Since she ascended quietly to power as Australia's first female premier in 2007, I found myself needing to present apathy about Anna Bligh's offering of increasingly more of Queensland to the hungry mouth of ugly capitalist development in order not to slash my wrists as penance for the ongoing loss of good design opportunity. This of course, is typical of Gen-Y problem-solving ... playing ostrich in baleful acceptance of the inevitable.

My estimation of her as a leader rose when I heard the unashamedly boganic way she made her entrance to the opening of the Gold Coast's Broadwater Parklands in 2009. To the unignorable sounds of 'Eye of the Tiger' she torpedoed up to the foreshore in a speedboat, literally making waves. Anna, the botoxed ribbon-cutter, had arrived.

Yes, it's true that she's responsible for the annihilation of a great deal of what once made Queensland wonderful - leafy green public space, quality suburban development, publicly-owned utilities - but the manner in which she's navigated the state through one natural disaster after another is Leadership 101. Premiers of other states are no doubt asking when it'll be their turn to host a natural disaster !

It is this warming to our cow-cocky-clad-leader and the reawakening of latent pride in Queensland that has made my resettlement in BrisVegas all the easier. Though allow me to clarify... I'm not talking about draping my bikini-clad self in the Australian flag and flying to Bali. This blog intends to be a way to draw heads out of the sand in regards BrisVegas culture. Because it's too easily hypocritical to scathe the vox populi if one forcibly removes oneself from it.

We Are Queenslanders.