Over the past three years, I have regularly commented on the fragility of the political process in Australia and just how hard it is to be successful at all levels of government.
A generation ago, Malcolm Fraser uttered the immortal words: “life was not meant to be easy”.
Political life, certainly, has not gotten any easier since.
The dumping of a political leader or the ousting of a government after just one term were once extremely rare events.
Now they seem, if not commonplace then at least more probable than a generation or even a decade ago.
More than 20 years ago, acclaimed Australian author and Editor at Large of The Australian, Paul Kelly, wrote a best-selling work titled The End of Certainty which forecast how hard governing would become in this country.
He said nothing in politics was any longer predictable.
He got that right.
There is an instructive quote from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his seminal 2013 work, Antifragile.
Taleb writes that ‘wind extinguishes a candle and energises fire’.
So it is with randomness, uncertainty, even chaos.
You want to use them, not hide from them.
You want to be the fire and wish for the wind.
To use the Aussie vernacular, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
So, in Queensland we start again with a new Labor state government after three whirlwind years of the Newman LNP government.
The former government did plenty.
It was truly reformist and it might take a while for its legacy to be fully measured and appreciated.
To illustrate the point, the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) responded to a phenomenal 346 reforms (our own count) affecting councils initiated by the previous government.
Others will write their own analysis about the previous government but, for me, it can be summed up as an A for substance but an F for style.
In politics, the sizzle is seen as just as important as the sausage.
Tenacity and courage alone will not cut through in modern politics.
Governments need to dwell on an overall narrative to bring the people along with them.
While it is early days the Palaszczuk Government has gone out of its way to engage the LGAQ with face-to-face meetings with senior ministers and many, many phone calls.
I formally congratulate our Minister and Deputy Premier, Jackie Trad, on her election to that high office.
The LGAQ has presented its credentials, along with more than 40 briefing notes, to new ministers.
The new Government will clearly know the thoughts of councils early in the piece.
Given the very tight situation in the parliament, I and the LGAQ will maintain a close working relationship with the LNP, Independent Speaker Peter Wellington and the two Katter’s Australian Party members.
I have already met with the new Shadow Local Government Minister, Fiona Simpson.
I finish where I started: local government is not insulated from the melodrama that modern politics has become.
To use a reality TV analogy, we can all be voted off the island in a flash.
The antidote is to do good works and not be shy in telling your story of achievement.
No one else will.
Policy reform is a grand undertaking.
The best governments not only convince their communities of this fact, but make them feel an important part of that grand undertaking as well.
