George Street Beat: Gary Bullock spotted at 1 William St in midst of cabinet reshuffle

It should be no surprise that a union heavyweight was spotted in the corridors of power as the Premier’s cabinet reshuffle played out. This is George Street Beat.

• Analysis: ‘This is really just about one thing’

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has never actually directly denied The Courier-Mail’s naming last year of union official Gary “Blocker” Bullock as the most powerful person in Queensland.

She instead skirts around the issue when asked – spouting variations of “that’s what your paper thinks”.

It should not be surprising to anyone, then, that Blocker was spotted skulking around the government’s headquarters at 1 William Street on Tuesday – the day Health Minister Yvette D’Ath was told she would be punted from her portfolio after a string of disasters.

United Workers Union State Secretary Gary Bullock. Picture Supplied

It would be a short-odds bet that Blocker, the Premier and Deputy Premier and Left faction leader Steven Miles would have been the ones in the room where the reshuffle was mapped out.

And the Premier certainly did not deny that yesterday when asked directly, following the swearing in of her new Cabinet, why the union boss had been there on Tuesday.

The Premier replied: “You’ll have to ask him”. She did, however, go on to deny any suggestions the powerful unionist had any say in the reshuffle, saying “these are my decisions”.

PREMIER’S D’ATH DODGE

At least the Premier’s answer on Blocker was more direct than her response when asked if Ms D’Ath had done a good job in the 18 months or so that she had been Health Minister.

“Well I don’t have to answer your question directly,” came her answer.

Ms Palaszczuk has been open in recent weeks when it comes to her displeasure in the performance of the Ministers she has moved aside from problematic portfolios of health, youth justice and housing.

On more than one occasion she has been overheard saying things like “well if the Ministers just did their job we wouldn’t have these problems”.

That being said, it still took those in the Premier’s inner-circle a number of weeks to convince her.

There was plenty of talk in the top corporate suites during Magic Round (May 5-7) about the decision – already made – to replace Ms D’Ath with Shannon Fentiman.

New Health Minister Shannon Fentiman with the Premier at Government House. . Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewsWire

AWKWARD TIMING

Despite the health move being the talk of the town for more than a week, it was a mixed bag when all the other Ministers found out their own fates.

We hear Ms Fentiman was formally notified on Tuesday night that she would be meeting the boss on Wednesday, while Craig Crawford was about to board a flight to Cairns on Wednesday morning when he got a text from a Premier’s staffer that he would have a meeting.

When asked when she found out, Leanne Linard said she had also been summoned early Wednesday – hours after The Courier-Mail on Tuesday night exclusively reported she would be moved from Youth Justice. Awks.

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After Thursday’s low-key swearing-in ceremony at Government House, the newly-appointed ministers sidled up for a class photo with the Governor, the former pandemic-era chief health officer Jeannette Young.

And the state’s new Health Minister did not waste any time hitting the Governor up for a bit of advice on her new (and famously troubled) portfolio – a request Dr Young appeared to politely bat away.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her cabinet colleagues with Governor Dr Jeannette Young. Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewsWire

REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE

The one big winner in the Premier’s “refresh” (we would say it is far more a “reset” considering no new faces have been brought into the ministry) was Meaghan Scanlon, who has cemented her status as one of Labor’s rising stars by being handed the difficult yet highly-topical housing portfolio.

The job will assure the 30-year-old a much stronger public presence in the lead-up to next year’s election, which up until now – as Environment Minister – has been largely confined to cuddling koalas, spruiking recycling and bans on plastic use.

What is most interesting about Scanlon’s appointment is that she does not own a home and instead, rents – like the true millennial that she is. Perhaps this is just the kind of minister that the Cabinet, heaving with property investors, should be hearing from on this critical issue.

THE LNP’S D’ATH EVADER

We have grown used to Opposition Leader David Crisafulli taking the “high road” and leaving his shadow ministers to engage in the argy-bargy.

And so it was hardly surprising that he left it to Deputy Leader Jarrod Bleijie and health spokeswoman Ros Bates to front the press pack at Parliament House on Wednesday to talk about Ms D’Ath’s sacking.

The strange thing was we were told Mr Crisafulli was busy on the Gold Coast – but eagle-eyed journos soon spotted the Opposition Leader also at Parliament House, sprinting out the door and apparently in a rush.

It was stranger on Thursday when Mr Crisafulli stuck to talking about satellite hospitals, while Mr Bleijie was let loose on the new Cabinet.

SULLEN SULKY STAFFERS

While rightly the spotlight has been on the Ministerial winners and losers, the reshuffle has put the government’s army of spinners into, well, a spin.

Not only have the people in charge of knowing every move been the last to know in a few cases, but not everyone is happy with their boss’s new job. A number of Ms Fentiman’s staffers in particular are apparently less than excited about having to now deal with the behemoth of Queensland Health, not to mention the string of disasters the portfolio has become known for.

SHE’S HAVING A BAD SPELL

Newly minted Environment Minister Linard’s bad week was topped off by the media handout that was passed around to the press at the government swearing-in spelling her name wrong – stating it as Leeanne (the way Minister Enoch spells it) rather than Leanne (the Linard way).