Tensions rise over Hale St Bridge

Like a rabbit in the headlights

Traffic will be banked back for "kilometres" on the Riverside Expressway when works starts on the new Hale Street Bridge, the State Government says.

The proposed bridge, from Milton to South Brisbane, is becoming the "hot potato" road project in the spotlight for next year's Brisbane City Council elections.

Brisbane City Council is accusing the State Government of demanding changes to its traffic plans while construction of the bridge is underway.

Main Roads Minister Warren Pitt and Brisbane's Lord Mayor exchanged accusations on ABC Radio this morning, with Cr Newman accusing Mr Pitt's department of requesting major changes on Coronation Drive to prevent traffic building up on the Riverside Expressway.

Mr Pitt told ABC Radio that the traffic details were "very thin" on detail and predicted traffic would "bank up for kilometres" on the Riverside Expressway during the construction.

"The traffic management plan that the Lord Mayor says the council has put in place is very thin on detail," Mr Pitt said.

BT

Brisbanites elected Newman maybe because he swam in a drain. Since then he's had this obsession with turning Brisbane into New York, like a little boy who thinks gluing a few decals to his bed makes it a V8 super car. So far all he's accomplished is NY sized spending with no plan for the future besides randomly plonking down billions of dollars of road infrastructure, despite the pressing need to upgrade and maintain Brisbane's pathetic public transport system.

Can Spend Campbell

As quickly as the Kevin Rudd election posters are coming down around Brisbane, the Liberal Party are replacing them with billboards of their own local hero.

A number of posters featuring Lord Mayor Campbell Newman and his Liberal council hopefuls have sprung up around the city in recent days.

Motorists along Wynnum Road at Cannon Hill this morning will have noticed a large billboard advertisement for Melina Morgan, the Liberal candidate for the Morningside ward.

Ms Morgan is pictured alongside Brisbane's high-profile Cr Newman, who is seeking to break the majority Labor stranglehold in Brisbane City Council.

It is virtually a mirror-image of the successful ALP campaign to identify the local candidates aligned with the popular Kevin Rudd.

BT

This blog will be covering the upcoming Brisbane council elections as well. With any luck the wild spending, tunnel obsessed, brainless mayor will no longer be the ranking elected Liberal in Australia. If anyone has anything interesting (or not) to say about our spender in chief, click the contribute link!

Johnson feels the burn in Ryan

Michael Johnson: waving goodbye to his seat?

Oh good news. I love good news. Our electorate of Ryan is now considered 'marginal' by the Liberals and their sitting member, Michael Johnson, despite it previously being held with a margin larger than 10%. So they're throwing $15 million our way for a sports park. Or something. Who cares?

Member for Ryan Michael Johnson issued a statement in which he welcomed the money.

The "sports park" concept first emerged in a series of leaked emails last month between Mr Johnson and the Prime Minister's office, where Mr Johnson pleaded for help, describing how his Ryan electorate had been "upped to marginal" after recent polling.

In one email he writes: "John and Ian: I need substantial assistance and a commitment here. Both of you know full well that my support for Cameron and the Govt has been absolutely rock solid in the face of overwhelming local political and community pressure. Forget even the personal abuse directed at me.

"I am bleeding on this issue and expect support now. This is a slow burn."

*Happy dance!!!*

No personal animosity to Michael Johnson, but anyone who has supported the Howard government and their destructive, anti-social policies has got to go. I hope he's political dead meat.

Vote 1 Ross Daniels or vote 1 Evan Jones! I don't care, as long as the Libs lose Ryan. I suppose Ross Daniels probably won't find the time to meet with us now, he'll probably be out campaigning his arse off now that Labor seems to think they have a chance in the seat. Sure, the chances are minimal that they'll actually win it, but the fact that there is even the prospect of this occurring is cause for celebration.

*Happy dance!!!*

Watch Out For Those Vikings

Niall writes:

Greens candidate Boccabella got 33% of primary in the Brisbane by-election last night [sat]; although she probably captured a fair few little L liberals who didn't have any other options and probably some QLP semi-protest voters, this close to a federal election those sort of numbers suggests to me a solid greens platform in the wealthy centre of Brisbane, which I expect will transform into a wider acceptance of the Greens as a legitimate choice in the inner Brisbane seats both by voters but importantly by other parties. This result (which it must be pointed out was somewhat higher than some pollsters suggest could be possible) provides greater leverage for preference deals.

From these numbers, I was impressed at the Viking vote is larger than the ONP vote, even if this is an inner city seat - although admittedly due mostly, I suspect, to old Erik have place number one on the list, as despite my searching around I still can't find out who he is or what he stands for, aside from the fact he once worked as a historiographer (and because he was out polled by the informal). Anyhow, go Saxons!

Our Saturday bike ride- and how Bob Brown got away

On Saturday we went for a bike ride. Intending to go to New Farm, we first rode over the Eleanor Schonell bridge to the Mrs Flannery's at Woolloongabba to buy coffee beans. Because we haven't ridden anywhere in ages I've lost all my 'cycling muscles', so we stopped on the ES bridge to take some photos before heading to Mrs F's. Nice to see the view of the river down toward Indooroopilly and Sherwood for a change.



Gam took some pictures of the Dutton Park cemetery. We have fond memories of the place thanks to an 'adventure' where we caught the wrong train and hopped off there, unsure of our Brisbane geography, only to be caught in a storm and having to walk through the cemetery to the Ferry in the pouring rain, with thunder and lightning all around us- and me barefoot thanks to one of my sandals breaking!



By the time we'd got to Mrs Flannery's, Gam had pity on me and said we could always do New Farm next weekend, so we rode to Southbank for a New Zealand Natural ice cream. Normally we shy away from visiting Southbank on the weekend, because it's chock-full of smoking bogans and their spawn. Thanks to the refurbishment of the fake beach it was much quieter. Still a high proportion of smokers among the people there, but because there were far fewer people than usual it wasn't anywhere near as bad. Gam (as always) had Cookies and Cream ice cream, while I had an Orange Choc-chip ice cream. I couldn't remember if I liked the orange choc-chip or mint better- I think the orange and chocolate ice cream I was thinking fondly of was the Haagen Daasz in the City (which is usually an awful ice cream experience thanks again to all the goddamned smokers that pollute the place). The New Zealand Natural Orange Choc-Chip flavour isn't really orange-y or tangy at all. But it is a really attractive fluoro orange colour! Come to think of it, the photo below doesn't really do justice to the colour- it seems to look more of a peachy colour...



As we were about to leave Southbank we spied a small group of people with Greens flags attached to their bikes and wearing Greens t-shirts, so we asked them if we could take a couple of photos. It turned out that Bob Brown had been in New Farm that morning and they had been to see him speak (d'oh!!!). The guy in the photo is Wally Guthrie, membership secretary for the Mount Cootha branch of the Queensland Greens, while his wife Elizabeth Guthrie is the Greens candidate for the seat of Brisbane!

Elizabeth Guthrie, candidate for the federal seat of Brisbane, with husband Wally.

Wally has asked us to help hand out Greens how-to-vote cards on election day. I've always considered myself an open-minded voter, but I said to Gam the other day that with this federal election being the third I'll have voted in, and my fundamental disagreements with the principles (or lack of) espoused by the major parties, I can see myself unwittingly ending up a lifelong Greens voter. So perhaps we'll be taking Mikey's advice and joining up in the near future, as long as the Greens don't have clauses in their charter that prevent us from mouthing off whenever we feel like it. At the very least we'll likely be doing the HTV thing on election day. And signing up for email updates to better keep our eye on Bob Brown's whereabouts. Curse my weak legs and our Saturday morning sleep-in!

Wally Guthrie and some friends.