Editor’s view: Crucial year for Premier to save her job

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will return to work next week after an overseas holiday knowing that she needs to turn things around after a terrible 2022, writes The Editor.

In Aussie Rules, the third quarter is often referred to as the “premiership quarter” – the most important period of the match to increase a team’s chance of winning. It will likely be the same in politics this year – the third in the state’s first four-year government term.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will return to work next week after an overseas holiday knowing that she needs to turn things around after a terrible 2022 – a year that included a government integrity crisis, an exposure of a toxic culture in the police service, and serious failures at the state’s DNA lab. The state’s hospitals were meanwhile constantly in the news for all the wrong reasons, and the inability of authorities to keep a lid on youth crime reached its zenith with the tragic stabbing death of North Lakes mum Emma Lovell in her home on Boxing Day.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk needs to turn around the performance of her government in 2023. Picture: David Clark

On a personal front, the year was not much better for the Premier either. She faced criticism for appearing more interested in red carpet events than addressing the significant issues laid out above, was caught out having bizarrely invited her partner Dr Reza Adib to a high-level meeting with the International Olympic Committee, and was forced to add “Paralympics” to her title of Minister for the Olympics after para-athletes went public to reveal she had for more than several months been refusing to do so.

Ms Palaszczuk ended the year having lost all the popularity with the voting public she had earned during the pandemic years, as polling also showed her Labor Party’s electoral fortunes had slumped to 50-50 on a two-party preferred basis. But she was still more popular than her Opposition rival David Crisafulli – for whom this year is also just as critical as he bids to take the premiership at the election on October 26, 2024.

According to that same polling taken in early December, 42 per cent of Queenslanders are yet to form an opinion on whether Mr Crisafulli is doing a good job. That is both an opportunity for him, and a distinct challenge.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli needs to drive generational change within the LNP. Picture: Emily Barker.

Oppositions do not tend to win government. It is more often the case that unpopular governments lose office. But most successful opposition leaders do enough in the lead-up to the election to prove to the electorate that they could be trusted to take office. That is Mr Crisafulli’s key challenge – to present as a viable alternative.

There is another challenge too, and that is that the stench of the failed Newman government a full decade ago now is still pervasive. The threat of a return to that style of government is never far from the lips of any Palaszczuk government minister who is under pressure.

Mr Crisafulli, then, not only needs to convince Queenslanders he would be a good premier but that, despite his frontbench still being home to a number of former Newman government ministers – including himself (he was Local Government Minister) – they have nothing to fear. Those fears are no doubt unfounded, but the stench remains, so the challenge will be tougher than it should be.

Mr Crisafulli needs to drive generational change, including actively recruiting more women to run for the LNP in winnable seats. We would also suggest he takes the opportunity of this premiership quarter year to suggest to some of the old faces in safe seats that it is time they made way for the new.