The MPs playing up at the tail end of Qld’s too-long parliamentary term

Not even two hours into last week’s three-day session of Queensland parliament, the man tasked with umpiring the show was forced to call a timeout.

“I could not be heard over the din in here,” warned the Labor MP holding the often unenviable role of Speaker, Curtis Pitt. “Your interjections are getting out of control.”

So far this year, across three sitting weeks of parliament, 50 MPs have been handed 156 warnings. A total of 14 have been kicked out at one stage or another – some twice.Credit: Queensland Parliament/Twitter

Barely five-minutes later, Pitt was tapping into the tone of a frustrated school teacher to call out MPs about things getting “quite personal”.

“I will ask that you have a think about today’s question time,” he said of the hour when Labor government ministers are quizzed by the LNP and handed excuses to talk up their own successes by party colleagues.

“When we come back tomorrow … I hope that it can be conducted with a little bit more civility.”

Under rules for how MPs can and should behave while parliament is in session, the Speaker (or a deputy) can dish out warnings or dismissals for a range of things – but mostly for interrupting or yelling over others, using gestures, back-chatting the Speaker or trying to misuse the rules for nefarious purposes.

On that note, we’ve tallied up the warnings and bootings given to MPs so far this year, as reflected in Hansard – the official transcript and record of events.

Last week alone, 28 of Queensland’s 93 MPs copped a total of 52 warnings. Six were kicked from the chamber for an hour, including Treasurer Cameron Dick, Transport Minister Mark Bailey and LNP opposition frontbencher Ros Bates.

So far this year, across three sitting weeks, 50 MPs have been handed 156 warnings. A total of 14 have been kicked out at one stage or another – three of those have been kicked out twice.

While seemingly trivial, these are the rules that those setting them for the rest of society have set for themselves. (Not to mention the fact there are very few other settings – workplaces, organisations or classrooms – where this kind of behaviour would fly on such a recurring basis).

But it can also reveal things about the landscape outside of parliament, where personal attacks are also everywhere despite suggestions of politics being “done differently”.

Major party political attacks in Queensland are already ramping up, both in and out of parliament, more than 18 months out from the October 2024 election.Credit: Twitter

South of the Tweed, the recent NSW election has been held up as an example of either a boring or respectful campaign.

While some have drawn comparisons between the now defeated Coalition’s 12-year run in government and the third-term Palaszczuk team, they are different situations with different parties in very different states.

The weekend’s historic byelection win for Anthony Albanese’s Labor government in the usually safe federal Liberal seat of Aston, in Melbourne’s east, has also further fuelled calls for serious soul-searching about the Coalition party’s future direction.

But there’s only so much Queensland tea to be read in any of those leaves.

What is highly visible is the focus already being given by both major parties to the 2024 state election – something which emerged at the halfway point of this first fixed four-year parliamentary term back in October, and only escalated since.

Dr Chris Salisbury, a political historian at the University of Queensland, said it seemed to suggest both Labor and the LNP were still trying to figure out how to navigate the now elongated period between elections.

“Coming from a school teacher background kind of gives me the impression of one of the school terms that goes on longer than others,” Salisbury said.

“They’re getting rowdy and restless and there kind of needs to be a circuit breaker – whether that be a holiday or an election campaign ... but we’ll have another whole summer before it [the election lead-in] gets under way for real.”

ICYMI

Over in City Hall, trailblazing Greens figure Jonathan Sriranganathan had some related thoughts on how things operate in that “adversarial political theatre”. “It narrows their thinking and turns them into bickering windbags,” he said in his final speech last Tuesday.

A day earlier, Ipswich West Labor MP Jim Madden used a committee hearing to grill Sriranganathan’s party mate in state parliament, Michael Berkman, on a bill he has put forward to speed up Queensland’s transition away from fossil fuels.

Madden – seemingly forgetting his own government’s plan to phase out coal – cited his city’s long history of coal mining before asking Berkman what he would say to a 15-year-old whose life had revolved around staying in their mining hometown and following in the footsteps of a parent or grandparent.

And after the seemingly inevitable news that the Palaszczuk government’s flagship $5.4 billion Cross River Rail project would need an extra $960 million to get it over the line later than planned, the vocal Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union has seemingly had enough.

In a statement on Monday, after Transport Minister Mark Bailey’s suggestion anyone attempting to claim projects would be delivered on time and on budget (a phrase Bailey himself has used) in present conditions was a “bullshit artist”, union secretary Michael Ravbar called for his sacking.

Heads up

While the issue of youth crime has slipped from political view a little after the government’s controversial laws sailed through parliament last month, an inquiry into the government and police support given to victims of crime stemming from them has started its work.

Sparked by calls from Labor backbencher and former victim advocate Jonty Bush – the only MP of any party to make a formal submission to the bill – the inquiry is set to hold public hearings across the state over coming weeks before reporting back to parliament in May.

Calls from the Queensland Human Rights Commission for the state’s decades-old anti-discrimination laws to be dumped – including a controversial clause used by religious bodies to justify actions against transgender, gay and unmarried people – have been given the green light by government. New legislation will now be written up.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has also followed her Victorian and WA counterparts’ lead, pencilling in a trip to China – the state’s largest trading partner – for some time later this year. The visit will be her first official overseas business since heading to Tokyo for the big Brisbane 2032 announcement two years ago.