Time for Kate Jones to decide on her political future
Kate Jones, from all reports, could no longer endure the populist posturings of the Premier, her government’s craven obeisance to the trade unions and its lack of a moral compass. She had the courage to walk, while others lean back in their leather-trimmed ministerial chairs and go with the flow, writes Mike O’Connor.
Opinion
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There must come a time in the life of our politicians when they have to decide if they are in it for the money or as they swear in their oath of office, “to well and truly serve the people of Queensland”.
State cabinet minister Kate Jones faced this fork in the road last week.
In one direction lay the path signposted Sit Down, Shut Up and Cop the Money. The other path, one rarely travelled, led to that place known as To Thine Own Self Be True.
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From all reports, Jones could no longer endure the populist posturings of Premier Palaszczuk, her government’s craven obeisance to the trade unions and its lack of a moral compass.
Queensland cabinet ministers are not supposed to entertain such dangerous thoughts. Having clambered over the backs of their fellow party hacks to get endorsed for a nice safe seat and boosted into cabinet by their union mates on the strict understanding that they do as they are told, it merely remains for them to nod at cabinet meetings as required.
To well and truly serve the people of Queensland is an honourable and noble cause and surely it is fair and reasonable for us to ask that they follow this guiding principle.
What, for example, was the input of cabinet to Ms Palaszczuk’s grand strategy to help the state’s economy survive COVID? Did they all applaud wildly as she described it as “the most comprehensive” in the country?
Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland didn’t quite see it that way, describing it as nothing more than “a rehash of announcements” that left businesses “meandering through COVID without any real plan”.
In a memo to members, CCIQ chief executive Stephen Tait described it as “neither visionary nor detailed”. It was, in other words, all talk and no substance. “To have been in for two terms, you’d expect they’d have more meat on the bones about where they want to take the economy,” CCIQ general manager of policy and advocacy Amanda Rohan said.
Did anyone in cabinet, all sworn to well and truly serve the people of Queensland, argue that these very people needed a genuine strategy if they were to be spared economic ruin, not a mishmash of recycled press releases? I think we can safely presume that they did not.
We can only imagine that the government hopes the electorate will become so dulled by the daily avalanche of spin that it will eventually accept it as the norm and no longer bother to question it.
The state economy has been on life support for some time, so did anyone in cabinet, sworn to well and truly serve the people of Queensland, question the wisdom of hiring another 4000 public servants at a cost of $600 million?
How do these same people knowingly accept a policy of opposing any attempt to shine the light of accountability on government decision-making? Everything is a secret.
Do they not, in their own quiet moments, realise that this goes against the basic democratic principle of open government? Even the less intellectually gifted of their number, of whom there are a few, must realise that in the final analysis, the people have a right to know how and why decisions are made.
It is not a difficult concept to grasp. To implement such a policy, however, would require self-interest to be put to one side and for the sole purpose of government to no longer be winning the next election.
The attitude, rather, is that they have no right to know and that the government is a private company that is operated in the best interests of the people who run it and, of course, their mates and the mates of their mates.
The people who voted them in and whose interests they have sworn to well and truly serve can only peer over the fence and wonder what goes on in that big house called government.
Occasionally, a Kate Jones declares that she has had a gutful and walks. The rest of them lean back in their leather-trimmed ministerial chairs and go with the flow. After all, how much trouble can you get into if you do nothing and say nothing?
It is easy to dismiss any suggestion that politicians show courage in the face of the party machine as naivety and that the quaint idea of doing the right thing by yourself and for those you purport to serve belongs in another age.
Another view is that they take the easy path because they lack the conviction and strength of character to take a stand and honour their oath to well and truly serve the people of Queensland, so help me God.
