Last week's Guest Speaker: John-Paul Langbroek MP
Posted by Franz Huber on Jul 21, 2016
"I ran for parliament because people said I couldn't do it..." John-Paul Langbroek [lets abbreviate this to JP for the remainder of this article, ok?] opened up. Well, it would appear that the member for Surfers Paradise since 2004 much prefers to discuss just about anything other than his own very impressive personal background. Go to the NLP's website, there is an almost painful absence of news younger than 2 months. Go to his personal webpage, you find only a brief mention about himself (but numerous photos), but plenty about his city, his constituents, his views and goals for Surfers Paradise. But a quick look into Wikipedia reveals that, whilst born in the Netherlands, his family emigrated to Australia when he was only a few months old. Prior to entering politics, JP, who holds an Honours Degree in Dental Science, ran a Dental Practice. [Useful, I'm sure, since getting the opposite members to actually answer a question would be similar to extracting teeth! Ed.]JP first ran in 2001, when Rob Borbidge resigned after he led the coalition to a landslide defeat, but missed out to Lex Bell, one of the most prominent personalities of the Gold Coast. But in 2004, he won comfortably, and in 2009 became the leader of the recently formed LNP. Since then, an awful lot has happened in State Politics, and this is not the space to cover it...
Currently, he is Shadow Minister for Health & Ambulance Services and the Commonwealth Games. If you want to put the various portfolios into context: Of a $54 Billion annual budget, Health & Services takes some 40% of the cake, with about 80,000 staff, or 1/3rd of the entire public service. Compare that to Tourism, which as 100 staff!
So, why don't we hear more about what's happening? The explanation is quite straight forward: "News depends on ratings. TV News generally have just one, 'highly polished' story per day" he says. For example, when he recently gave a 20 minute Press Conference on Child Safety issues, it didn't get reported at all! Then there is the 'technique' of delaying news (or bringing them forward): An example JP cited was the recent Toowoomba By-Election, which was soundly won by the LNP. But the State Government just happened to release the report into the Barrett Centre closure a solid 3 weeks after it was presented with it, so it would - oh, so conveniently - coincide with the By-Election.
The mark of a Guest Speaker is always the level of interest in Question Time. Well, just as well that JP allowed for half of his time! They came thick and fast! What were the questions? Well, you should have been there!