RSS Feed
March 25th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda AAP
Anna Bligh had been Labor’s best asset, but after an unforgivable election defeat, she has been forced to acknowledge her brand has turned toxic.
It was a record-breaking loss for Labor.
A swing of about 15 per cent pulverised its greater Brisbane stronghold, while the Cairns electorate, which it had held for a 100 years, swiftly changed hands.
The party could be reduced to just seven seats in the 89-seat parliament.
In the harsh light of day on Sunday, Ms Bligh said the hallmark of leadership was to take responsibility.
She resigned from parliament, saying she couldn’t ignore the loud, clear signal from voters.
“Queenslanders very decisively yesterday closed the chapter on Anna Bligh’s era,” she said.
“I simply don’t believe that Labor can develop an effective opposition … if it has me as part of its public face.”
It was a mighty fall after 17 years in politics.
She said there had been no pressure to quit but some had been calling for it.
As soon as polling closed, former health minister Stephen Robertson and speaker John Mickel told anyone who would listen that she needed to resign as leader.
Ms Bligh will be remembered as a trailblazer.
Even before she became Australia’s first woman premier to be elected in her own right, she was no stranger to history.
She is a great-great-great-great granddaughter of Captain William Bligh, whose crew mutinied against him on the Bounty.
Born in Warwick, in southern Queensland, on July 14, 1960, she grew up on the Gold Coast and remained with her mother Frances when her parents separated when she was 13, brought on by her father’s alcoholism and gambling.
Ms Bligh became politically active while studying arts at the University of Queensland in the 1970s and joined a Marxist-feminist group.
She entered parliament at the 1995 election and rose through the ranks until former premier Peter Beattie endorsed her as his replacement when he retired in 2007.
When she was elected in her own right in 2009, making history, she was quick to tell girls they too can dream to be what they want.
She was driven by the desire to change a state that she felt had been the backwater of Australia under the long rule of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
“I wanted to be part of growing momentum to rid Queensland of our redneck status,” she told AAP.
“All of my time in government has been wanting to modernise and transform the state.”
Among the contributions to Queensland’s evolution she counts are the addition of fluoride to drinking water, the South Bank cultural precinct, and a prep year in schools.
But also included in her legacy is the loss of the state’s AAA credit rating and debt forecast to soar to $85 billion in a few years.
She also sold off $15 billion in assets just after the 2009 election without telling voters.
A string of administration bungles also left a bad impression on Queenslanders and Ms Bligh was forced to fight against the growing mood for change.
On election day voters turned their backs on her, only a year after they had turned to her to console them during the summer of sorrow.
That was Ms Bligh’s finest hour.
Heading the disaster response, she wept as she told Queenslanders not to let the devastation to break their spirits.
Her personal popularity surged 40 per cent to 60 per cent, up from just 25 per cent after the asset sell-off.
Answering the final question of her media conference on Sunday, she said she believed she had left Queensland in good shape, considering all it had been through.
“As they say, folks, that’s a wrap,” she said.
Ms Bligh plans to spend more time with her husband Greg Withers, and sons Joe and Oliver.
Posted in 
Tags: 
