No one would every accuse the LNP leader Lawrence “the Borg” Springborg of being poll driven, would they? I mean… surely it’s a coincidence that the latest Galaxy Poll on state voting intentions found Labor leading strongest on transport and the LNP releasing a transport policy for Brisbane commuters the same day?
The said policy is an amalgam of the undercosted, weird (extra carriages on trains which won’t fit on the station) and possibly unfeasible, according to the government. But in the grand tradition of governments, Labor are claiming they were already thinking of the most apparently popular bit of the Borg’s train agenda, and may well steal it, but they wouldn’t be doing that because they were already… etc. The neatness of this trick is that the government can actually do something about what the opposition can only talk about, and at the same time it provides some dangerous incentives for the LNP to remain a policy free zone.
But, leaving aside the politics for a moment, The Borg’s initative is to have free fairs for early and late commuters heading to and from the CBD by rail - from 6am to 7am and from 6pm to 7pm. The idea - supposed to reduce overcrowding on peak hour trains - is said to have been borrowed from a Melbourne iniative, which is what Labor are now saying they’ve been looking at for some time. Any Melbs folks care to tell us Quincelanders how it’s worked out in practice?
Getting back to the politics, Springborg combined his announcement with the launch of his own new form of transport - a campaign bus called “The Borg Express”. The visuals suggest part of his problem - the very self-centred (or if you prefer, leadership focused) nature of his campaign. I haven’t seen any qualitative polling on this, but I’d strongly suspect the LNP doesn’t have much of a brand, and the worst of both the Libs and the Nats might be haunting its image. The Borg has a lot riding on his own image, and the LNP must be hoping all the eggs in this particular basket don’t break as The Borg Express wends its way around.
