Integrity review: Premier’s weakness on show in media response to Coaldrake report

The Premier’s weakness as a leader was on full show this morning, writes the editor, when she both refused to take any personal responsibility for integrity issues or apologise to public servants bullied by ministerial staff.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s weakness as a leader was on full show this morning when she both refused to take any personal responsibility for the integrity issues confirmed by this week’s landmark review or apologise to those public servants bullied and belittled by ministerial staff.

We understand the political strategy of trying to paint herself as the solution rather than the problem. But any real leader watching the Premier’s press conference would have been squirming, such was the lack of self awareness on show.

The other group of Queenslanders no doubt angered by the Premier’s “don’t you worry about that” attitude to review chief Professor Peter Coaldrake’s findings would have been those many public servants who have for years been the target of ministerial staffers with an overinflated sense of their own self-importance.

That is because Ms Palaszczuk’s response to a review that confirmed a culture that accepted – and even encouraged – poor treatment of hard working bureaucrats by those enlisted to the offices of the executive was to suggest it was instead because public servants were being mean to each other.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk addresses the media at a press conference after a report into state government and public service culture was released. Photo: Sarah Marshall

“Can I say I treat people with respect, and I expect everybody else to follow my lead,” the Premier said.

As to Professor Coaldrake’s thinly veiled suggestion that many of the systemic governance flaws that exist across the government were actually caused by this behaviour, the Premier waved it all away and told Queenslanders not to worry as it could be fixed by a bit of “training”.

This press conference will be remembered as one of the Premier’s worst ever performances.

She underplayed so much of what Professor Coaldrake had warned about – and by doing so suggested that she had totally missed the gravity of his findings.

For a Premier losing ground in the electorate because of apparent hubris after seven years in office, this was the worst possible strategy as a response.

It not only shows the Premier is indeed now totally out of touch but also that those advising her are either incompetent, stuck in an alternate reality of their own making, or are now living in some nightmare real-world manifestation of the Hans Christian Andersen fable The Emperors New Clothes.

Arguing that it is totally fine to grant special access to lobbyists who literally worked right at the centre of her re-election campaign because other governments in the past have done the same? That’s like saying it’s OK to steal a car because other people do it. It’s deluded.

And the fact the Premier totally squibbed the question of whether she would instruct her ministers to follow Professor Coaldrake’s advice and not deal in this term of office with those same lobbyists only strengthened the perception that they are getting special treatment from this government.

Peter Coaldrake.

In fact, there was exactly no evidence presented by her demeanour that suggests Premier Palaszczuk plans to make any real change.

We do welcome her commitment to act on all 14 of Professor Coaldrake’s recommendations, including the landmark reform to publish the detail of all Cabinet deliberations within 30 days.

But all the recommendations must be implemented in full – and in every case in the spirit with which Professor Coaldrake made them.

Sadly, the Premier was far from convincing when it came to explaining Wednesday’s “dental appointment” no-show – prompting the cynical to suggest it was likely to give her team time to brainstorm how to be seen to be responding to this report without having to actually do anything of significance. Perhaps some of those Labor-aligned lobbyists now given the green light by the Premier to continue to use their influence and access to make their own personal fortune were even summoned to 1 William Street to help strategise.

“This was a health check on government,” the Premier said repeatedly during her press conference.

Well it wasn’t. This was instead the most significant review of integrity in government in Queensland since the Fitzgerald Inquiry.

But sure Premier, if this was indeed a real health check and your government was the patient then it would be taken immediately in an ambulance to the nearest hospital (no doubt to then wait while ramped for a few hours).

What Professor Coaldrake has confirmed is the existence of a cancer that has spread over the past few years through the entire body of this government.

Taking a couple of Panadol and having a lie down will not fix a thing.

Survival now requires listening to the advice of the experts and doing exactly what they say – without hesitation.