Jackie Trad: There’s no one in Queensland politics like the former deputy premier, don’t write her off
In the three decades I’ve been covering Queensland politics, I’ve never seen a figure as complex as Jackie Trad. She polarises, charms, offends, disarms and blasts her personality into any debate – and that’s just in the first 20 minutes, writes Peter Gleeson.
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IN THE three decades or so I’ve been covering Queensland politics, never have I seen such a complex figure as Jackie Trad. She polarises, charms, offends, bullies, cajoles, bulldozes, disarms and blasts her personality into any debate – and that’s in the first 20 minutes.
But one thing her detractors – and supporters – agree upon. She can never, ever be under- estimated.
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Nobody has been a harsher critic of Jackie Trad than me. Her Left-wing ideology leaves me cold. It’s the politics of envy dressed up as social justice.
But we’re on a unity ticket when it comes to a better Queensland. It’s just that her path to a better and more prosperous Queensland is different to mine.
On that basis we’d had very little contact in the past 18 months. Until yesterday, when she agreed to come on my Sky News show and talk about her brush with the Crime and Corruption Commission over a house purchase by her husband Damien van Brunschot.
She said she’d apologised to Damien and her family for the CCC “mess’’ and it was sloppy paperwork rather than dishonesty that sparked the probe.
Labor sources tell me the LNP’s “Dodgy Jackie’’ tag has resonated in South Brisbane and it is important she convince Labor voters that she is honest and trustworthy. Nobody can criticise her work ethic.
If Trad’s policy position was to lurch to the Centre – even slightly - she’d be a much more “saleable’’ Labor politician.
She faces a massive task winning South Brisbane with the strong Greens vote and the LNP putting her last on their how-to-vote-cards.
Just don’t write her off.