By Alex Schlotzer:

theangle’s Alex Schlotzer takes a look at the Liberal’s campaign launch.

The Liberal Party has officially launched its election campaign in Queensland on the weekend.

For nearly two hours we had a line up of various Liberal Party luminaries, starting with Campbell Newman, Lord Mayor of Brisbane – strange choice of luminary.  Newman tried to talk up his environmental credibility and other mediocre projects.

Newman was followed by Colin Barnett, who didn’t really contribute that much to the overall launch.  Barnett spoke at large about how he’s dismantling WA’s public service and selling off state assets; to great applause.

When they wheeled out Warren Truss (oh he’s the leader of The Nationals), it seemed the Liberals were looking to bore the audience.  Truss banged on with quite a few jokes, with a number of them being sexist in nature.  The quips were thick and fast, he seemingly forgot that the event was being televised live.  But when he got down to outlining the Coalition’s vision for the future, we were left waiting.

It reminded me of the Opposition handballing around their response to the Budget – Abbott to Hockey to Robb to Joyce – earlier this year.

Truss struggled to read out the script that was before him. Particularly annoying for the Liberals would have been the fact that he fluffed key glib slogans yet was able to wax lyrical when he was telling jokes.  He did prattle on about how the Nationals would bring the voice of country folk to Canberra; an old, tired beat up from a political party that ceased to be relevant 20 years ago.

Throughout the speech, the joking and ‘in’ jokes made him sound arrogant and rather cheap.

Out came Julie ‘Death Stare’ Bishop and delivered more cheap jokes and pithy lines; all too predictable.

Those of us watching were waiting to hear about their policies and the kind of future they envisage for Australia. She provided none of that. As she droned on at the crowd, hardly getting the crowd ready for more, there were more references to their record, more glib slogans and no detail.  She kept going though getting back to the jokes as the script seemed too difficult for her to stick to.

The Liberals needed Bishop to play down the arrogance but she couldn’t help herself.

Finally, once Abbott walked solemnly down the wing to the stage he didn’t bother shaking hands with the party faithful that had turned up. Instead he only mingled with the big-wigs and players in the front row; taking time only to give his hero John Howard a cuddle.  His speech at least had no jokes but he didn’t have anything left to say.  After Truss and Death Stare droned on with the same positions, Abbott simply repeated it.

He tried to outline a ‘timetable’ but it seemed to completely forget that there’s still a parliamentary process.  Given his timetable he’s trying to ensure that he gets his ‘agenda’ through before the new Senate sits from July 2011.  However, when all was said and done, Abbott,  like the speakers before him, provided no new policy announcements, and no details.

Most notably missing from all the speeches given was the record of the Howard government’s on industrial relations.  Campbell Newman’s and Colin Barnett’s speeches also notably didn’t talk of their anti-worker activity.  Barnett in particular is trying to introduced a state-version of WorkChoices – one would have thought such stories would have been met with great cheers.

Worst of all was having to hear that nauseating campaign jingle. Every time it was played it was like running nails down a blackboard. Not only that, the chorus sounded like ‘stand up for re-election’ not ‘stand up for real action’.

The Liberal campaign has been described by some as being a ‘small target’ campaign. This is certainly no small target – they have no policies at all.  There’s scant details and no proof of the costings.

Alex Schlotzer is a straight talker when it comes to politics and loves to vent his spleen. Actively involved in Australian and international politics with a keen understanding of the dynamics of the political machine, Alex has a prolific online presence and has been a cyber activist for over 15 years. Regional editor of theangle.org, he can also be found at his blog and his exciting online project Australian Politics TV

Tags: liberal campaign launch, liberal policy, tony abbott launch