![\"Red](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/FixedFourYearTerms-300x150.jpg?resize=300%2C150\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The referendum this Saturday on\u00a0fixed four year terms for the Queensland state parliament will fail.<\/p>\n
I know this because voters have two main concerns. They fear a return of a “Campbell\u00a0Newman”<\/a>;\u00a0not being able to oust a bad premier for four long years.\u00a0Queenslanders have also expressed a long harboured\u00a0desire to restore the upper house which was abolished in the constitution amendment act of 1921.\u00a0At the\u00a0time,\u00a0it was stacked with English aristocracy.<\/span><\/p>\n On the first point, had Newman governed for four years, his opinion rating would have been so low that current premier Annastacia Palaszcuk<\/a> would have had no trouble forming a majority Labor government in 2016. If he’d been replaced by a “Lawrence Springborg”<\/a>\u00a0before the\u00a02016\u00a0election, this would only have served as a feather in Palaszczuk’s cap.<\/p>\n No one has presided over\u00a0the legislative council in over ninety-three years and\u00a0I’m not sure more politicians are the answer. In Queensland, we constantly tell ourselves that we are disadvantaged because we are the only state without an upper house.\u00a0For all our perceived weakness, it is the lack of an upper house that is actually\u00a0our strength. Our political ancestors recognised this and refused to allow our legislation to be subjected to the approval of a foreign land.<\/p>\n We are Queenslanders and home to one of the best democracies in the world. The voice of our people is far stronger than those of detractors or politicians. What other electorate in the nation could oust a bad\u00a0Newman Government after only one term?<\/p>\n We must back ourselves. Our perceived weakness is really our strength.<\/p>\n Even though I know it’s doomed to failure, I’ll vote “yes” for the referendum on Saturday. Not because of politicians, but because I believe in the courage of the Queensland people.\u00a0I have no fear of the future because I know you are all standing behind me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Opinion The referendum this Saturday on\u00a0fixed four year terms for the Queensland state parliament will fail. I know this because voters have two main concerns. They fear a return of a “Campbell\u00a0Newman”;\u00a0not being able to oust a bad premier for four long years.\u00a0Queenslanders have also expressed a long harboured\u00a0desire to restore the upper house which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":31828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,1998,7,63,64,1469,585,34,1443,1532,395,1026],"tags":[1741,147,2927,1720,2604,2075,2928],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/FixedFourYearTerms.jpg?fit=800%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-8hc","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}