The Queensland Parliament rose last Thursday night following its final sitting day for the current term.

That means the major contenders for government have taken the field in earnest in the lead-up to the state election on Saturday 26 October.

The Labor Party government of Premier Steven Miles was quick out of the blocks with a promise to cement in place 50-cent public transport fares if re-elected.

The LNP-Murdoch coalition preferred to match that commitment so it could clear the field to continue focussing on its favoured subject of crime.

As part of its tactics, the political advertisement… sorry, News story (as opposed to news story) appeared in the Brisbane weekly Murdoch turdbloid, the Sunday Mail.

Our MGH teams are always intrigued by a story that includes claims of massive increases in anything, so the 200% lift in some categories of crime over the past decade really caught their eyes, no doubt as it did other Queenslanders.

They scanned the item very closely looking for a rebuttal, explanation, or even just a syllable of comment from the government. All to no avail.

Our researchers thought that a big clue pointing to the need to include a government response were the words “LNP study”. But no, not a word from the government.

After being attacked with the allegation of a 200% crime surge it wasn’t until after its publication that Premier Miles was given a chance to provide his answer, which appeared in today’s edition of the newsletter of the Bowen Hills branch of the LNP,  The Courier-Mail in a much smaller item. (below)

His answer was that the figure of 200% could only be achieved if the stats were fiddled to compare a set of figures including domestic violence offences with a set that didn’t contain DV stats.

If that is true, the original Sunday story should never have appeared in the form it did.

Our researchers believe readers of the Sunday Mail would have been better served by a story with at least some skerrick of balance rather than an LNP advertisement.

At the same time our MGH teams hold out zero hope that the same practice will not recur in the dailies and weeklies leading up to polling day.

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