bondipom

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...854116033.html

Vow to turn Sunshine state into 'smart state'
By Alex Mitchell
February 8, 2004
The Sun-Herald

Peter Beattie casting his vote.

A bouyant Premier Peter Beattie will start work on his third term tomorrow by directing his Administration towards education, training and the new sciences.

His objective is to take the chip off the shoulder of Queenslanders as inferior to other Australians and reinvent the Sunshine State as the "smart state".

Muzzman

Read the article - hope this is good news for us when we hit Bris in August. I am an ICT teacher and Muzzwoman is a nurse. Hope he's true to his word!!

Muzzman

dotty

Beattie is a bit of a "Media tart" but it is amazing what he has done for QLD. Prior to him it was run by a dememted peanut farmer who was a racist as you could get and thought Qld should have a barricade of Bananas cutting it off from the rest of OZ

Beattie is youngish for a polly, realised the obvious bit that SE Qld was accessable to the other states in OZ terms of distance and attracted big business like Virgin Blue. He has a good business brain. Cutting Stamp duty (Stamp duty here is already half of the other states) for First Home buyers is a brilliant move, think how many young working people that will attract. Hes not dumb, realises the housing market provides a huge chunk of the jobs here. Dont think SE Qld would be the biggest growth area in OZ if the Peanutted one was still in.

bondipom

I guess you mean Bob Garbage was the peanutted one. I am trying to recall his words about environmentalists. I think he would of torn down Noosa national park if there was a lump of coal there.

IMO if Beattie enters federal politics he could end up labour leader and possibly PM. That would mean the Labour party having sense and the existence of Latham as leader blasts that theory out of the water.

dotty

Peanutted one was thankfully before our time. Joe Belke Peterson and his wife florence who was famous for baking pumpkin scones. It was probably quite some years ago (maybe up to late 80's early 90's), but that era scarred QLD for a long time.

Racism, not wanting growth, wanting to be seperate from the rest of OZ, thinking a state could survive financially from peanuts and banana sales, its what gave QLD the backward image. From what I gather they guy had a massive following with huge votes from Country QLD's who'd never left the farm so to speak. They might have been the ban daylight saving or our curtains will fade brigade too. Probably only good thing he did was keep the lid on Poker machines, still all the money going in them has boosted the state no end too.

bondipom

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...854115930.html

Win for 'good bloke' but margin reduced
By Alex Mitchell
February 8, 2004
The Sun-Herald

Victorious ... a buoyant Peter Beattie yesterday

Peter Beattie has been re-elected for a third term as Queensland's Premier after dominating the election campaign and wooing voters once again with his "good bloke" image.

The 51-year-old Mr Beattie is now placed to win a fourth election in 2007 and be in office when Queensland celebrates its 150th birthday as a state in 2009.

Labor's 22-seat majority was shaved by a handful of seats when its primary vote fell by just 1.7 per cent.

Labor, which held 66 seats before the election, is set win at least 61 in the 89-seat Queensland Parliament.

Accepting victory, Mr Beattie told cheering supporters: "We want to build a new Queensland based on education and innovation."

The Coalition picked up seats in North Queensland, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast taking its number of seats from 16 to 22.

bondipom

The election will be remembered for the burial of Pauline Nation's One Nation whose vote was slashed to 4.5 per cent, resulting in the defeat of party leader Bill Flynn and its representation being cut to just one seat.

One Nation's vote dropped to 4.5 per cent, half what it attracted in 2001. It has lost two of its three seats, including Lockyer, held by party leader Bill Flynn.

dotty

Bondi. just looked it up Joh Bjelke-Petersen was the longest serving Premier, which no doubt is why he had such an impact for so long afterwards. 1968-1987. Dictatorial style of leadership is one way they have described him.

bondipom

Corrupt and racist are other words I have heard amongst many descriptions of him. I think Beattie is finally breaking QLD away from his legacy. All the migrants from Oz and abroad are broadening QLDs horizons.

ButtonMoon

Queensland and Smart....not something you hear very often in the same sentence

dotty

Now now, you'll like this then, Beattie brought out new numberplates with Smart State as the logo not Sunshine State.
About 99% still wanted the sunshine state plates.

I was going to put the Smart state ones on the company car, but dealer said they would probably attract vandals Sun it seems it preferable to Smart.

Poor bloke was only trying to update the image.