Anna Bligh

Anna Maria Bligh (born 14 July 1960) is an Australian politician and the Premier of Queensland since 2007. The 2009 Queensland state election was the first time a female-led political party won or retained state or federal government in Australia. Bligh has been an Australian Labor Party member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly seat of South Brisbane since 1995.

Bligh is the first woman to be appointed Premier of Queensland, the third female Premier of an Australian state, and the sixth female head of government of an Australian state or territory. She is one of four current female heads of government in Australia (the others being Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Premier of Tasmania Lara Giddings, and Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory Katy Gallagher). On 20 October 2011 with the retirement of South Australian Premier Mike Rann, Bligh became the longest serving current Australian head of government.

Early life

Bligh grew up on the Gold Coast. Her parents separated when she was 13. She attended Catholic schools until Year 9 and considered becoming a nun. One of her aunts became a nun and another had entered a convent. However the church's attitude towards divorced people (her mother was no longer permitted to take Communion) reportedly estranged her and her mother from the church.^[1]

Studying at the University of Queensland from 1978, Bligh gained a Bachelor of Arts. Bligh traces her politicisation to her first year at University, observing a right-to-march rally in King George Square where people were being hit over the head by the police. Bligh's first involvement in activism was student protests against the Vice-Chancellor Brian Wilson's controversial administrative restructuring within the university. She then went on to be involved in the Women's Rights Collective which campaigned for legalised abortion against the anti-abortion policies of the Bjelke-Petersen government. Bligh's next role was as Women's Vice-President of the Student Union. She then ran an election ticket called EAT (Education Action Team) in an unsuccessful bid to oust the faction in charge, headed by the future Goss government identity David Barbagallo. Law student Paul Lucas, Bligh's future Deputy Premier, was a part of Barbagallo's team. Her 1982 team included the former Minister for Education, Training and the Arts Rod Welford. Anne Warner, who was a future Minister in the Goss Government, was an office holder at the time in the Union. Warner soon become one of Bligh's key political mentors.^[1]

She subsequently worked in a number of community organisations, including child care services, neighbourhood centres, women's refuges and trade unions as well as in the Queensland Public Service.

Bligh was the secretary of the Labor Party's Fairfield branch in 1987.^[2]

Parliament

Bligh was first elected to parliament at the 1995 election to the safe Labor seat of South Brisbane, succeeding her former university compatriot, Anne Walker. A member of the Socialist Left faction of the Labor Party, she was promoted to the ministry following the election of the Beattie government in 1998 as Minister for Families, Youth and Community Care and Disability Services. In 2001, Bligh became Queensland's first female Education Minister. She assumed additional responsibility for the Arts portfolio in 2004.

Deputy Premier

In July 2005, the retirement of the Deputy Premier and Treasurer Terry Mackenroth forced a cabinet reshuffle, which saw Bligh promoted to the office of Deputy Premier and Minister for Finance, State Development, Trade and Innovation. Bligh's appointment as Deputy Premier coincided with her election to parliament ten years earlier. In early February 2006, Bligh also gained the Treasury portfolio after Beattie relinquished the responsibility in order to focus on attempting to fix the state's troubled health system.

Premier

Bligh had long been touted as a likely successor to the long-running Premier Peter Beattie, and he publicly endorsed her as his replacement when he announced his retirement from politics on 10 September 2007.^[3]

She was subsequently nominated unopposed by the Labor caucus, in a deal that saw Paul Lucas from the Right faction succeed her as Deputy Premier. She became the leader of the Labor Party on 12 September. After Beattie formally resigned on 13 September 2007, Bligh was sworn in by the then Governor Quentin Bryce. Bligh led Labor to victory in the 2009 state election. While losing eight seats from the large majority Bligh inherited from Beattie, Labor still won 51 seats out of 89, enough for a comfortable majority. The election marked the Queensland ALP's eighth consecutive election win; the party has been in government for all but two years since 1989.

In winning the election, Bligh became Australia's first popularly elected female premier.^[4] The two previous female premiers, Carmen Lawrence (Western Australia 1990-93) and Joan Kirner (Victoria 1990-92), became premiers following the resignation of male premiers (as Bligh did), but both were defeated at the following respective state elections. However, Bligh is not Australia's first popularly elected female head of government. Rosemary Follett and Kate Carnell were both popularly elected as Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory, and Clare Martin was elected as Chief Minister of the Northern Territory.^[4]

In 2009, Bligh was elected to the three person presidential team of the Australian Labor Party, to serve until July 2012. She served as National President of the Australian Labor Party for the 2010–11 financial year.^[5]

Privatisation

Bligh has announced the privatisation of five government owned corporations:

• Queensland Motorways Limited (Operating the Gateway Bridge and Logan Motorway tolling systems)
• The Port of Brisbane Authority
• Forestry Plantations Queensland
• Abbot Point Coal Terminal
• Coal carrying rail lines, currently owned by Queensland Rail (QR Passenger services will remain nationalised).

More than 3,000 workers will be offered voluntary redundancies, just three months after the privatisation of QR National.

Queensland Motorways Limited and Forestry Plantations Queensland are not being sold, but rather being leased for an estimated 50 year lease. Since this announcement, the Queensland Government announced plans to sale Queensland Rail to the public.

Revenues from privatisation were estimated at approximately $15 billion dollars, to go towards balancing QLD's state budget.^[6]

The sale of these assets aimed at removing significant overheads from the Queensland Government's debt portfolio, allowing further growth of the Governments capital assets, as well as aiding the government to return to its AAA credit rating. Bligh has faced resistance from both within her party and the trade union movement, but has defended her privatisation plan as 'not negotiable'.^[7]

The 2009 Annual State Conference of the Australian Labor Party - Queensland Branch, passed a motion, moved by Treasurer Andrew Fraser MP, seconded by Parliamentary Secretary for Healthy Living Murray Watt MP, supporting the sale of the assets, recognising that the sale will allow the Queensland Government to grow its asset portfolio, as well as retire debt.

Daylight Saving

In October 2006, then Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, commissioned research to seek if Daylight Saving should be re-introduced into Queensland on a trial basis.^[8] On 1 October 2007 Bligh ruled out holding a new referendum, despite this government-commissioned report indicating that 59% of Queensland residents and 69% of South East Queenslanders support daylight saving.^[9]

On 14 April 2010 Independent member for the Electoral district of Nicklin, Peter Wellington, introduced the Daylight Saving for South East Queensland Referendum Bill 2010 into Queensland Parliament, calling for a referendum to be held at the next State election on the introduction of daylight saving for South East Queensland only, while the remainder of the state maintains standard time.^[10] In response to this Bill, Bligh announced a community consultation process, which resulted in over 74,000 respondents participating, 64 percent of whom voted in favour of a trial and 63% were in favour of holding a referendum.^[11]

On 7 June 2010, after reviewing the favourable consultation results, Bligh announced that her Government would not support the Bill, because regional Queenslanders were overwhelmingly opposed to daylight saving.^[12] The Bill was defeated in Queensland Parliament on 15 June 2011.^[13]

Queensland floods

Bligh's management of and performance during the 2010–2011 Queensland floods was widely approved. The following Newspoll saw a record turnaround in Bligh and Labor's fortunes, rising from a two-party deficit of 41-59 to a lead of 52-48, with her personal satisfaction-dissatisfaction standing going from a negative 24-67 to a positive 49-43. A day before the poll was publicly released, LNP opposition leader John-Paul Langbroek stood down, with Jeff Seeney temporarily taking over. In an Australian first, Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman and the LNP announced Newman would lead the LNP team and stand for the seat of Ashgrove at the next Queensland state election, with the aim of Campbell becoming Premier, should he and the LNP succeed. Shortly after the floods peaked Bligh established a Commission of Inquiry into the 2010-11 Queensland floods to comprehensively and independently review all aspects of the flood.

Personal

Bligh is married to Greg Withers, a senior public servant, with whom she has two sons, Joe and Oliver, both of whom attended Brisbane State High School.^[14]

Bligh is a descendant of Cornishman William Bligh who is famous for the Mutiny on the Bounty and being the 4th Governor of New South Wales.^[15] The name Bligh comes from the Cornish language word Blyth meaning Wolf.^[16]

Bligh appeared as a contestant on Celebrity MasterChef Australia.^[17] She was eliminated in her first heat, losing to the eventual winner of the series, swimmer Eamon Sullivan.^[18]

See also

• Next Queensland state election

References

External links

• Official Website
• Campaign Website
• Parliamentary Biography
• Anna Bligh's response to the 2008 Apology