Des Houghton: Steven Miles has to share blame of Palaszczuk era’s chaos and madness

I can’t think of a more unsuitable person to lead us out of the chaos and madness that engulfed the Palaszczuk era, writes Des Houghton.

Were you as outraged as I was to hear our new premier was chosen in a secretive
backroom deal? I do not think I have any ill will towards Dr Steven Miles personally, and I enjoyed his recent childhood reminisce in Parliament about collecting long-neck beer bottles with his grandfather to raise funds for his pigeon racing club.

However, I fear Miles’ political aspirations have already flown the coop.

I can’t think of a more unsuitable person to lead us out of the chaos and madness that engulfed the Palaszczuk era.

Miles has to share the blame. He was joined at the hip to Palaszczuk for 11 years, yet in his first major speech after she departed he did not mention her name once. It appears to be Labor simply slammed the door in Palaszczuk’s face.

■ What you said about Steven Miles as Qld Premier

Premier Steven Miles as a Tropical Cyclone Jasper briefing this week. Picture: David Clark

The leadership change certainly allows Labor a reset, but the party will struggle, nevertheless.

Miles is unpopular. He is a pseudo-Green. He is indecisive. And in my opinion he is a political lightweight as he demonstrated what I see as poor performance across several Cabinet posts.

He has failed well and truly as Minister Assisting the Premier on Olympics Infrastructure. During his time, turmoil and backlash arose around the proposed redevelopment of the Gabba and the Roma St pool plan. And Queenslanders still don’t know where the money will come from to pay for the Olympics.

Miles has had two terms as Minister for Health and Ambulance Services and was unimpressive in both. He failed to fix bed and doctor shortages and ramping. And he supported the Premier’s scaremongering during the COVID pandemic with harsh lockdowns that callously blocked Queenslanders attending their loved ones’ funerals.

Miles first joined Cabinet in February 2015 as Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection and Minister for National Parks and the Great Barrier Reef and was in that chair as panic spread about the fate of the Reef.

And while pushing a barrow for green energy projects in his role as Minister for State Development, he has failed to explain the virtues of hacking into vast areas of koala habitats and farmland for renewable powerlines.

Meanwhile, Miles showed his hostility towards the introduction of clean, green nuclear power plants in Parliament recently despite governments around the globe saying they are vital if we have any hope of reaching new-zero targets.

Miles has other problems closer to home. ALP elder Cherie Dalley was vociferous in her condemnation of Miles in his role as Minister for Local Government and Planning for failing to resolve the Logan council sacking debacle. And now she is calling on him to publicly back all the recommendations in the Fitzgerald Report II.

Miles has been equally unimpressive in his planning role, with housing shortages worsening under his watch.

Steven Miles and Shannon Fentiman arrive at the Labor caucus on Friday. Picture: Tertius Pickard

Thrust suddenly into the top job, he will quickly discover the buck now stops with him.

This week he was called out for silence on the misadventures of outgoing Transport Minister Mark Bailey who has not been a stranger to controversy since the Mangocube scandal. Miles’ silence was hardly the mark of a decisive leader.

This newspaper questioned Bailey’s stewardship of taxpayers’ money and pointed to his amateurish attempts to hide from taxpayers the massive cost blowout in the government’s Maryborough train manufacturing program.

Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie. Picture David Clark

Deputy Opposition leader Jarrod Bleijie was right when he said Miles, as leader of the left faction, should have asked Palaszczuk to sack Bailey years ago.

Bleijie warns Bailey will return to Cabinet in the unlikely event Labor wins the next election.

Opposition leader David Crisafulli was right when he told Sky News that the future of Queensland was being directed by “unelected powerbrokers” in the union movement.

Now Miles can add union puppet to his list of under-achievements.

What motivates 46-year-old Steven Miles remains a mystery to me.

We knew exactly what we were getting with our great leaders Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Mike Ahern, Wayne Goss and Campbell Newman. We don’t with Miles.

We do know he is prone to intemperate outbursts. He foolishly dismissed protestors complaining of aircraft noise as “wealthy inner-city elites”. In a recent flare-up in Parliament he described Amanda Stoker, the LNP Oodgeroo candidate, “a crazy, woman-hating lunatic”.

Miles was raised in a working-class family with his father Bruce a fitter and turner at the Golden Circle cannery and his mother, Christine, a workplace health and safety officer.

Miles benefited from a private school education at St Paul’s Anglican college at Bald Hills where he played rugby and was on the debating team.

At the University of Queensland he gained a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in journalism and political science in 2001 and later completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree. His thesis on how trade unions win memberships through workplace activism contains broad criticisms of business practices in Queensland. Not a good look for a premier attempting to entice business to invest in Queensland.

After graduation he worked as a union official at United Voice, the ambulance union and was later a policy adviser to former Treasurer Andrew Fraser.

Thrown in at the deep end as a minister in his first term in Parliament as the Member for Mount Coo-tha, Miles was prone to nervous laughs during speeches prompting Steven Wardill, the political editor of the day to nickname him “Giggles”.

Steven Miles during Question Time.

It was also the year Bullock flexed his muscles with The Courier-Mail reporting that he warned Palaszczuk to honour commitments Labor made to unions for their electoral support. Bullock went so far as to refer to the members and ministers as “United Voice MPs”.

The “United Voice MPs” publicly touted by Bullock included Thuringowa’s Aaron Harper, Capalaba’s Don Brown, Springwood’s Mick de Brenni, Pine Rivers’ Nikki Boyd, Barron River’s Craig Crawford, and ministers Coralee O’Rourke and Steven Miles.

These characters, if Bullock’s comments are right, are union puppets in my opinion. Mercifully, most will be rubbed out at the next election.

Labor wants voters to drink from a new cup, but the cup is broken.

I suspect Miles’ new ministry will struggle to placate miners and the mining industry. He seems to have a great distaste for coal miles.

Remember that Miles was one of former US Vice President Al Gore’s “Climate Reality Leaders”, who according to their website are “dedicated to mobilising actions around climate change”.

In 2007 Miles attended Gore’s training seminar in Melbourne. He said he had a green epiphany as he and his wife were “excitedly awaiting the arrival of their first child” and he “began to think more deeply about protecting Queensland’s environment”.

He went so far as to criticise the Bligh Government in 2009 for fast-tracking new mines.

Later, Gore travelled to Queensland at a cost to taxpayers of $320,000 to meet the Premier and lecture ministers about the “sustainable revolution”.

It seems to me Miles would have been better joining the Greens.