me about cover-ups. It didn’t come from Newman. Secondly, it’s an easy charge to dismiss and deny. All he has to say was I was not aware my former staffer would say something like that. There were no cover ups under my mayoralty.
Having worked for the Labor government in years past would’ve counted against me in the analysis too, and I didn’t want to be scrutinised by journalists pretending to be my friend.
So I kept my mouth shut. It seemed like the right thing at the time. Had I gone to the media, I didn’t see how it would make a difference. At that stage I hated the Labor government too, and though I mistrusted the LNP, which is the more powerful emotion?
What was that line about society getting the government they deserve???
I warned people before the election about trusting the LNP. They might be better at managing finances, but they do it by sacking people, and that isn’t people management.
Labor are better at managing people. They were in power so long because everyone had a job, but in the end their stunning incompetence cruelled any chance of re-election.
In the African savannah, a young lion must fight for territory and a pride. These fights between lions aren’t the comedic head-butting displays of rutting bucks, they’re savage, intense battles with fangs and claws.
If the older lion wins the fight, the rookie slinks away. If he survives his wounds, he can fight another day. If the rookie wins, the older lion is banished from the pride.
Without his pride of lionesses, the older lion cannot feed. Without the lionesses he will die. Often he will die from his wounds anyway.
Such are the laws of Africa.
It gets worse. It takes two years for a lioness to raise and teach her cubs to look after themselves. During that time, the lioness won’t breed.
When a new male takes over a pride, he will hunt and kill all the cubs left behind. This spiteful and terrifying behaviour rids the pride of another lion’s offspring and rids the lionesses of their burden. By killing the cubs, the dominant male is preparing the lionesses for breeding.
The laws of Africa are the laws of politicians.
It is spiteful and terrifying behaviour. Newman is eradicating Queensland of Labor’s stench. He is eradicating Queensland of Labor’s offspring, the public service and all the services offered by NGOs.
Newman wants to make sure none of the old Labor blood is running through the public service. That means people must be sacked and services cut.
So 20,000 people have to go and millions in funding pulled from services once considered vital and viable. It means a bloody death, so yeah, when Newman said before the election that he envisaged a bigger public service, he was already hunting and stalking.
And the people fell for it. Only now when he’s killing off the jobs and services do people really understand.
