Editor’s view: Minister D’Ath must go, and Palaszczuk must listen

The government can continue to lose the argument on health, or Annastacia Palaszczuk can do what Labor insiders are telling her and appoint a new Health Minister, writes The Editor.

There are two gaping wounds on Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s government that she must cauterise to stem the bleeding.

Those wounds are health and youth crime.

The first should be dealt with by appointing a new health minister, the second by the establishment of a standing parliamentary committee.

The latter is an entirely rational idea raised in The Courier-Mail on Friday by a former colleague of Ms Palaszczuk’s – Robert Schwarten, a long-time minister in the Beattie and Bligh governments.

He said a standing committee into youth crime would be a chance for MPs to break the cycle of “finger-pointing and hysterics over youth crime rates” and instead to work together in a bipartisan way on this almost impossible issue that is of keen interest to so many Queenslanders.

We would add that it would also both give Labor a chance to have the LNP at least partially on the hook for outcomes in this area, and it would make it tougher for the opposition to be critical of the government’s inevitable failings.

Annastacia Palaszczuk and Yvette D’Ath at Redcliffe in 2014. Picture: Annette Dew

Most importantly, it might also deliver better outcomes – and that is certainly the view of those who know best. PeakCare Queensland boss Tom Allsop, for instance, said “committed and sustained bipartisan political will to listen to the evidence and deliver what actually works” was a necessity.

We agree, and to prove that she cares, the Premier should establish this standing committee.

It would come with very little political risk to her, and would deliver stacks of potential upside for the community.

It would also be a way for the government to show it genuinely cares about a topic that is the third-ranked issue in terms of importance for Queenslanders behind cost of living and housing affordability – and one that more than twice as many voters think the LNP would do a better job of handling.

It should be a no-brainer for any political leader 16 months from an election.

What should also be one of the most obvious decisions for the Premier in the current environment is that she needs a reset on health – and so move the underperforming Yvette D’Ath to a new portfolio.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath last month. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

As we have said so many times in this column over the past year or so, Ms D’Ath is simply out of her depth.

She is making poor decisions and showing weak leadership by buying rather than challenging the excuses for terrible outcomes across the public health system being spouted by her department’s bureaucrats.

A YouGov poll taken for The Courier-Mail taken four weeks ago revealed that more voters now think the LNP would be better at handling health than Labor (26 points to 22).

That is a shocking result for any Labor administration, and it is understood to have been the catalyst for the drums to really start beating within Labor when it comes to Ms D’Ath’s future as the state’s Health Minister.

Robert Schwarten was a long-time minister in the Beattie and Bligh governments.

There were two other crushing findings in the same poll: first, that one in three said they or a family member had personally been forced to wait more than four hours for treatment at a public hospital emergency department in the past three years; and second, half of the respondents were not confident an ambulance would reach their home within 15 minutes if they called one.

And so there is a choice here for the Premier: her government can continue to lose the argument on health as it limps towards the next election in October 2024, or she can do what so many inside Labor are now telling her to do and try to change the conversation by appointing a new Health Minister.

One of the Premier’s strengths is her loyalty.

But with the political risk on health now simply too high to ignore, she has to break this habit in order to save her government.

Tackling youth crime before it even begins

The most frustrating thing about youth crime is that those who work in the sector know pretty well exactly what is required to help address the challenge, but the politicians do not seem to want to engage in that conversation.

An example is given today by Family and Child Commission chief Luke Twyford, who points to a direct correlation between kids in the youth justice system and their disengagement from education, whether through expulsions or through simply not turning up.

He says tough penalties do not work for children whose troubled home life is a contributor to their behaviour, and so he has called instead for greater investment in things such as flexi-schools to allow excluded kids to continue their studies – and trauma-informed education, where teachers and support staff teach kids who need it in ways that suit their wellbeing.

It all sounds very different to the “nation’s strongest youth crime laws” doesn’t it?

And yet it also all sounds far more likely to actually have an impact by helping at-risk kids instead of simply getting tougher on them afterwards.

It is exactly the type of action The Courier-Mail’s recent Enough is Enough campaign called for.

It is also the type of action a bipartisan committee might be free to pursue.