Tony Koch had this neat summary of this weekend’s Queensland by-elections in the Brisbane Sunday Mail:

“Before yesterday, Mr Beattie seemed impervious to
political setbacks. No matter how serious a problem confronted his
party, he was able to apologise, adopt his mournful ‘forgive me’ look,
promise to fix it, and the faithful accepted him at face value.

“But
that shallow style of leadership has run its course. What people expect
– and have every right to expect of a third-term Government with a
massive parliamentary majority – is that basic services will be
delivered in this resource-rich state.”

Beattie still enjoys a healthy majority in Queensland’s one-house
parliament, but there are threats of further by-elections and cabinet
reshuffles – not to mention the challenge of persuading health
bureaucrats to employ qualified medical staff rather than pen pushers
to staff their system.

Times
are getting interesting for the Queensland conservatives. Just months
after National-led proposals to form one party were rejected, there’s
now talk about a new push to stitch a coalition together. But who will
be on top? There’s talk of a move towards the Liberal Party, and suggestions that Queensland’s next conservative premier will be a Liberal.

What will that mean – locally and in Canberra? And who will actually
run the Libs? “As he basked in the late winter sun in Brisbane’s
Botanic Gardens, Queensland Liberal leader Bob Quinn yesterday admitted
to having an unusual feeling. After four fruitless years leading the
political rump that is the Liberal Party in Queensland, Mr Quinn was
contemplating his party’s parliamentary ranks growing by almost 50 per
cent,” reports The Australian today.

“‘This
very strange feeling I’ve got is called winning,’ he told reporters,
flanked by the two men who are set to become the newest Liberal Party
MPs.” One of whom, Michael Caltabiano, the party president, would like
to be parliamentary leader, too.

Get used to the very strange feelings. There’ll be plenty more of them as new dynamics in Queensland politics emerge.

PS.
Pre-emptive panics in NSW? “NSW Labor fears a swing of more than 12 per
cent against it in the seat of Macquarie Fields next month and the
party also believes there is a genuine chance it could lose
Marrickville,” The Sydney Morning Herald reports this morning . And we don’t even know if the Libs are contesting Macquarie Fields yet.