Opinion: Qld Labor factional games come at worst possible time
While Queenslanders are worried about their jobs, the State Labor Government is giving the appearance of being beset with self-interest, writes Steven Wardill.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
ANNASTACIA Palaszczuk is rightly peeved that a bitter factional brawl has erupted within her Government just as she’s concentrating on the coronavirus crisis.
Why wouldn’t she be?
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk responds to MP defection
State backbench MP Jim Madden defects to Labor’s Left faction
It makes the Premier’s second-term administration appear beset by self-interest, as tens of thousands of Queenslanders are desperately trying to get back to work.
However, while Ms Palaszczuk might not have time for factional games, as she declared, she cannot absolve herself of responsibility for making sure they don’t happen, particularly in the middle of a pandemic.
Ms Palaszczuk, and those who insist they support the Premier, should have convinced Ipswich West defector Jim Madden that the last thing that the Government needed right now is to appear more interested in internal machinations.
And rather than tick and flick Mr Madden’s application, the Left faction leadership should have done the same.
Labor’s factional games might seem like an irrelevant flea circus to many Queenslanders.
In many ways they are.
But numbers dictate everything about how Labor operates, and that has always been particularly so for the current Queensland Government.
Mr Madden gives the Left 23 votes in Labor’s 48-member Caucus, just shy of a majority.
With the support of unaligned Member for Maryborough Bruce Saunders, who quit the Left after a verbal tiff with Treasurer Jackie Trad, the faction can control the Government’s agenda.
While sometimes there’s broad agreement and factions don’t matter, such issues are few and far between.
But in the end, the factions should only be as influential as the Premier allows them to be.
Given she’s been Queensland Labor leader for over eight years now Ms Palaszczuk should have the gravitas to get them in line and start acting for the good of the government.
Why hasn’t that happened?
Both parties’ multibillion-dollar elephant in the room
The big elephant in the room of this state election campaign is how the winner will pay for its billions of dollars’ worth of promises, writes the editor.
What’s happened to the good old days of Queensland politics?
If you thought the first three weeks of this campaign was dull, the breathless tough talk from two Labor candidates might push you over the edge, writes state political editor Hayden Johnson.