Editorial: Labor faithful must lament a govt that’s lost its way

The clock is ticking on a government that has lost its way. Change must come, and all who believe in the Labor movement must demand it, writes the editor.

The Palaszczuk government is not in a good place. For some reason it cannot get out of its own way, lurching daily from crisis to drama, mostly of its own making. This is not a good sign 14 months from polling day.

Government strategists had clearly hoped to clear the air ahead of the first sitting of Parliament in nine weeks with the release at 5.40pm on Monday of the review of Transport Minister Mark Bailey’s office’s request for the department to help keep a $2.4bn cost blowout from taxpayers.

It was not to be, with the issue of both the cover-up and the cost blowout still dominating Question Time on Tuesday, forcing the Premier to declare how proud “every member of my government” was that trains were being built in Maryborough (at a cost now of $9.5bn – or more than three rebuilt Gabba stadiums).

Meanwhile outside Parliament, hundreds of farmers had gathered to protest what they claimed was serious environmental damage being done by one of the government’s key promises – to have 70 per cent of Queensland’s energy produced by renewable sources such as wind, solar and pumped hydro by 2032. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will no doubt be hoping the nickname “Platypus Killer” does not stick.

Fast-forward a day and we find Parliament again under siege, this time from victims of the youth crime epidemic the government appears powerless to get on top of.

They chanted “Annastacia, we want to meet with you” – but the Premier stayed safely ensconced inside, her staff claiming ironically that it would be a security issue for her to front the crowd of people who were protesting solely because they no longer felt they had their own sense of security.

One of those victims – Lee Lovell, whose wife was stabbed to death by youths in her home at Christmas – was soon whisked away for a personal meeting with the premier. Bizarrely his local MP, Chris Whiting, did not tell Mr Lovell the Premier wanted to meet with him – instead, that his lawyer wanted a word. This weird cloak-and-daggers act became the story, with the Premier grilled the next day on breakfast television about it. It was a massive own goal.

Meanwhile in the chamber, Police Minister Mark Ryan snuck in more than 50 pages of amendments to a much smaller piece of legislation. They were labelled “technicalities”, but actually included significant changes to override human rights protecting children by declaring police watch houses official youth prisons – and allowing authorities to hold kids there indefinitely.

That extraordinary move – to bypass the committee system that normally scrutinises changes of such significance – prompted Katter Party leader Robbie Katter to say it was “certainly no better” than the failed LNP administration led by Campbell Newman: “Even in the Newman government when the bikie laws were rushed through, we still had an emergency briefing, staffers came to us recognising it was all lumped on us at the last minute. Well what have we got here? We haven’t had a briefing from anyone’s office, any of the minister’s offices, for something that is being rushed through, so it doesn’t speak well of the government’s actions here.”

Again, it was a massive own goal. But it is worse than that. Freeing the way for kids to be locked up in watch houses will have left many Labor voters shaking their heads – wondering when this government turned into a bunch of “Tories”. Among them will be many who are more than confused; they will be repulsed, and so will turn to the Greens – the exact scenario this Labor Government must surely be trying to avoid at all costs.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader David Crisafulli is sharpening his lines ahead of the election, which will be on October 26 next year.

He told The Courier-Mail’s Bush Summit in Rockhampton last week the campaign would be dominated by the issues of health, housing and “particularly law and order”.

Mr Crisafulli also took aim at the Premier for having taken too long to admit Minister Bailey had made a mistake. He said: “If you believe in Westminster government you believe in holding ministers accountable, and I can assure you if I was the premier and someone decided to overrun a project by $2.4bn – and hide it – it wouldn’t take six Courier-Mail front pages for that person to be held accountable.”

And then to his pitch, which we can all expect to hear again over the next year: “I want to get back to a time where Queenslanders look at their government and say, ‘I’m proud of that government, it conducts itself with integrity, decency (and) when it says it’s going to do something, it does.’

“That matters to me. There will be times when people make mistakes, but a culture of underperformance and – even worse than that – deliberate cover-ups, that has to be called out.”

This is all fertile ground for an opposition leader. But the seeds were sown by a government that is quickly losing its way. The clock is ticking. Change must come – and all who believe in the Labor movement must demand it.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here