The Queensland Premier, Steven Miles, giggles largely because he finds some things quite funny and he doesn’t see why that should be a problem – especially for the boorish journalist who has had the temerity to raise the “issue’’ with him.

“Why do you giggle?” I ask him, broaching a matter routinely seized on by his detractors – who disparagingly call him “Giggles” – as evidence he’s not up to the job.

Miles shrugs, slightly perplexed that it’s even raised as a subject of discussion.

“I think generally I am a smiley, relaxed sort of person,’’ he says, smile broadening to underscore the point.

When asked about that widely publicised laugh during a press conference on youth crime, he’s adamant the critics who accused him of laughing at crime got it completely wrong.

“Everyone who was there knew I was not laughing at the issue; I was laughing at the reporter who asked the question.”

The laugh is part of his persona and it’s not going anywhere. It might best be regarded as an audible version of the smile, which is never far from his face, and, as the election approaches, it will probably be part of the soundtrack of the press conferences and policy announcements.

But, make no mistake, Miles does not see youth crime in this state as “droll’’.

The conversation takes a surprising turn here.

In this, a campaign year in which the LNP looks likely to unseat him from office, Miles is prepared to concede something politicians rarely own up to – a mistake. Labor, he says, has been getting it wrong on youth crime.

“I think for too long Labor has been a bit scared to talk about safety, about community safety,’’ he says, without even a hint of a smile.

“We deserted the field a bit.’’

It is a notable concession from a leader who has regularly been quoted saying Queensland has some of the toughest youth crime laws in the country.

Miles calls youth crime his “foundational concern’’ – the one overarching issue which, if he’s not careful, will eclipse all the rest, leaving the ALP in the political dark come October.

“I want people voting for our plans for health and education, but they are not going to think about those things if they are most concerned about crime,’’ he says.

“We need to show them that we have a plan to turn that around and we have done a lot since I took over.

“Some of it is working, and we are going to have more of that.’’

Miles is a likeable bloke. Many of those who know him say likability is almost his defining characteristic.

That genial nature is on display on this sunny afternoon as he sinks a couple of XXXX Golds and chomps down on a medium rare rib fillet, pepper sauce, chips and salad. He’s slightly guarded – as any politician is when a journalist and a tape recorder sit opposite – but still very much in a “ask me any question you like’’ kind of mood, cheerfully looking back across the years from this unlikely vantage point of being the Queensland premier.

He insists he never planned it this way. In fact, it was a maternal grandfather, a signalman who served overseas in World War II and lived out on Cribb Island before it was destroyed to make way for the airport, who proved to be the family soothsayer.

Miles was still the callow youth in his 20s when the old veteran declared, somewhat forlornly as age began to weary him, “I just wish I could live long enough to see you become Queensland premier!’’

At age 17 Miles had joined the Labor Party after his driving instructor turned out to be the local branch president and took him along to a branch meeting.

He didn’t say a word at the meeting but he remembers how a far more complex and sophisticated world suddenly opened up to his adolescent self that night:

“At the time it seemed like such a big, adult thing to do,’’ he recalls.

Politics was not really in the family DNA. His dad was a fitter and turner at the Golden Circle cannery, which does make him sound like the product of some marketing genius looking to create the perfect backstory for a Queensland ALP candidate for high office.

It’s up there with Lincoln’s log cabin, but it’s far more accurate and looks even more impressive when fleshed out by a mum who worked as a workplace health and safety officer and four doting grandparents, the maternal side of which were hard workers who lived in housing commission while the paternal side paid off a house over 50 years working on Queensland Rail.

Miles may have attended the private Anglican school St Paul’s but it wasn’t enough to assuage a touch of working-class angst when he won the prestigious TJ Ryan Scholarship and found himself in leafy St Lucia, strolling the middle-class hallways of the University of Queensland.

“I had a pretty solid chip on my shoulder,’’ he recalls.

To compensate, he may have projected a confidence he didn’t genuinely possess.

But he needn’t have worried too much about “fitting in’’.

His membership in the ALP provided a framework for not only his emerging intellect but his social life as well.

Today, those student years must all look a little halcyon as he surveys his responsibilities which extend well beyond the wife, the three kids and the leadership of the state.

Mel Tait, general manager of the Murrumba Downs Tavern, drops by our table for a pleasant little chat with the Member for Murrumba – with a little reminder he has a few more responsibilities closer to home.

Murrumba is now the state’s second largest electorate by voters and the transport pressures alone on this area are enormous.

Miles will hold the seat come October, given his margin is close to 10 per cent, but his position as Premier is still very much a roll of the dice.

He is by no means dismissive of Opposition Leader David Crisafulli but doesn’t seem in any way intimidated by Crisafulli’s inroads in Ipswich West and Inala – even as he concedes that, on present polling, Crisafulli will “probably win’’.

“I think he has been good at being a small target,’’ Miles says of Crisafulli, adding with a sly grin: “Politics has never seen such a small target.’’

The small target may have been effective but it won’t be when the starting gun fires, Miles says.

“When the election campaign starts, he can’t get away with that.’’

For Miles, a political victory will be an extraordinary triumph, validating the party’s decision to back him over the party’s saviour Annastacia Palaszczuk, who brought the ALP back from the brink in 2015.

If he loses, it won’t be the end of his world and he’ll have something to look forward to come December.

The Miles family will still go to Cotton Tree Caravan Park, in Maroochydore, for a summer holiday, as they have done for 15 years.

“We have got to know a lot of people there and the kids all know each other,” he said.

“We might go fishing, sometimes someone will get a jet ski out but mainly we just go swimming – swimming every day.’’

Steaks dispatched, Miles looks satisfied, decides on a second beer to round off lunch and gives the meal, the surroundings, the staff and the service a solid nine out of 10.