“Coal-and-casinos” platform may not fly
In a snap election set for January 31 in Queensland, Australia, Premier Campbell Newman will find out if voters want to continue his Liberal National Party’s rapid-growth plan, which includes more casinos and tourism to stoke the economy.
The newsletter Echonetdaily.com reported that Newman will “present voters with a coal-and-casinos platform promising tens of thousands of jobs, new infrastructure and massive foreign investment.” But the Guardian predicts Newman will lose his seat “after alienating too many voters.”
In a recent press conference in Brisbane, Newman told reporters he called for the early election because “Queenslanders don’t want and don’t need months of endless politicking and uncertainty as people jostle up to an election date. We simply can’t have the sort of political chaos that we have seen in other states.
“I pledge today that if we are reelected, we will keep working hard on our four pillar economic plan,” he continued. “A long-term plan: tourism, construction, agriculture and resources.”
According to ABC News of Australia, polls indicate the LNP is “neck-and-neck” with the Labor Party. Clive Palmer, head of the minority Palmer United Party, said the snap election reflects Newman’s waning popularity and his hope that Aussies on vacation won’t turn out to defeat him at the polls. “More Queenslanders are moving against him and that’s why he’s moved so quickly, because he’s running scared,” Palmer said. “It is typical of the Newman government, they’re completely erratic, they never plan things.”
The LNP has allowed a tender process to begin for a casino resort in Brisbane’s Queen’s Wharf area. Echo Entertainment and Crown Resorts, which just battled over a casino license in Sydney, are rivals in Brisbane as well. Crown Resorts has presented a plan for a complex with three hotels, a rooftop garden, new restaurants, a public space, and a bridge to South Bank, where the company will build a new movie theater and water park along with the casino.Echo’s Destination Brisbane group plans an arc-shaped building with a sky deck, restaurants and bars, five hotels including a Ritz-Carlton, a river arena, an underground mall and “12 football fields of public event space,” according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
On December 24, the Courier-Mail was criticized for publishing an “advertising puff disguised as news” with a front-page story that described an “amazing race to transform Brisbane” and a casino that “would transform Brisbane’s heart,” reported Echonetdaily.com.
Queensland has four casinos, more than any other Australian state, and an additional tens of thousands of gaming machines in more than 1,200 pubs, hotels and clubs, reported Forbes. Newman also wants to revitalize the state economy with a new multibillion-dollar coal-mining and rail project.
