Mike O’Connor: Vultures are gathering as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk faces her demise
The Palaszczuk government is like a punch-drunk prize fighter, taking wild policy swings on issues such as youth crime, population growth and infrastructure needs as if they occurred yesterday, writes Mike O’Connor.
Mike O'Connor
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There’s a morbid fascination in watching the death dance of a government as it heads inexorably towards the electoral grave that awaits.
The Palaszczuk government is now teetering to a political demise, twisting and turning as it tries to escape the shackles of its own making, shackles forged in the fires of indolence, arrogance, opacity and incompetence.
The central characters are already eyeing the chalice of leadership as the backroom mutterings of discontent among the ranks of those who have ridden the Premier’s bandwagon increase.
Nothing quite focuses the attention of a politician in government as a threat to their place at the publicly funded trough, a focus that sharpens as they ponder life in opposition or – shock horror – the possibility of having to find a real job.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s star is fading.
You might wonder how it has shone for so long.
Covid helped, the shameless scare tactics, secret health advice that ever so handily fitted the government’s agenda, the brutal politics of state against state, Queensland hospitals are for Queenslanders and police state border edicts and lockdowns frightening people into the belief that rather than using the virus as political leverage to tighten her grip on power, she was acting for the common good.
We won’t fall for it again; the only reminder of those days being those masks that you keep finding in among your socks drawer and the sight of the richly rewarded former chief health officer descending from Government House in her chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce.
Much as government members might try to lay the blame for their failing fortunes at the feet of the Premier, they have all nodded in mute agreement to her pronouncements at every turn.
There is the shambles that is the Health Department and its attendant hospital system, a bloated public service, which with access to staff guaranteed, provides rich pickings for the trade union comrades and, which in spite of its massive size, spends millions on consultants.
Lobbyists continue to peddle influence in spite of the Coaldrake Report and the Premier’s hand-on-heart assurance that its recommendations would be implemented “lock, stock and barrel”.
Sections of the Bruce Highway resemble a goat track and make it one of the most dangerous stretches of roads in the country.
And in the past nine years, the government has not removed a single railway level crossing. In the same period, Victoria removed 70.
The Cross River Rail project has doubled in cost while the government has failed to adequately explain how the cost of new trains exploded by more than $2bn.
It’s not a lot if you say it quickly, but that’s two thousand million dollars.
Its bungled attempt to hide this from the public now heads any list of Political Own Goals.
The Premier’s insistence of placing her government in direct control of infrastructure for Brisbane 2032 is egomania writ large and a recipe for disaster.
How a government that is incapable of removing a level crossing will oversee the Brisbane Games beggars belief.
A lack of planning to ensure water security and build dams means there is now talk of expensive and energy intensive desalination plants.
Not to be outdone in the unholy rush to build renewable power generation, we have been promised pumped-hydro systems.
Pigs will fly before they come on stream, while many of our children perform poorly in an education system effectively run by the unions.
Populism abounds as shown by Treasurer Cameron Dick’s chest-thumping attack on BHP, threatening to tear up its mining leases if it did not spend money on them in the wake of his huge hike in royalty payments.
When they had stopped laughing for long enough to pick themselves up off the floor, BHP executives gave Mr Dick a lesson in economics.
“If returns go down and risk goes up, of course that makes investments elsewhere, in relative terms, more attractive,” BHP chief executive Mike Henry said.
In other words, the world is a big place. See you later, Queensland.
The government, like a punch-drunk prize fighter, is now taking wild policy swings and reacting to issues such as youth crime, population growth and infrastructure needs as if they occurred yesterday and without warning. They didn’t.
While the Premier enjoys her current holiday, she might ponder the lyrics of The Gambler:
“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em. Know when to walk away and know when to run.”
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