Analysis: Cameron Dick saved Labor from oblivion, now he’s in the firing line

Labor’s true believers insist Steven Miles’s cost of living relief helped the party save face on Saturday night, but he could only do so after going cap-in-hand to Cameron Dick’s office, writes Hayden Johnson.

Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick. pic: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

How do you repay the man credited with helping save Labor from oblivion? Sack him, apparently.

Labor’s true believers insist Steven Miles’s cost of living relief helped the party save face on Saturday night – even though it’s probably lost 17 seats.

While Mr Miles drove this cost of living agenda – he could only do so after going cap-in-hand down one level to Treasurer Cameron Dick’s office.

For four years Mr Dick controlled the levers of cash, which flowed due to his broken election promise to change coal royalty tiers.

Cameron Dick helped save Labor from oblivion. Photo Scott Powick Courier Mail

He repeatedly denied it was a broken promise and refused to capitulate to a $40m Queensland Resources Council campaign against it.

It allowed the Labor government to splash billions of dollars on cost of living support for Queenland families and deliver 50c fares – key, Labor believes, to avoiding a worse election result.

Replacing Mr Dick as deputy opposition leader with Shannon Fentiman is how Labor’s backroom string pullers repay him.

Mr Miles’s United Workers’ Union boss Gary Bullock was probably testing the waters when he floated Fentiman, and he received white hot anger in return.

Infighting for 30 years made Labor irrelevant in Queensland before unifier Wayne Goss wrangled what journalist Murray Massey in 1989 labelled “powerful cliques of ageing men of faceless trade union background”.

Gary Bullock carries a big stick.

In threatening to impose Left supremacy, Mr Bullock risks burning down the power sharing arrangement that’s delivered Labor domination for the subsequent 35 years.

The Old Guard – led by pragmatic Grace Grace – will probably fall behind Mr Dick to avoid the civil war ignited by Ms Fentiman’s candidacy.

An emboldened Left faction in the wake of this election defeat is bad news for Mr Dick’s leadership ambitions.

He withdrew from the December contest and thought, perhaps misguidedly, they could be finally fulfilled after this election.

In his inaugural 2015 speech Mr Dick noted it is “rare in politics that one is given a second chance”.

Let alone a third.