Really, Ms King? Really?

When online news site INQueensland kicked off, The Bug had high hopes that it would be a middle-of-the-road news information source. Well at least to the left of Newcorpse and the Nine Entertainment Co. Herald rags and surely that couldn’t have been too hard?

Indeed, its website boasts Queensland’s only truly independent, high-quality news service – freely available to all Queenslanders – that delivers balanced, thoughtful public-interest journalism, created by some of the state’s most respected writers.

And then, seemingly intent on proving all of that wrong, comes along absolute tosh (above and below) written by Madonna King mid last week.

Now, the compilers of Media Glass House – as always as fair and reasonable as anyone can possibly be – appreciate that King can’t be blamed for the wording of the yarn’s heading and standfirst, but her views are so crystal clear they amount to the same thing.

MGH thinks her article sounds a bit more like LNP talking points than “balanced, thoughtful, journalism”. Doubt that?

Here’s her killer point as she details the urgent need for Miles to ditch the Games: “It will certainly be the only move that might keep Queensland Premier Steven Miles in his job.”

There it is in black and white. Unless Miles axes the 2032 Games, it’s Premier-elect David Crisafulli on election night, October 26.

What absolute tosh from King! The state election is now just under seven months away and if a week is a long time in politics, seven months is an eternity. By then, there’s a very solid chance the Olympics might not be in the top five key issues on the minds of voters.

Now MGH has not spotted any polls about the attitude of Brisbanities, and indeed Bananabenders in general, to hosting those Games but we suspect most people are proud of the fact that little old river-city Brisbane will soon joint the ranks of the world’s Olympic cities.

We suspect Miles, who has not given one hint that he is hell-bent on axing the games even if Cabinet most likely discussed the possible cost of doing that, would take a big hit if Brisbane walked away from hosting the world’s biggest sporting event.

Yet all King can offer is how many ways the Queensland Government could otherwise spend the Olympic cash to benefit Queenslanders.

She seems incapable of considering that Brisbane and Queensland have grown up a helluva lot over the decades and are quite capable of chewing gum and walking at the same time.

King talks of the legacy of the games being a “mediocre” stadium.

It’s a crying shame that INQueensland doesn’t have among its ranks an opinionista who could applaud Miles for showing leadership and putting the kibosh on Graham Quirk’s plans for a new mega stadium.

And we think it’s damn fine politics to keep the Gabba as the home of Test cricket, even if it desperately needs tarting up. How many days of Test cricket fill if up? The first day of an Ashes Test?

Miles’ alternatives sound find to The Bug and the MGH. We are not at all embarrassed that Brisbane will hold a more or less no-frills Games without a monster new stadium that might turn out to be a white elephant if Olympic history is anything to go by.

And where, oh where, among these fine writers at INQueensland, is someone who might have ripped into David Crisafulli for his own response to the Quirk plan that happened after King penned her piece. Not worthy of a follow-up, Ms King?

It would seem quite fair and reasonable that a balanced political observer could argue that Miles has headed down the right track, finally, and has wedged Crisafulli and the LNP who will now go to the October election with another independent review.

Someone at INQueensland might be able to write that but we suspect it will never, ever, be Madonna “Miles is Cactus unless he Axes” King.

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