Springborg regrets not fighting tougher

Queensland Liberal National Party (LNP) leader Lawrence Springborg regrets not fighting "fire with fire" during the state election campaign.

On a two-party preferred basis, Labor won 51.3 per cent of the vote to the LNP's
48.7 per cent, representing a 3.5 per cent swing to the state's new, merged
conservative party.
Mr Springborg on Sunday told reporters the party should have hit back at Labor's
"scare campaign" on LNP economic policy, which was to cut $1 billion in waste from
the state budget to fund election promises.
Labor and the unions campaigned heavily on claims this would cost 12,000 public
sector workers their jobs.
Labor also ran ads attacking Mr Springborg's economic credentials, particularly
after he described the global financial crisis as "peripheral" to the state.
Mr Springborg said the party underestimated how far Labor would go with the tactic,
and the influence the union movement would have on the public service.
"I think that we probably should have fought fire with fire," he said.
"There are any number of things that we could have pointed out against Ms Bligh
including the fact that she said she wouldn't have an early election and she did ...
her close connection with her colleagues such as Gordon Nuttall, and her personal
exoneration of his criminality in parliament, we could have done that.
"Those sorts of things would have stuck significantly, but we chose not to do that."
Mr Springborg said he would step down from the leadership for good this time, and
would not name any favoured successors.
"I am not contesting the leadership today, I am not contesting the leadership
again," he said.
The LNP's chief financial backer, Clive Palmer, has thrown his support behind
infrastructure spokeswoman Fiona Simpson, but she says it's too soon for her to
consider the move.
"I support Lawrence Springborg and while he is leader he deserves the respect for
what he's achieved and I think it's too early to speculate about the leadership," Ms
Simpson told AAP.
Another contender is treasury spokesman Tim Nichols, but he said he wanted to absorb
the election results first.
"It's been a torrid four weeks and I'm spending a little bit of time with my
family," Mr Nicholls said.
"We've got to wait and see what happens with the results in the elections in some of
those doubtful seats and have a party room meeting and we'll discuss it there."
Another likely replacement for Mr Springborg is his deputy leader, Mark McArdle.
Mr Springborg nominated the merger of the coalition parties in July last year as his
proudest achievement, and said the result of its first outing proved its strength.
Despite being the merger's key driver, he expected the new party would hold together
when he returned to the back bench.
The party room is expected to meet next Wednesday to elect its new leader.