EDITORIAL : THE AUSTRALIAN, AUSTRALIA

Moment of truth looms in Bali 

PRIME Minister should ditch the failed regional centre idea.

Shambolic as the government's border protection management has become, there are no clear signs of any attempt to tackle the serious policy issues at play. There are detainees missing on Christmas Island but the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen cannot tell us how many. Fires and riots are destroying much of the facility, asylum-seekers are being evacuated, new detention centres are opened or under construction elsewhere in Australia and the latest boat arrival has been diverted directly to the mainland, but the government is remaining stubbornly inactive. There are now more than 6500 people in various detention centres, and still boats are arriving, which presents us with the inescapable conclusion that the government has lost control of the border protection regime. Mr Bowen's performance on ABC TV's Lateline on Tuesday was that of a minister at the end of his tether.

The last idea from Julia Gillard came in a pre-election thought bubble about a regional detention centre in East Timor. This idea has yet to be endorsed by the proposed host nation, let alone anyone else. As The Australian has already pointed out, in the unlikely event that that centre is ever built, it would be unlikely to make any difference. The government should abandon the proposal and examine other policy solutions such as reopening the Nauru centre and reviving a distinct visa category for asylum-seekers.

Most asylum-seekers merely transit other countries in the region on a pre-organised journey to Australia, so understandably the countries they pass through consider the problem as one of Australia's making. Unsurprisingly, they expect us to provide the solutions. Our neighbours view the prospect of a regional detention centre as an attempt to pass ownership of the dilemma to them. They would prefer that Australia put back the disincentives to people-smuggling to curtail this evil trade, which creates more than a little inconvenience and cost for them. For all these reasons, Australia's championing of the East Timor solution is struggling to win overt support in the region, creating only diplomatic headaches instead.

Next week, when Mr Bowen and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd attend the Bali regional process on people-smuggling meeting, they will confront a moment of truth. At this crucial gathering, they must either obtain broad support from other nations for a regional processing centre or finally walk away from the idea. Australia cannot afford to waste any more diplomatic capital on this improbable scheme, nor can it afford to allow continued consideration of the idea to forestall the urgent task of finding other meaningful policy reforms.

Already Mr Bowen has quietly revised downwards Australia's aims for the Bali meeting. In recent interviews, he has spoken no longer of winning support for a regional centre but for a "regional framework". He should be warned that no vague commitment to a "framework" will disguise the regional centre plan's failure. Conspicuously, Mr Rudd so far has avoided involving himself in the proposal and will be forced to address it for the first time in Bali. Despite the obvious discontent it might stir within the government, he would do very well to assert his surer grasp of national security matters and ensure that his first intervention in his successor's misguided policy is to publicly consign it to history.

Game on for the Premier and Lord Mayor in Qld

THE LNP's audacious move carries risks and promises.

Perhaps former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie summed it up best, declaring the Liberal National Party's unprecedented move to install Brisbane's Lord Mayor Campbell Newman as leader was "either the smartest thing the LNP ever did or the dumbest". Replete with risks, the audacious move holds great potential for conservative politics in Queensland, and therefore the impact of the LNP nationally. But Newspoll results in The Australian today show why the LNP felt obliged to adopt this seemingly crazy-brave move. Premier Anna Bligh's leadership during the floods and cyclone crisis has produced a stunning poll reversal, with her satisfaction rating doubling and Labor going from an unwinnable position to a two-party-preferred lead. Clearly, confronted with Labor's resurgence, LNP powerbrokers ran out of patience.

The Sunshine State has made and broken federal governments, and created difficulties for the conservative side since the Joh for Canberra movement of the mid-1980s. After decades of tension between Queensland Liberals and Nationals, the merged LNP -- a peculiar hybrid that until now has been dominated by the Nationals -- desperately needs success. If Mr Newman can achieve it, it will foster stability in Queensland, ease national Coalition tensions and even point to eventual mergers of the Coalition partners in other states.

Still, for now, Queensland has sufficient problems itself, with vast economic challenges as well as the massive task of reconstruction after January's floods and Cyclone Yasi. Mr Newman's radical move signals the end of what has been an effective bipartisan partnership between Ms Bligh and the Lord Mayor, which has had the long-term, beneficial result of significantly upgrading Brisbane's infrastructure. Ms Bligh is talking up the prospect of the Queensland parliament "descending into a dysfunctional farce", with Mr Newman, the alternative premier, stuck outside the Legislative Assembly until after the election, leaving Jeff Seeney, one of several unsuccessful former LNP leaders, to warm the seat as interim parliamentary leader. Ms Bligh also criticises Mr Newman for leaving City Hall at a critical time in Brisbane's post-flood rebuilding process.

The LNP leadership turmoil and Labor's surge in the polls will sorely tempt the Premier to call an early election, but she should honour her promise to wait until after the flood commission of inquiry's interim report, due in August. That report will be eagerly scrutinised not only for the performance of the Bligh government but also of the Brisbane City Council, which faces claims of influencing the operators of Wivenhoe Dam to make lower releases of water at a critical time prior to the devastating floods in January. A rush to the polls would also risk a backlash, with Ms Bligh looking like just another opportunist politician.

Mr Newman is the only conservative political figure in Queensland who can match Ms Bligh's popularity. Both enjoy strong public support as a result of their performances during the floods. The big loser of that crisis was John Paul Langbroek, who had taken the LNP to a commanding lead in the polls but was then forgotten. Mr Newman's Brisbane base, his high profile as the self-styled "can-do" Lord Mayor, his energy and down-to-earth style should give him a broader appeal in the city and suburbs. This is vital for the LNP, which fell badly short in the 2008 election, winning just six of 38 metropolitan seats. But he will need to work hard to increase his appeal west of the divide and in the north if he is to break the run of a long list of fallen LNP, National and Liberal leaders. Mr Newman's army background will stand him in good stead in Townsville and in his chosen electorate of Ashgrove, which contains Enoggera army base.

To have any chance of success, he will need a credible economic blueprint to restore Queensland's AAA credit rating, an issue Ms Bligh has begun addressing with the commendable but unpopular sale of government assets. He and Ms Bligh also need to focus on the slower sectors of Queensland's two-speed economy. From outside the parliamentary party, Mr Newman faces the difficult task of blending the deep-seated social conservatism and agrarian socialism of the former Queensland National Party with the more moderate, economically rational outlook of the urban Liberals.

The success or otherwise of the LNP also has vital federal implications. LNP bickering has too often spilled into the federal Coalition and complicated preselections and campaigning. If the Newman experiment works, Tony Abbott will welcome the prospect of seeing Coalition success and stability stretch from the Mornington Peninsula to Cape York, as well as from Eucla to Broome.

Mr Newman has been a success as Lord Mayor and appears to offer the brand of dynamic leadership that the LNP needs. But Ms Bligh is a formidable opponent. She has shown herself capable of mapping out the right agenda and pursuing it, regardless of the 24-hour media cycle, the opposition of trade unionists and, it must be said, her election commitments. Her privatisation agenda saw her suffer in the polls but now she has been rewarded for her sense of purpose so far this year. Strange and unpredictable times are ahead, with the LNP facing the challenge of making its arrangements work. But if Ms Bligh and Mr Newman can engage in a serious contest of policies and ideas, Queensland can emerge stronger.