Des Houghton: Time for Annastacia Palaszczuk to exit gracefully

Not only is Annastacia Palaszczuk’s popularity declining, but her political authority is evaporating. Her government is dysfunctional. It is time for her to go, writes Des Houghton. VOTE IN OUR POLL

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk walks back into a political firestorm after two weeks holidaying in Italy. Picture: David Clark

It’s going to get messy. Annastacia Palaszczuk is clinging to power in defiance of more opinion polls showing her political appeal is draining away.

State Labor’s time is coming to an end. After eight hard years under the ALP, we don’t really need opinion polls to tell us that.

Not only is Palaszczuk’s popularity declining, but her political authority is evaporating. Her government is dysfunctional.

Labor’s parliamentary wing is divided, as evidenced by the incendiary comments from Member for Capalaba Don Brown, Labor’s Chief Government Whip, who dismissed the youth crime epidemic as a media beat-up.

In the countdown to the election Brown may have dealt Labor – and Palaszczuk – a fatal blow. As if the Premier doesn’t have enough to contend with. Some of her own members are privately telling journalists that it is time for her to go.

This was revealed at a recent media conference when Channel 9 reporter Tim Arvier asked her to respond to a text message he received from “someone within government” asking: “Would she seriously rather lose than swallow her pride and stand aside?”

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk fronts the media after returning from her European holiday. Picture: Tertius Pickard

Palaszczuk batted away suggestions she should stand down. She challenged her critics to put their name to the sledges. She then insisted that not one colleague had raised any concerns with her before declaring: “Politics needs good people, not selfish people, not ruthless people, not ambitious people.”

Was this a dig at her deputy Mr Colgate Steven Miles, Labor’s Minister for Almost Everything, who was relentlessly smiling for the cameras while she holidayed in Italy?

While Palaszczuk was tarnishing her image by skipping town on a “luxury European escape” during the youth crime crisis, Miles was polishing his. He is Minister for State Development, Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning and Minister Assisting the Premier on Olympic and Paralympic Games and Palaszczuk’s obvious successor. However, he may face a challenger in Mrs Colgate, Shannon Fentiman, the Health Minister, who was also grandstanding before the media in Palaszczuk’s absence.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Liam Kidston

Deputy Opposition leader Jarrod Bleijie taunted Miles in parliament saying Labor’s greatest hits album was entitled Chaos and Crisis, and that the Miles’s favourite track was I Want to Break Free by Queen. “I want to break free, I want to break free I want to break free from your lies … God knows, God knows I want to break free,” he said.

Bleijie suggested other songs befitting Palaszczuk ministers including Six Months in a Leaky Boat by Split Enz for Fentiman, and Carly Simon’s You’re so Vain for Treasurer Cameron Dick. Dick was “a guy so arrogant that he looks down on people and polishes the chandeliers with his nose”, he told the House.

Fentiman had a rough week and was accused in parliament of hiding bad news about the serious hospital failures.

It came to a head in parliament where Opposition attack dog Ros Bates, a registered nurse and shadow health minister, introduced a notice of motion that “condemns the current health minister for releasing less information than the former health minister (Yvette D’Ath) on code yellows in Queensland hospitals”.

The Courier-Mail reported Queensland’s major hospitals have hit breaking point, unable to adequately service patient needs at least 156 times in a three-month period.

Just as Palaszczuk was attempting to steady the ship, along came Brown. His reckless and entirely stupid claim that youth crime was a media fabrication shows the disunity inside the Labor tent.

Palaszczuk was forced to disassociate herself from Brown’s “media beat-up” comments. It was a baffling blunder for Brown, a former union boss with both Bachelor of Laws and Applied Science degrees. He’s smart, but apparently has a tin ear.

Miles got it right when he said: “It was a stupid thing to say, a dumb post, he’s taken it down and that’s appropriate.”

It’s been a rough week for Health Minister Shannon Fentiman. Picture: Dan Peled

Brown was also fighting claims of inappropriate behaviour from Redlands Mayor Karen Williams. The Courier-Mail reported she complained to the Premier that Brown made “hateful and bullying” online posts about her.

“I have received many derogatory, misogynistic, and at times threatening messages,” Williams said.

The Courier-Mail also reported that Brown described the mayor as “delusional” and “playing the woman card”.

Brown’s outlandish comments did not elicit a single word of rebuke from Queensland’s Minister for Women, Shannon Fentiman, who is quick to call out similar transgressions. Why? Her silence further undermines Palaszczuk’s standing in the electorate.

Perhaps Bleijie missed lyrics from another song that fits the mood: “I used to love her, but that’s all over now” by the Rolling Stones.