Defining moments of the Queensland election

But business was not going to give the Coalition any money. They had alienated them in the brief time that they were in government, and the organisational heavies who make the visits to solicit donations were viewed unfavourably.

They could also have pulled a few marshmallows out of the fire if they had admitted to their dire straits in the last week of the election. Queensland will not be well-served by Beattie’s 45 or more seat majority, and an innate sense of balance and fairness would have seen voters stick with their habitual choice. With seats like Indooroopilly, Kawana and Noosa lost by fine margins a spring back of even one percent would have blown the froth off Beattie’s win.

But the Coalition either did not have the horse sense to realise this option was open to them, or did not have the courage to use it.

Those characteristics are still in evidence in the way in which they are dealing with defeat.

Beattie has significantly raised the standard of Australian political ethics. It means that any party that is not transparent, honest and accountable will be judged by a harsher standard than before.

If you want to recover quickly from defeat that means you should be prepared to accept the blame, and move on. Borbidge did just that. Watson did so, a little more reluctantly. But the machine apparatchiks who bear much of the blame for the magnitude of the loss are still hanging on.

Liberal Party federal director Linton Crosby has been in town and demanded the resignation of the Liberal Party office bearers, or else. Yesterday he announced there would be no Federal intervention, despite the fact that the local branch, which boasts $70,000 worth of Barter Dollars in its balance sheet as an asset, should be close to financial as well as political bankruptcy. The Carroll-Santoro faction, who’s factional manoeuvring is the main cause of Liberal impotence, must have stared him down.

Perhaps the Queensland election also provides John Howard with a defining moment. He could insist on Federal intervention into the Queensland Libs, at the same time saving the seat of Ryan and riding into the next election with electors in Queensland giving him marks for grit, if not affability.