Jim Madden’s defection exposes deep rifts within Palaszczuk Government
What drove Ipswich MP Jim Madden from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Right faction into the arms of Deputy Premier Jackie Trad’s Left faction has all the makings of a political ‘who done it’, writes Steven Wardill.
Opinion
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JIM Madden, the Ipswich West MP whose factional defection has exposed deep rifts within the Palaszczuk Government, has always seemed a thoroughly decent fellow to me.
Courteous and considered but with a streak of eccentricity about him, Madden certainly doesn’t appear to have the characteristics that traditionally define a political troublemaker.
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Until Tuesday night, his two-term career as an erstwhile Labor backbencher was more humdrum than high-profile.
He redefined vanilla in an age when it's trendy to be any other flavour and certainly wasn’t someone that I ever imagined might make interesting column fodder.
Yet what drove Madden, whose Labor roots stretch back to when his grandad was the president of the Marburg branch, from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Right faction into the arms of Deputy Premier Jackie’s Left faction has all the makings of a political “who done it”.
Why would a bloke who questioned aspects of abortion laws, who spoke of his guiding faith and local parish priest in his inaugural speech and who has supported a new thermal coal mine near his electorate join the Labor faction whose members shudder at the mere mention of all of these things?
Critics within the Right point to unrealised ambition and the healthy stipends that come with promotion for the 62-year-old’s latter day conversion to Left faction fidelity.
His new-found factional friends blame the Right’s bullyboy tactics and perceived threats to his political future for Madden jumping ship.
Truth be told, no one really knows and Madden isn’t saying.
All he’s offered is a somewhat curious observation that the shift to the Treasurer’s faction will help him secure funding for his diverse electorate.
Regardless, Madden’s move exposes how the internecine warfare that’s raged for almost a decade now beneath the surface of Queensland Labor, and at times exploded into public view in spectacular fashion, continues unabated.
Left faction powerbrokers didn’t accept Madden’s nomination because he fitted with their ethos. They did it because it was a juicy opportunity to stick a thumb in the eye of the once-dominant Right and because he represented another number.
The Left’s bloviating backroom dealers didn’t give a toss about how an internal power play might look for Ms Palaszczuk in the middle of a global health pandemic that is rapidly escalating into an economic crisis.
Madden’s number didn’t even change much for the immediate future with the Left still two short of an outright majority of the current Labor caucus. But be damned they did it anyway.
Yesterday’s Cabinet Budget Review Committee, where Palaszczuk and the three faction leaders Trad, Cameron Dick (Right) and Kate Jones (Old Guard) gather to make the big decisions, must have made for a rather tense affair.
The Premier had already publicly sniffed at the distraction while haughtily declaring “frankly I don't have time for factional games”.
But maybe if she found time then these kinds of things wouldn’t keep on happening under her watch.
Old stagers are prone to pointing out “this wouldn’t have happened in my day” but on this occasion they’re mostly right.
Sure, there have been occasions in the past when an MP changed factions.
Judy Spence switching when the Left wanted to dump her from the ministry and Ronan Lee joining the Right in a vainglorious search for a friend are two examples that come to mind.
But it was always tumultuous and rare under Labor premiers of the recent past and it’s hard to imagine it would have happened in the middle of a crisis.
Factions have always played a part in the great post-election carve-ups of positions but they had no real influence on the direction of those governments.
However, there’s been a dramatic shift since 2015 and factional imperatives are omnipresent within the Palaszczuk administration.
Factions now hold individual meetings to thrash out positions before the entire caucus gets together, which was unheard of in the past.
Maybe it’s symbolic of the widening ideological divide that’s developed within Labor or maybe it’s the personalities of the current players.
Probably it’s a little bit of both.
Yet while the defection of a backbencher, one that few Queenslanders knew and even fewer regarded, might seem irrelevant, it demonstrates the Government still hasn’t been able to get it together more than five years on from an unexpected victory.
Madden will have his reasons for defection.
But he’s just a pawn in the long-running Left/Right factional fight that some continue to prioritise over getting on and governing.
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