by Peter Green
When you give almost limitless power to a group of people who are not particularly bright and see their role as protectors of some kind of social/cultural/world order, history should tell you that they’re about to make some shitty decisions.
In the case of Queensland after the recent state election, this applies in the same way that it would if you gave Barnaby Joyce command of the RAAF and a case of Bundy. The situation is such that the only limit of the power of Campbell Newman’s government is Campbell Newman’s imagination. Although given the conservative government of Bob Katter’s home state has spent its first few months embarking on an almost unprecedented roll-back of civil rights for gay people, that might be more of an impediment than you’d think.
The move by the LNP government this week to strip gay couples, singles and de-facto relationships of less than two years of the right to have children through surrogacy is as almost bigoted as it is silly and confusing. It also comes after the Queensland government decided to allow civil unions to continue but ruled that the state would no longer conduct services as a concession to Christian lobby groups. In addition they’ve sacked most of the public service, but that’s a shit-storm of such a vast magnitude that we’ll save it for another time.
