Miles and Crisafulli already preparing for rematch

Outgoing Queensland Premier Steven Miles looks set to sit opposite his successor as he embarks on a four-year campaign to get his old job back.

As of Sunday evening, Miles was the sole contender to lead the Labor Party in opposition, and he made his public pitch to caucus colleagues in his final media conference as premier on Sunday.

At the same time, he congratulated LNP leader David Crisafulli – who will formally replace Miles as premier when he is sworn in on Monday – on his election victory.

Steven Miles has put his hand up to lead Labor in opposition.Credit: Joe Ruckli

“He has earned this victory, but also our job as the opposition is to hold him and the LNP to account,” he said.

“They have made a variety of statements during this campaign, and we intend to hold them to account for those.”

Crisafulli also had pleasantries for Miles, whom he thanked for his service as premier. But the political truce was sure to be short-lived, especially if the head-to-head competition between the two leaders continues well into the Crisafulli government era.

“It’s important that we are a good government and that we do what we say we are going to do, and we don’t do what we said we wouldn’t do,” Crisafulli said.

“I’m going to be reminding the Labor Party about that latter point, and I will be reminding them for four years on it, because Queenslanders deserve to know there is a difference between the way I intend to conduct our government and what they have lived through in recent years.

“If we say we’re going to do something and we make a commitment around a policy, we’ll fulfil it and Queenslanders will be able to trust us.”

Crisafulli was not-so-subtly referring to the issue of abortion, which threatened to derail the LNP campaign after Robbie Katter suggested he would introduce a private member’s bill to recriminalise the procedure.

It resulted in repeated protestations by Crisafulli and a phalanx of LNP candidates, who repeatedly assured voters it was “not part of our plan”.

Premier-elect David Crisafulli contemplates the task ahead as his deputy, Jarrod Bleijie, speaks to the media at Parliament House on Sunday. Credit: Cameron Atfield

“There’s robust debate and conflicts of ideas, and then there’s just out-and-out blatant mistruths, and the latter can’t become part of modern politics,” Crisafulli said.

“We are not the US, and the difference between us and the US is, because of compulsory voting, we have the great ability to speak to the majority, rather than to the extremes.

“We can’t have elections on fear and things that are being campaigned on which one side knows is blatantly untrue. You can’t do that, and we will call out those inconsistencies.

“We will do what we say we were going to do, and we won’t do what the former government alleged we were going to do.

“And that’s important.”

But Crisafulli was yet to outline how he could prevent MPs voting according to their conscience if the issue was part of Katter’s – or any other crossbench MP’s – plan.

Crisafulli said Queensland voters would be able to pass judgment on his party in four years. In the meantime, he was basking in victory after about three hours’ sleep in the early hours of Sunday morning.

“Our vote exceeded our expectations and the result is far beyond what we could have ever expected,” he said. “It is a good majority.”

That was a common theme, with Miles also claiming his side did better than expected.

“You’ve seen the polls pretty consistently for a long time now,” he said.

“They predicted a very, very bad result. The fact that many MPs have held their seats is a credit to them, but also I think, a credit to the campaign that we ran.”

Former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk stepped down last December, giving Miles 10 months to break through to Queensland voters. Miles said the media had spent a lot of time trying to get him to criticise Palaszczuk, but “I don’t intend to”.

“Ten months is obviously a clear runway, but also obviously, Queenslanders, for some time, had wanted to see change,” he said.

“I sought to project change to them, but at the end of the day, that hasn’t been enough to convince them to stick with Labor.

“We have elected more MPs than we thought we would, and that’s a good result, and a result of that good campaign.

“But Queenslanders have spoken, and Queenslanders don’t get it wrong.”

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