Opinion: What was Cabinet Christmas party held at taxpayers’ expense

OPINION: A move by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to cancel the traditional Cabinet Christmas party – which last year cost taxpayers $64,000 and included personal friends on the invite list – would have sent an important message to Queenslanders, writes Kylie Lang.

As far as Christmas parties go, it was a lavish affair but you have to question why Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk held the $64,000 shindig – at taxpayers’ expense – in the first place.

It’s not as if her Minister for Red Carpets portfolio is fading into obscurity and needs visibility. Far from it – and the guest list proved as much, with socialites and Hollywood stars among the 900 or so people invited.

Annastacia Palaszczuk on the red carpet at the 2019 Logie Awards on the Gold Coast. File picture: AAP Image/Dan Peled)

And you can’t tell me that every person on that very long list wouldn’t pick up the phone if told the Premier of Queensland was on the line.

What’s more, some of those are personal friends of Ms Palaszczuk, so why not catch up in your own time?

Admittedly, not everyone who was invited turned up; I’m told it was only a few hundred people. Imagine if they’d all said yes – how much would taxpayers have forked out then?

When quizzed over the extravagance – the only word for it in these tough times when more and more Queenslanders are really struggling – Ms Palaszczuk said the Premier’s Cabinet Christmas function was “tradition”.

Previous governments had held it, and that was good enough for her.

Well, Ms Palaszczuk, you call the shots – or so you’re always keen to tell us.

“I’m the Premier,” you stated when quizzed over your leadership in an interview with The Courier-Mail this month.

You are also not averse to captain’s calls – who could forget your bizarre 2018 decision to name a Suncorp Stadium stand after the late Labor stalwart Terry Mackenroth, only for you to swiftly shelve the idea after public outcry.

Just last week you stunned colleagues by backflipping on your party’s opposition to breach of bail laws for young offenders.

So it would not have been at all out of character for you, a Premier who relishes the power of your position, to have canned this completely unnecessary Christmas party.

And it would have sent a message to Joe and Jane Public that you are not as spectacularly out of touch with them as indicated on myriad other occasions.