Annastacia Palaszczuk, Gary Bullock, Jackie Trad: Who’s really running Queensland
To understand how Queensland operates is to understand how Annastacia Palaszczuk and Gary ‘Blocker’ Bulloch have been intertwined in running the state.
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It’s a typical Monday morning in 2015 for freshly minted Environment Minister Steven Miles as his closest aides gather as they prepare to set the weekly policy framework.
But in what is becoming a regular occurrence, the silence is punctuated by an incoming mobile phone call to Miles from United Workers Union boss Gary “Blocker” Bullock.
It is the first year of the Palaszczuk government, and those at the meeting march out as Miles motions for them to leave. This is a call he wants to take in private.
“It seemed like nothing was more important than taking that call,” an insider recalls.
“A lot has been said, and quite rightly, about the influence of lobbyists with this government, but what about the senior union officials who have had unfettered access since 2015? There’s no doubt that powerful figures within the union movement – who openly brag about how they’ve helped win elections and control the dominant Left wing faction – have enormous power and dictate the industrial and political play in this state.”
And it’s a truth known to all insiders. When The Courier-Mail blew the whistle on the fact that still no decisions are made by cabinet without asking “what does Blocker think?” – and naming him the state’s most powerful person (with the Premier at No. 2) – not a single denial was forthcoming. The state’s worst-kept secret had been revealed.
In fact, on January 31, 2015, when the single-term Newman government was politically burned to the ground, there were two big winners.
One was Annastacia Palaszczuk. The other was Bullock. To understand how Queensland has operated in the eight years since is to understand how the two have been intertwined in running the state.
A BLOCKER ON EVEREST’S TOP
Palaszczuk’s ascension from being a junior minister in the Bligh government who wasn’t considered leadership material to Queensland premier was so unlikely that even as she was moved within sight of victory on election night 2015, her dad Henry articulated the long odds.
“I don’t think that even in her wildest dreams she’d imagine being Leader of the Opposition,” he said.
“But she became that … and now she’s on the cusp of achieving something special.”
It was a remarkable and unlikely ascension that did not only surprise the Palaszczuk family. In a television interview after Labor had been routed in 2012, party leviathan Beattie had struggled to recall her name when asked who was likely to be the party’s new state leader.
“The lass from Inala,’’ was the best Beattie could do on the spot.
That slight was seared in the minds of people close to Palaszczuk for years.
To this day, Palaszczuk is something of an enigma.
While being naturally risk averse, she has thrived in a cutthroat world which usually rewards high-energy opportunists.
She’s a child of Labor factional politics and a member of a political dynasty, however her main appeal to voters is that she seems relatable and trustworthy; certainly anything but a scheming politician.
She’s not known for a particular cerebral depth on policy, but has a brilliant compass for the mindset of everyday Queenslanders and a photographic memory; she reads a speech once and remembers it.
She’s also “as cunning as a shithouse rat’’, says a former staffer.
Plenty of senior business and political figures say she can be awkward in private and is not a natural conversationalist, but she’s charmed global heavyweights like IOC president Thomas Bach.
She’s known among some colleagues for her warmth – they say she remembers the birthdays of staff in her office and pays for birthday cakes from her own pocket.
But others relate a story about how she has supposedly received multiple disconnection notices after forgetting to pay her home electricity bills.
Those who have been on the wrong side of her tell of how quick Palaszczuk is to put “on ice” anybody she feels has unnecessarily challenged her, or if she thinks they have been disloyal.
Palaszczuk has meanwhile been incredibly public with current boyfriend, surgeon Reza Adib, but for the first three years of her premiership rarely acknowledged in public her relationship with then-boyfriend Shaun Drabsch.
And for seven years her personal popularity has been crucial to keeping the government afloat and taking down a conga line of LNP leaders, but she doesn’t weaponise it to neuter her union puppet masters inside Labor.
In 2012, when Palaszczuk took control of a seven-person caucus that would famously fit in a Tarago, the fresh face of Queensland Labor laughably declared “the time for factions is no more”.
Getting back to government was “going to be like climbing Mount Everest” and she wanted “to see doctors, nurses, railway workers nominate to become candidates for the Australian Labor Party”.
The sham pledge to kill the factions became Palaszczuk’s first broken promise within just a few weeks, when party apparatchik Jackie Trad was endorsed as the by-election candidate to succeed the exiting Bligh in the seat of South Brisbane.
Palaszczuk was supposed to be the stalking horse for Trad, who many party strategists believed would take over the leadership after the inevitable loss of the 2015 election.
But those strategists could not have dreamt of the malignance of voter hatred for Campbell Newman by polling day – combined with the impact on the election from interventions of Clive Palmer, broadcaster Alan Jones, police union boss Ian Leavers, the effectiveness of Labor’s anti-asset sales scare campaign, and Palaszczuk’s homespun appeal.
A CREATURE OF THE LEFT
Union leader Bullock is fond of three things: Fishing, camping and ruthlessly wielding political power from the shadows. Queensland Labor’s ultimate faceless man pulled off a masterstroke at the 2015 election.
As everybody wrote off Labor’s chances of winning due to the mountainous LNP majority, Bullock sniffed the opportunity and stood Left faction candidates in tough seats.
He knew Newman was on the nose and sensed that anything was possible.
It paid off, with a statewide primary vote swing of 10.81 per cent and a two-party preferred swing of 14 per cent that saw Labor pick up 37 seats and the LNP lose 36, allowing Palaszczuk to form a minority government with the help of Nicklin independent Peter Wellington.
The Left was now the dominant faction, headed in the parliamentary wing of the party by incoming deputy premier Trad.
One prescient party source at the time told The Courier-Mail then that the newly minted Premier Palaszczuk – from the Right faction – was “now pretty much a creature of the Left who’ll make all kinds of demands on her or they’ll tear her down”.
Just a few weeks after the election, The Courier-Mail ran a story about union bosses warning Palaszczuk to “honour commitments Labor made to them’’, issuing blatant reminders of how they had helped the party secure an unlikely win.
Bullock even went so far as to refer to the members and ministers as “United Voice MPs”.
The “United Voice MPs” publicly touted by Bullock included Thuringowa’s Aaron Harper, Capalaba’s Don Brown, Springwood’s Mick de Brenni, Pine Rivers’ Nikki Boyd, Barron River’s Craig Crawford, and ministers Coralee O’Rourke and Steven Miles.
At the time, Palaszczuk said she did not feel as though her government was indebted to the union movement.
When asked directly whether she believed her government owed the unions anything for the role they played in her election win, she said: “No, I believe that we should be working as one – the business community, the labour movement, and my government should be working as one to generate jobs in this state.”
They were weasel words then, and are even more so now.
The Premier said Bullock’s comments did not concern her.
Naivety or wishful thinking? Maybe both.
“I’m not worried (about) what Gary Bullock is saying to his membership, he’s standing up for the rights of his membership right across this state,” she said.
When asked whether Bullock was “overstating” his influence, Palaszczuk said: “I think people can draw their own assumptions and perhaps some people put more emphasis on those issues, but what I will say is that my members will always stand up for members.”
But one insider now reveals just how forward Bullock is in exerting his influence.
“Post-election, Blocker would check in with ministers who’d had their campaigns bankrolled by the union to see if they wanted to keep their well-paid jobs – and portfolios – as Labor’s factions jostled for positions in the new Cabinet,” the source said.
“It wasn’t only a welfare check – rather the union wanting to know whose names they’d be putting forward to continue doing their bidding in the Cabinet room.”
On April 8, 2015, United Voice posted a YouTube video that featured Bullock, the union’s secretary, opening with footage of Palaszczuk telling supporters: “Can I thank the union movement?
“United Voice members knew the state election was the most important in decades, it was about the future of Queensland … and they put in an extraordinary effort,” Bullock tells viewers.
“Members fought like they’ve never fought before and it worked. Now they just want the Labor government to follow through on their promises. That’s the test.”
Bullock goes on to say that United Voice members “won some fantastic commitments from Labor”, adding that they now “want to see the new Palaszczuk government restore their faith, just stick to their word”.
Another video, posted by United Voice just days earlier, also celebrates the election of the seven MPs, with a presenter saying: “This means that there are people in parliament who have directly represented you as delegates or officials and now they can make sure your voice is heard in government.”
Labor insiders say Palaszczuk made a catastrophic mistake by failing to assert her authority early.
“She won in 2015 because (Campbell) Newman was on the nose and she campaigned on honesty and transparency and the public bought it,’’ one senior Labor figure said.
“Yes, the unions played a role. Unquestionably.
“But in the days after 2015, Gary Bullock let everybody know that he was in charge.
“Annastacia should have called him in and said ‘listen mate, I’m the Premier, now f--k off and let me run the show’.
“That’s what (Wayne) Goss, (Peter) Beattie and even (Anna) Bligh would have done. Instead, she’s let him (Bullock) and Miles hijack the agenda.
“It’s a symptom of poor leadership and it will bite her on the arse big time next election.
“Queensland is the most conservative state in the country. The punters won’t cop being run by socialists.
“Blocker is only powerful because she gives him the power. The unions are running this government and everybody knows it. That didn’t even happen under (former PM Bob) Hawke.’’
BEST OF FRENEMIES
Annastacia Palaszczuk had achieved the impossible.
But as The Courier-Mail front page noted the day after her February 14 2015 swearing-in, now was time for the hard part.
Having unexpectedly reached the summit of her political Everest, Palaszczuk wisely surrounded herself with savvy political operatives.
Terry Mackenroth was called in to help the transition from Opposition to government, Dave Stewart appointed Director General of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, David Barbagallo became her chief of staff in 2017, while her father’s trusted former ministerial media adviser, the impressive Kirby Anderson was a senior media adviser and became deputy chief of staff. They were no-nonsense types and they had plenty of input – and their experience would contrast some of the operatives who would eventually replace them.
Palaszczuk began her first term with great caution, ordering scores of reviews into what she saw as overreach and wastage by the Newman government.
It was a steady as she goes approach that suited a minority government.
The Premier was content to be a small target, cognisant of how Newman had made himself a big target with just about everybody who voted – doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, bureaucrats … even bikies. While those reviews sparked a paralysis in the government that continues to this day, those at the very top of the government in that first year now recall having never worked harder than in those early months.
This was an administration that genuinely believed it was acting on the trust the people of Queensland had placed in it, they say.
There was also no doubting Palaszczuk’s popularity with the public in these early months. Women, in particular, loved her, and she was often swamped at functions by adoring fans.
Selfies were taken everywhere as older women were proud of her, younger women wanted to be like her. But while Palaszczuk was popular with the punters, the Left already held the whip in the government – both in numbers and in operating style.
In Queensland business circles during the first two terms of the Palaszczuk government there was a saying: “You invite Annastacia to your function to cut the ribbons, but if you want to get something done, you invite Jackie.”
As deputy premier, Jackie Trad was the power behind the throne in the parliamentary party, with Bullock and the Left union bosses giving orders from the outside. Trad would conduct her own separate Cabinet meetings of Left-aligned ministers – the meeting you have before the real meeting: a 7am diary slot titled simply “Coffee”.
Trad and Palaszczuk were best described as “frenemies’’. When there was mutual interest, they helped each other.
But Trad was close to former premier Anna Bligh and Palaszczuk is known to dislike Bligh, whom she served under as transport minister.
(Palaszczuk also had a frosty relationship with Beattie. Some of the Beattie enmity centred on Palaszczuk’s father Henry, who was a minister in the Beattie cabinet. They also later had issues during the 2018 Commonwealth Games after the Premier was denied a speech at the opening ceremony.)
Within Labor many – especially Cameron Dick – considered Trad a liability because of her no-nonsense, take no prisoners approach.
‘A CONFLICT OF INTEREST’
In 2017, against a lacklustre opposition leader in Tim Nicholls, Labor sailed back into government, as Queenslanders rejected the LNP’s lack of vision and went with the tried and trusted incumbent. One Nation’s popularity also hurt the LNP vote.
The campaign was run by some of the smartest political brains in the state embedded in Labor’s campaign machine, people like ALP state secretary (and later controversial lobbyist) Evan Moorhead from the Left and Jon Persley, who as assistant state secretary was behind the party’s target-seat campaign. Labor lobbyist Cameron Milner, who orchestrated two Beattie campaigns, also came back to help.
The early days of the campaign had been repeatedly derailed by anti-Adani protesters hijacking Labor campaign events, but Palaszczuk’s cauterised the wound with a dramatic press conference.
Labor, she said, would exercise its veto power to block a taxpayer-funded federal $1bn loan to help the company build a rail line to its Carmichael mine.
Palaszczuk said she had previously been unaware boyfriend Shaun Drabsch, a managing partner at firm PwC, had been working on Adani’s loan application, and as she now had a “perceived conflict of interest” she removed any doubt with the veto.
It was a deft political manoeuvre which played well by saving inner-city seats from the Greens – who broke into parliament by seizing the redrawn LNP seat of Maiwar.
A side note was the swift and spectacular way it spelled the end for her relationship with Drabsch, who she’d been dating for about three years.
The conflict of interest issue led Palaszczuk to decide Drabsch would have to go, friends said. Her decision did not shock those closest to her – her family.
Dad Henry, always a big influence, had never liked Drabsch. Drabsch believed the relationship could be salvaged, but sources said he was quickly “jettisoned” – both personally and professionally.
“It was done quickly and seamlessly,’’ said a friend.
The word inside Labor circles was that Drabsch was dumped via email – though that suggestion was categorically denied by the Premier on Friday.
“Shaun was quite upset at the time but he’s moved on and married and is now very happy,’’ one source said.
Changing tack on Adani helped in 2017 but less than two years later the party’s mixed messages on coal – encapsulated by the muted support for Adani’s Carmichael mine – cost federal Labor and Bill Shorten the 2019 federal election.
Labor pollsters quickly discovered Trad had become collateral damage – suddenly a toxic personality outside of the South East corner, as the figurehead of the inner-city elite’s views on coal that is despised in the regions.
In the wash up, and as her own integrity scandals mounted, Trad became the lightning rod for the negative focus on the government. The purchase of a $700,000 Woolloongabba investment property near the Cross River Rail project she was overseeing (that Trad said had been brokered by her husband without her knowledge) led to a Crime and Corruption Commission probe and the loss of plenty of political skin.
The end of her era as deputy premier and treasurer came in May 2020 with another CCC probe over an allegation she interfered in the selection of a school principal in her electorate.
(Both CCC probes cleared her of corruption. But the watchdog found some “very worrying and disappointing” practices in relation to the school principal selection, and while there was no “reasonable” evidence of corruption in the house purchase – and therefore no formal investigation – it recommended legislative reform to reduce corruption risks.)
It speaks volumes about her role in cabinet that it took five ministers to replace her. It also speaks volumes of the dominance of the Left over Palaszczuk that her numerical replacement in cabinet was Gladstone MP Glenn Butcher, a turncoat who switched to the faction from the Right a couple of years after the 2015 election.
Palaszczuk continued to insist the selection of cabinet ministers was hers.
“These are my decisions. I’m the Premier. I’ve made the decisions.”
Conveniently, Trad’s hand-picked under treasurer Frankie Carroll, unwanted by incoming Treasurer Cameron Dick, was given a soft landing as Butcher’s director-general.
(Trad’s selection of Carroll was later the subject of another CCC inquiry, the results of which she is still in the courts fighting to keep secret.)
Meanwhile, the power and influence of Bullock and “his MPs” had only strengthened.
In May, 2020, Bullock was said to be behind the defection of Jim Madden at Ipswich to the Left faction.
Madden said he had jumped factions to get more funding for his electorate.
The most damning assessment of Labor’s all-powerful Left has come not from the LNP opposition, or even off-the-record commentary from members of the Right, but from within the faction itself, after the militant CFMEU split out in late 2020.
The faction, CFMEU heavyweight Michael Ravbar said, had become a “self-serving echo chamber for a cabal of Peel Street elite who have totally lost touch with their working-class roots” and “little more than a creche for party hacks”.
Its leadership devoted more energy to “internal intrigues and power plays” than driving a policy platform and Trad was a “dud”, the union boss spat.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Palaszczuk sees the role of the Left differently. Her spokesman told The Courier-Mail that the Premier has a political relationship with Bullock but makes her own decisions.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story included four paragraphs which were not the author’s work.
News Corporation’s Code of Conduct states that “plagiarism is theft”.
The Courier-Mail apologises for this error.
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