Rudd's ruthless style entrenched Labor

Elsewhere the stress was on control rather than democratic reform.

Parliamentary reform, identified by Fitzgerald as essential "if the political processes of public debate and opposition are to operate", hardly progressed. Parliamentary sittings averaged only 50 days a year: marginally more than the previous National Party government, but less than the 58-day average for Coalition governments from 1970 to 1983. Proposals for an expanded parliamentary committee system and more Opposition staff were truncated.

Janet Ransley from Griffith University concluded that "little ... has been achieved by way of lasting reform to the uneven balance between executive and parliament".

Recommendations for the auditor-general to conduct performance audits were rejected, while excellent new freedom-of-information legislation was later amended to maintain executive secrecy. Whether the Goss government used cabinet confidentiality rules to bypass FoI procedures, as the Borbidge and Beattie governments did, remains unknown.

There was ongoing conflict with the CJC in terms of resources, powers, membership and activities. The Goss government bridled at the CJC's intrusions into executive decision-making. As Max Bingham, the CJC's first chairman, recalled, there "were competing agendas to lessen the impact of Fitzgerald's philosophy" and "almost daily there were messages from various political quarters that it would be a good idea if we were all to drop dead".

Meanwhile, the Electoral and Administrative Review Commission, another Fitzgerald innovation that provided recommendations on areas such as electoral reform and administrative law that were mostly accepted, was terminated - many thought prematurely - because, as professor John Wanna explained, it was a "source of policy advice (independent) from the conventional executive-dominated process".

In summary, the Goss government implemented the Fitzgerald report's recommendations in form but not in spirit. Executive government control, secrecy and manipulation of appointment processes remained embedded in Queensland government, as highlighted by the recent commission of inquiry into the Bundaberg Hospital overseas doctor scandal.

To know what a Rudd Labor government might look like, take a peek at what happened in Queensland when Rudd held sway in the Goss government.

Every picture tells a story, and Queensland's not one to admire.