Reinventing Government Queensland Style

As a society we are only just beginning to get to grips with that concept. In many ways it makes Canberra irrelevant to the detail of community life in regional Australia – and in that context we need to understand that Brisbane is the capital city of a great region of Australia. It also makes Brisbane irrelevant to the detail of community life in regional Queensland.

But what it does more than anything is make the exchange of ideas, the discussion of solutions to often common problems, and the development of community responses to local needs, so much easier: and potentially so much richer in the way of resources.

I believe we have a historic opportunity to return to the people in their own localities real control over their daily lives and the lives of their communities.

We can re-invent government. We have everything going for us there: Sensible, egalitarian people; strong democracy as the very bedrock of our traditional Australian system of government; vast diversity within what it in global terms a small population; high levels of education; high levels of civic pride; an innate inventiveness; and caring communities.

The question is: Do we want to re-invent government? I believe the answer is that the people want to do that. They’ve shown that in recent elections. They’re saying that in the media. Politicians are hearing it everywhere they go. I believe that it is the conservative side of politics that can deliver the re-invented governance that the people want.

It is the Coalition side of politics that is pro-community empowerment. It is the Coalition side of Queensland politics that is supportive of small business – the engine of State growth – and of the inalienable right of communities to govern their own affairs.

We can start the process of empowering people by creating people-conscious conservatism as our benchmark.