Des Houghton: A Labor shambles laid bare
From the Sports Minister’s meddling in grants to ‘baloney’ over funding for police staff increases, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s government is looking awfully exposed, write Des Houghton.
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Did you ever get the feeling the political tide suddenly went out this week and that Labor was caught swimming in the nude?
I did.
Sports Minister Mick de Brenni may have dealt his party’s re-election hopes a mortal blow when he arrogantly refused to explain a damning Auditor-General report showing he improperly meddled in sports grants to favour Labor electorates.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was likewise left under an integrity cloud when she pledged to increase police numbers over the next five years.
She said the boost in numbers was “fully funded”. She used that phrase over and over again, as if repeating it would somehow make it true. In documents released to the media I could not find a scrap of evidence the proposed recruitments were fully funded. Then I checked the ministerial website and the Queensland Police Service statistical log. Again, nothing.
So I asked a media minder in the Premier’s office if she could assist. She rebuffed my questions and accused me of playing games. She suggested I call the Police Minister Mark Ryan’s press secretary who would explain all. He didn’t. Or couldn’t. All I got from him was a supercilious one-sentence statement attacking the LNP.
Palaszczuk’s press conference rang alarm bells for me because she made a similar promise about boosting police numbers in the run-up to the 2017 election _ then failed to deliver.
Then she pledged an extra 535 officers over four years. Figures tabled in Parliament show that since June 2017 there has been an increase of only 303 police officers.
So unless Palaszczuk can sign up the missing 232 officers in the next three days before when the election caretaker period begins, I fear she has broken a very big election promise from the last campaign.
Is it any wonder the media is now sceptical of the words that spill from her mouth.
I suspect the Premier has a no understanding at all of police numbers. That may be why she stumbled while reading her prepared statement.
If she couldn’t be bothered to read the independent report about alleged wrongdoing by her former chief of staff in her own department, why on earth would she bother to memorise police numbers?
It seems Palaszczuk will stand up and read whatever words are put in front of her. Beside her was Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll who was gushing like a candidate. She made an overtly political speech supporting the government. So, too did Queensland Police Union boss Ian Leavers who leapt up like a jack-in-the-box to praise Palaszczuk for “fully funding” the extra police while slapping the LNP. Is it any wonder a group of conservative officers are about to announce a breakaway union not linked to Labor.
Queensland, like Venezuela, is now borrowing funds to pay the wages of public servants. So any suggestion that police staff increases were “fully funded” was baloney, a former senior public servant familiar with the process told me.
Palaszczuk said the effort to boost police was “to keep Queenslanders safe now, and well into the future”.
Opposition police spokesman Dan Purdie said Labor’s police numbers “hoax” was designed to hide Labor’s abject failure to keep Queenslanders safe.
He said since Labor took office, assault has increased by 40%, serious Assault has increased by 38%, robbery by 86%, and armed robbery by 78%. Unlawful use of motor vehicles jumped 71%, unlawful entry increased by 21% and shop stealing was up 54%. Disturbingly, breaches of domestic violence orders have increased by 121%.
“In this term Labor cut the police budget by $44 million and this year was the only state to cancel its budget,” Purdie said.
“Labor even voted against a public sex offender register in the Parliament in August this year. Their priorities are all wrong.”
Des Houghton is a media consultant and former editor of The Courier-Mail, The Sunday Mail and the Sunday Sun.
