Queensland politics: Labor Government’s 2017 report card

IT’S end-of-year report card season, and not even the State Government is immune. We rate the heroes and zeroes from a recently re-elected Labor.

• Nicholls ejected
• Top job fraught
• Union slams ministry

THE accidental and accident-prone administration is back for another term. And that was no accident.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk last month defied expectations from early in her tenure that she’d be an easybeat come the next election, successfully seeing off the Tim Nicholls-led LNP.

With the Newman era still weighing down the LNP’s saddle bags, and voters having little to blame Labor for, Palaszczuk inched over the line with a two-seat majority.

Still, it was far from a resounding victory, with Labor’s primary vote falling short of what it achieved in 2015, and satisfaction with Palaszczuk’s performance slowly leaking away.

Today’s annual Courier-Mai l report card illustrates why the Palaszczuk Government had to rely so heavily on minor parties to get re-elected after struggling to enthuse voters with its efforts.

For the second successive year, no minister received an “A” as the reform-shy administration again steered clear of tackling critical and controversial issues.

Meanwhile, a record six “Ds” have been handed out for an array of lacklustre performances and self-inflicted scandals that so often punctuated Palaszczuk’s first term.

The year was bookended by ministerial resignations with Stirling Hinchliffe, above centre, quitting at the start and Bill Byrne relinquishing his post at the end. Mr Hinchliffe returns to the new ministry.

Overall, the Government was afforded a C- for 2017.

The poor mark comes partly because after the June Budget, the Government simply ran out of puff. It spent five months doing little but playing politics.

While that worked to win an election, it ensured nothing much was done to take the state forward.

Labor’s fingers-crossed approach to the economy is a large part of the problem.

It always relied on key sectors delivering the dollars so the Government could then go and spend them.

Coal royalties delivered. But it was only enough to keep the rating-agency wolves at bay, with little left to invest in a growing backlog of infrastructure projects or to stimulate struggling areas. Take that windfall out and June’s Budget would have been awash with red.

There were some positive signs, however.

Unemployment is trending slowly down. And Queensland’s electricity price increase was well below interstate contemporaries.

As well, the Government opened up new gas fields for exploration, invested again in the Works for Queensland program, secured film deals, reformed retail trading hours and passed long-awaited reforms for children in care.

However, the year was book-ended by ministerial resignations, with Stirling Hinchliffe quitting at the start and Bill Byrne relinquishing his post at the end.

And there were plenty of scandals, particularly Energy Minister Mark Bailey’s use of private emails, which got him sin binned for a time, Police Minister Mark Ryan’s efforts spruiking “no body, no parole” laws next to parents whose son’s killer had already been secretly released, and Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath’s ham-fisted efforts to hide crucial reports.

Palaszczuk’s re-election was no accident, but dumb luck certainly played a part.

Steven Wardill is The Courier-Mail’s state affairs editor