Saint Anna: Last of the Labor Dinosaurs

Those of us who left Brisbane for the bright lights of the Southern cities in the 1970s, came back in the 1990s to a Brisbane that was an imitation of Sydney and Melbourne. Brisbane was smarter, used its river but when Jim Soorley left Brisbane City Council in 2003 he too represented a lost connection with the real people and the real doings of life. The State government without Soorley, who the State politicians loved to hate, was all fluff and words and memos and press releases and meetings and no substance. Campbell Newman filled the void. He effectively took over the real working space that Clem Jones and Jm Soorley had occupied for Labor.