Julieanne Gilbert retires as MP for Mackay — This is what she’ll remember

The outgoing MP for Mackay sat down for an exclusive interview touching on her legacy, rise from a teacher to unionist to politician, and what she’s most proud of. Take a walk back in time.

Then-NQ Teachers Union Representative Julieanne Gilbert and a teacher dressed as Campbell Newman's grim reaper in front of former Thuringowa MP Sam Cox's building rallying with teachers.

It’s quiet when I walk into Julieanne Gilbert’s office.

Just one day earlier she called a snap press conference flanked by her staffers to tell Mackay after three terms and nine years she wouldn’t be contesting the next election.

Her presumed replacement, Mackay deputy mayor Belinda Hassan, was not there for Mrs Gilbert’s retirement announcement.

Mrs Gilbert returned the favour the next day when Ms Hassan was anointed by Premier Steven Miles.

Julieanne Gilbert and her staff at her retirement announcement. Picture: Michaela Harlow

There were other commitments with community groups she didn’t want to toss aside, Mrs Gilbert tells me.

Uninterested in a big send off or party, she didn’t mind there were no senior Labor members by her side.

For the fifth-generation Mackay local that gave nearly a decade of service to her seat and almost 25 years to the party, it felt like an underwhelming bow out.

Teacher to union to politics

Growing up a working class girl in North Mackay with cane farming grandparents, Mrs Gilbert tells me she never had a game plan for life and was one of those people who liked change.

Like many of her classmates she didn’t finish her senior years at school because she was keen to get out and get a job. She worked for a photographer for 10 years.

Mrs Gilbert would later finish her school years at TAFE then study teaching at university as a mature age student, attending night school and working — she takes care to point out Gough Whitlam’s free university degrees made that possible.

Julieanne Gilbert with her husband Frank Gilbert. They were engaged at the time, and this photo was his headshot as the Labor candidate for Dawson in 1996.

But frustrations can build over how funding gaps between private and public school play out in primary school classrooms, especially over 12 years.

So Mrs Gilbert joined the teachers union to fight for far more students than those just under her tutelage. It’s clearly still her greatest passion.

“Every time you get more resources in classrooms, that’s betterment of children, it supports families because state schools take all families,” she said.

“There are some families that just can’t speak up for themselves.”

When her predecessor Tim Mulherin retired as an MP, she was a 15-year veteran of the Labor Party with 12 years experience in the teachers’ union and grabbed her chance with both hands.

Annastacia Palaszczuk in Mackay (c) with then-new local candidate Julieanne Gilbert and Tim Mulherin during the election campaign of 2015. Picture: Tara Croser.

Achievements, points of pride

In her first campaign for parliament she pushed hard for state funds to repair the Vines Creek bridges on Harbour Rd and was ecstatic when the money was in the budget.

“They were literally falling to bits,” Mrs Gilbert said.

“The sugar trucks were only carrying half their load because it could only handle a certain weight.”

Julieanne Gilbert as a QTU Organiser delegate to Mackay QCU. Picture: Michaela Harlow

It’s not the big ticket items she gets excited about though, it’s the emotional ones.

Still a teacher at heart, Mrs Gilbert was bursting with pride talking about the Kutta Mulla Gorinna Special Assistance School and the kids it’s helped from falling through the cracks of the public school system.

Just this month a 30-year-lease was secured for the school to expand into a new location at the former Sydney St fire station thanks to her efforts.

“That’s 74 kids that have got a future,” she said.

“That’s really special.”

Member for Mackay Julieanne Gilbert at the Greater Possibilities event at Parliament House in Brisbane on Tuesday, October 10, 2023.

Frank Gilbert, her husband, is chairman at the school.

Her biggest portfolio win was as the assistant health minister. And it isn’t the $250m Mackay hospital expansion she’s most proud of but securing funding to keep the hospital’s heart catheter lab open 24/7.

Then-Queensland Teachers Union North Queensland organiser Julieanne Gilbert at the stop work meeting by William Ross State High teachers at the Annandale Community Hall. Picture: Evan Morgan

Before that funding, patients had to go to Townsville.

“Most people have heart attacks in the middle of the night,” she points out.

“Having a team here means people can get their catheters in, stents in straight away. It stops the deterioration of that heart muscle.

“People have stopped dying.”

When is it time to call quits?

One week before she said she wouldn’t be contesting the election, Mrs Gilbert had told us the exact opposite.

“I was still deciding,” she said.

“I wanted to be fair to the community. To say ‘oh maybe I will, maybe I won’t’ people will get sick of you.”

Queensland Teachers Union representatives Abby Thomas, Julieanne Gilbert and Leta Threlfall. Picture: Evan Morgan

She needed to speak with the premier, Queensland Labor state secretary Kate Flanders, her faction, and her staff first.

“I didn’t want to let my team down. They’re not just my political party, they’re my friends and my colleagues,” Mrs Gilbert said.

“While I hadn’t decided the best thing for me to do was to say I’m running, because I was. I had not made that final decision.”

Legacy, future of Mackay

The big transformational changes she’s working on for Mackay are teetering on the edge of possibility as polls predict the LNP will take power.

The opposition is committed to scrapping the Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro centrepiece that in Mrs Gilbert’s telling will secure a future for Mackay that’s not dependent on sugar and coal prices.

The project’s guarantee of stable green power is what international investors are looking for, she says.

“People won’t buy our goods if we’re not sustainable and green.”

Julieanne Gilbert. Picture: Lee Constable

Entirely new industries want to leverage Mackay’s highly skilled workforce, the logistic advantages from billions worth of existing infrastructure thanks to mining, and cane sugar as a feedstock, she said.

“But if we don’t have it, we’ll just be the same old, same old. We might get one or two new factories here, or maybe we won’t. They’ll follow the green energy wherever it goes.”

We can’t compete on sugar prices with India and Brazil but we can sell Mackay on being sustainable with plenty of biofuels and energy right on our doorstep, she says.

And Mrs Gilbert isn’t naive to community concerns around the project and sees “people are scared of change”.

“I’ve spoken to people who say ‘well 2000 platypus are going to be killed’ and I ask them how do they know that?

“Well we had to have a number,” she said they responded.

The outgoing MP just wants people to wait until all environmental studies are completed before they dismiss it.

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done with Mackay in my heart” – Julieanne Gilbert. Picture: Michaela Harlow

“There will be difficulties for the families impacted,” Mrs Gilbert admits.

“I would find it difficult if I had to consider where else I had to live, but we should give it a fair crack.”

She knows not everyone will agree with the decisions made but holds her chin up high knowing she made them for the right reasons.

“I’ve found it amazing to be the state member for Mackay,” she said.

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done with Mackay in my heart.”