Deputy Premier drops the C-bomb

Treasurer Jackie Trad has been known to let loose with the occasional tongue-lashing when things don’t go her way. See who her latest hapless victim was.

THE Sunday Mail’s top-end-of-town spy kicks off a new column that will feature the juiciest insider gossip in Queensland each week. Welcome to What The Actual?!

Even in the rough and tumble world of politics this phone call was quite something.

On one end of the line was Woolloongabba property investor Jackie Trad (who also dabbles at being deputy premier and treasurer).

On the other, a senior mining official.

Now, unless you’d been living under a large lump of coal since precisely 6.01pm on May 18, you’d know the Adani issue has played like a busted guitar for the Treasurer.

When Ms Trad spoke at a recent post-Budget lunch, 800 business people were asked if they had a question.

Response from the floor: Crickets.

As the young-uns would say: “Hashtag awkward”.

Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad. Picture: AAP/Dave Hunt

It was also in the Budget wash-up that Ms Trad breathed fire down the phone to the mining figure – who had the audacity to criticise her decision to jack up royalties on gas production.

In a tongue-lashing for the ages, Ms Trad gave the minerals man a free and very direct character reference.

Given her noun rhymed with “stunt” it’s unlikely he’ll be including it on his CV.

Now, robust conversations are part and parcel of life in the cut-throat world of politics, as is the use of that particular word (in some political circles it’s almost a form of endearment) so What The Actual is far from getting judgy here.

​But plenty of insiders give Ms Trad a gold medal for fruity and colourful language behind closed doors.

She beats a red-hot field including former premier Campbell Newman, former prime minister Paul Keating and former minister for everything Russ Hinze.

Former Cairns MP Rob Pyne accused Trad of calling him a “disloyal c---” but was cleared by the Ethics Committee. Picture: Brendan Radke

A few years ago Ms Trad was accused by a former colleague Rob Pyne, of calling him a “disloyal c---”.

Trad denied ever using that language and was cleared by the Ethics Committee.

The odd press secretary has also been on the end of a Trad tongue lashing.

So too, a couple of colleagues who might have wavered on certain legislation.

“At least you know where you stand with Jackie,’’ was how one colleague put it.

You don’t say.

TWIT OF THE WEEK

FROM the vile dungeon that is social media: It’s no surprise that Facebooker Blake Bottomley took a special interest in matters of the derriere – namely an entertaining column in last week’s Sunday Mail about exposed buttocks.

But to suggest the author “needed a bullet”?

Whoa there, champ. Steady on.