This has been a very long and hard Queensland election campaign already being over 3 weeks in to an extra long 5 week election campaign which reaches a crescendo on March 24 at 6pm local time when the polls close and we begin to find out the exact numbers. The de facto campaign has been even longer than that, effectively beginning when Campbell Newman became the LNP leader outside of parliament on the 4th of April 2011, nearly one whole year ago. But this campaign has also become a campaign of abject stupidity, bigotry and idiocy by Queenslanders outside of politics, although there has been stupidity and hatred from politicians in recent days.

It is the idiocy of one or two, or perhaps a handful of Queenslanders that I would like to focus on in this plea for Queenslanders to cut the nonsense and calm down, Queensland already has a poor reputation from some of the elites in the southern states who think they have it much better in their neck of the woods, maybe recent events proves they do.

The first incident was a nonsensical act from likely one Queenslander, possibly assisted, who decided that it might be a good idea to take out a grievance on the office of the LNP MP for Coomera, Michael Crandon by firing a bullet through the window of his office, thankfully while the representative was away from the workplace.

This incident, had the MP been present in the office, perhaps unbeknownst to the incredibly brainless peanut could have been much worse and resulted in his physical harm, or harm to an unknowing staffer going about their everyday business activities, trying to do their best for the community that the MP represents.

The second incident occurred within the last 48 hours in the form of an horrific homophobic and racist attack on the electorate office of the the ALP Member for Mulgrave and Minister for Disability Services, Mental Health and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Curtis Pitt.

Mr Pitt and his staff arrived to find “Communist Gay, Communist n****r-loving party sprayed across the front window of his electorate office in Gordonvale in Far North Queensland and this attack came the day after the homophobic and just plain odd advertisement by Katter’s Australian Party, raising questions as to whether the two events were linked. The horrific actions may have also been a hateful response to the passage of civil unions by the ALP Government late last year. The spray-painted words were equally awful for Mr Pitt whose wife is of proud indigenous origin.

What have we come to when we “resolve” our political differences by committing criminal acts on the offices of our elected representatives, no matter their political colour?

That is not the only over the top behaviour that has occurred during the election campaign, there was also hate and death threats directed at Katter’s Australian Party candidates in response to their woefully discriminatory advertising campaign and people continuing to shout at MPs and candidates as they travel the streets, meeting and greeting and trying to win your vote. By all means voice your grievances but do so in a respective manner otherwise you will just end up looking like a tool on the nightly news.

Admittedly, these people probably lack the intelligence to write a letter in good faith to their local MP to explain their opposition to a particular policy or policies or the common sense knowledge that they can simply take out their anger at the ballot box by just voting one for the candidate of their choice. At least the latter offender or offenders have the excuse of no brain cells, thanks to the very paint used to commit their obscene act of complete and utter bigotry.

It is these few idiots that spoil things for everyone, giving us all a bad name. So a message to those thinking of doing something stupid involving their elected candidate and the office they hold, stop and think, I know it might be hard and might hurt a little. It wouldn’t hurt for you to grow up and to engage in the public debate in a mature manner, but sadly, I’m probably asking too much.