When Political Polling Overrides Commonsense
While listening to the radio during this week’s unseasonal rain, I had the misfortune of hearing our illustrious premier, Ms Bligh, comment on the state of water restrictions in Queensland. Her public statement being – “our polling of the community indicates that people are happy for us to leave in place the current water restrictions, so that’s what we’ll be doing.”
Despite me not being in the best of health, I couldn’t help but fall on the ground in a fit of laughter or was that just me chocking in disbelief – I can’t tell the difference anymore. :) For those of you unaware as to what is happening in the city of Brisbane, we’ve been living under a regime of water restrictions, despite the fact that our dams are almost full. This week saw the dams, not only reach capacity, but the water authorities had to open the flood gates and empty an enormous amount of water into the Brisbane river which in turn spills out into Moreton Bay. As I write this piece, water is being wasted in huge amounts by the government while the average person isn’t allowed to irrigate fruit and vegetables on their own land because of an ad hoc daily water quota!
What is truly incredulous, is that our leader is unashamedly making decisions based on polls and ignoring common sense. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that if the dams are full as we enter the rainy season, there is no longer a catchment mechanism to prevent Brisbane’s natural flood plains from being inundated with water. If anything, the premier should be encouraging people to use as much water as possible in the lead up to the rainy season – maybe even temporarily reduce the cost of water, so that the dam levels are lower and thus prevent a 1974 style flood. Such a decision, based on compassion for your constituency, might also ensure the water is put to good use instead of being flushed out into the bay.
Unfortunately, our politicians are currently incapable of adjusting their position to deal with changed circumstances and the general population will suffer the consequences.
So my question to the premier is this – Where’s your so called leadership Ms Bligh? I fear if you keep making stupid decisions based on what you think people want, not only will you and your right wing labour party be annihilated at the next election, your lack of common sense will endanger the state’s citizens!