Opinion: Maybe the Premier should just consult the public

Annastacia Palaszczuk has engaged a consultant to deal with her response to COVID-19 and naturally, as taxpayers, we are picking up the tab. But all she really needs to do is ask the people, writes Mike O’Connor.

When faced with the discomfiting realisation that you are struggling to do the job for which you are being paid, what to do?

For most of us, the options are to get smarter and try harder or give up and suffer the consequences.

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Politicians, however, when faced with the not infrequent hurdle of difficulties which are manifestly beyond their intellectual capabilities, summon the nearest lackey and get them to fetch a consultant.

Consultants tread a well-worn path to the offices of Queensland cabinet ministers and few know their way through the serpentine corridors which lead to the Palaszczuk government’s inner circle better than Mike Kaiser.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has engaged a consultant regarding her response to COVID-19. (News Corp/Attila Csaszar)

He was, after all, a former chief-of-staff to previous Labor premier Anna Bligh and once represented the good people of Woodridge in state parliament for the Labor Party until he admitted his involvement in party ballot vote rigging to a commission of inquiry. He was subsequently disendorsed by the party but continued a close affiliation with it.

Now a consultant, he has been engaged by the Premier to deal with her response to COVID-19.

Naturally, as taxpayers we are picking up the tab, with Kaiser’s hiring a bald admission that the Premier and the massed cerebral power of her cabinet are incapable of dealing with the issue.

Nor, apparently, are the serried ranks of senior and highly remunerated public servants able to produce one from among their number whose insight and perspicacity in matters of state can match those of the former honourable member for Woodridge.

Some might think that if it’s political advice Kaiser is providing, then the Premier should be paying for it herself. Should we really be footing the bill for someone to tell her how to limit the political fallout from COVID-19 and win the October 31 election?

The Premier has made a point of telling anyone with the ears to listen that in her response to the virus issues, she is only following the advice of the state’s Chief Health Officer, Dr Young.

If this is so, you would think it to be a fairly straightforward affair with the Premier merely reading from the script handed her by Dr Young. The services of Kaiser in this matter would appear to be superfluous.

It is however just possible that Kaiser, who has worked on political strategy for former New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma, has been summonsed to work out the best way COVID-19 can be manipulated to boost Ms Palaszczuk’s electoral chances.

This would mean that consideration of what is best for Queenslanders is running a distant second to what is the best strategy for keeping the Premier in the Big Job.

It would be irritating in the extreme if the reason our borders remain sealed, separating us from family and friends and destroying livelihoods, is because the Premier and the medically unqualified Kaiser have decided that it’s a vote winner.

We don’t know what advice Kaiser might be giving but after decades of writing to and for Queenslanders in this newspaper, I can tell her one thing for nothing – it’s wrong.

Listen to the people, Premier. They’re the ones who put you there, not consultants.