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March 15th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Campbell Newman addresses LNP faithful on March 4. He had a more testing public appearance last night. Photo: Harrison Saragossi
LNP leadership uncertainty continued to dog Campbell Newman at the Sky News political forum last night with the former Brisbane Lord Mayor asked on three separate occasions who would lead Queensland if he failed to win his seat at the election.
Mr Newman and Premier Anna Bligh were given an hour to speak and field questions from 200 undecided voters at the Broncos Leagues Club for a live television event.
The pair came face to face at the end of the forum for further questioning from Sky News host David Speers in which both leaders continued their public sparring over Mr Newman’s alleged business dealings while still in office.
But while Ms Bligh faced questioning over the state of the economy, audience members voiced frustration with the LNP leader’s failure to provide a straight answer to the leadership question.
Two recent polls – one by ReachTEL and the other by Galaxy – put Mr Newman narrowly behind Ashgrove Labor MP Kate Jones on a two-party preferred basis, although a Newspoll published in The Australian today suggests Mr Newman is leading 52 per cent to 48 per cent.
Mr Newman last night repeatedly stated the party would not win the election if it could not win seats like Ashgrove following three separate questions on the issue.
“This is a difficult battle in Ashgrove and it’s going to be a difficult battle across the state,” he said.
“If I can’t win Ashgrove (my colleagues) won’t win their seats as well … it’s just not going to happen.”
Voters accused him of dodging the question.
One suggested he was either “delusional or incompetent” in not having a contingency plan or it was too politically dangerous to reveal such a plan.
Despite the majority of audience members raising their hand to indicate they were unhappy with Mr Newman’s response, he would not discuss the issue any further.
“I don’t believe we will win the election if we don’t win seats like Ashgrove,” Mr Newman repeated.
Later in the night, Ms Bligh was asked by an audience member who would lead Labor if she lost her seat of South Brisbane.
She indicated that it would be up to the Labor members left in the party to decide on a leader but said, given the margin needed to win her seat, there would be very few of her colleagues left in parliament if that were the case and the party would therefore be in opposition.
“It’s technically impossible for us to lose 44 seats and form a government,” she said.
Ms Bligh was confronted with several questions on the government’s management of public health, including the issue of the so-called waiting list for the elective surgery waiting list.
But the audience was most concerned with the state of the economy, namely the level of debt and regulation of small business.
Ms Bligh told the audience people think “debt is a bogeyman”. But she said it’s not a question of whether you have debt, but whether it’s “responsible debt”.
“Is this a manageable level of debt? Right now, yes it is,” she said.
Mr Newman also fielded two separate questions related to same-sex marriage and civil unions. He indicated his personal view conflicted with the party’s view on civil unions but he would follow the party’s lead on the issue and at least look at repealing the current civil unions bill.
Mr Newman said he and wife Lisa had some “very dear lesbian friends” who decided to have a civil union so the issue was “difficult for me personally” and he did not want to leave couples in legal limbo.
Later, Mr Newman blamed Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser and Ms Bligh for raising the issue of same-sex civil unions in the lead-up to the election which he said led to Katter’s Australian Party launching homophobic attack ads against him.
Mr Newman only fielded one audience member question about his family’s financial interests, reiterating the allegations made against him regarding a Woolloongabba property deal were untrue.
Ms Bligh later defended her party’s continual attack of Mr Newman over his family’s interests, saying question marks over his dealings reflected poorly on his integrity and character.
In a light-hearted moment one audience member said Mr Newman’s public displays of affection with his wife were unbecoming of a Queensland premier.
“It’s just I feel, and I know that behind every good man is a good woman, and she needs to be behind you and not all over you,” said Brenda from Runcorn.
Another audience member defended the couple, saying she enjoyed seeing the pair interact on the campaign.
Both party leaders said they no plans to sell any more assets during the next three-year term but Ms Bligh avoided a chance to apologise for not taking the recent privatisation program to the 2009 election for a public mandate.
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