‘He gets our state’: Premier shifts tone on feds amid election fallout

Queensland’s Labor government has kicked off a new era of state and federal relations with glowing endorsements of Anthony Albanese’s team, amid jeers from the LNP opposition about the success of the Greens across the capital.

Amid tensions over borders and lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, the federal Coalition had been a target day-to-day and in state elections.

Before his elevation to the prime ministership, Anthony Albanese campaigns in Brisbane alongside and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

But there was a noticeable shift in tone on Tuesday morning, when state parliament returned for its last sitting week before the state budget in late June.

“Having Anthony Albanese as prime minister will be a breath of fresh air,” Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told parliament.

“I know we can work together to focus on growing jobs for our growing state.

“In fact, except for those three nights a year when Origin is played or when his beloved Rabbitohs [South Sydney NRL team] are in town, Anthony Albanese might just as well be an honorary Queenslander. He gets our large, decentralised state.”

The comments prompted loud interjections from LNP members, which rose to a din from both sides.

References to the Greens taking Griffith from senior federal Labor figure Terri Butler — amid a steady growth in the party’s primary growth across the city in multiple elections — cut through.

Palaszczuk and other cabinet members lined up to call out the fresh post-election divisions emerging in the federal Coalition, and its formally merged Queensland LNP, over net-zero and action on climate change.

In response to a question about the state’s emissions reductions plan — which has a lower 2030 target at 30 per cent, on the road to net-zero by 2050, than federal Labor’s 43 per cent or the NSW Liberal government’s 50 per cent — Treasurer Cameron Dick launched into a full-throated highlighting of the work being done before turning to the opposition party.

“Once again, the climate change deniers, the science sceptics and the anti-vaxxers in the Queensland LNP helped wreck the federal Coalition and destroy the federal LNP and the federal Liberal Party on the way,” Dick said.

“People like Matt Canavan and Keith Pitt destroyed the party opposite,” he added, before listing Coalition MPs who lost their seats on Saturday.

Palaszczuk reiterated comments about there being a lesson for all sides of politics over “listening” to communities amid the decline in major party support, and the rise of teal independents and Greens politicians focused on climate, integrity and women.

A key element of the next state fight, with an election due in 2024, is firming around health, with the LNP using question time to push for the release of ambulance data for the first portion of this year.

The Palaszczuk government and other states have pushed for a new health funding model that would deliver more federal money to the states.

On Monday, Palaszczuk said she had spoken “directly” to Albanese urging a focus on health and hospital pressures at the first meeting of a new, more Labor-dominated, national cabinet.

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