Meaghan Scanlon to take on Housing in major frontbench shake-up

Fixing Queensland’s housing crisis has been handed to the youngest MP in cabinet, while child safety and youth crime will be split between two ministers, in a major frontbench shake-up.

• Inside story: ‘Couldn’t have waited’
• Analysis: Solutions must come quick

Fixing the spiralling housing and homelessness crisis engulfing Queensland has been handed to the youngest MP in cabinet, in a major frontbench shake-up that has thrown the Labor government into turmoil.

Rising star Meaghan Scanlon will move from the Environment portfolio and take on Housing as her sole responsibility, signalling the government’s renewed focus on the issue amid rising homelessness.

The Courier-Mail can confirm Youth Justice has been taken from Leanne Linard and ­delivered to Di Farmer, while Cairns-based Craig Crawford to take on child safety.

The continually plagued Health portfolio has been taken from Yvette D’Ath and handed to Shannon Fentiman.

It’s understood Transport Minister Mark Bailey has also been caught up in the reshuffle, being asked to take on digital economy on top of his current responsibilities. Digital economy was a section of Leeanne Enoch’s portfolio.

The state government’s new-look cabinet will be sworn in at Government House this morning at 11am.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is expected to announce the details of the reshuffle on Thursday. Picture: Annette Dew

The rare reshuffle of the Palaszczuk government will also see an Indigenous woman in charge of First Nations ­Affairs for the first time in the state, with Minister Leeanne Enoch to be dropped from the Housing portfolio and will ­instead helm Queensland’s Path to Treaty negotiations and become the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander partnerships.

The wholesale reshuffle will open up other movements, but no other ministers will be brought up from the backbench into cabinet.

The wider seismic impact of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s decision to reshuffle her cabinet is yet to be fully ­realised, with negotiations understood to be still under way on Wednesday.

It is anticipated Ms D’Ath will be returned as Attorney-General, in a job swap with the state’s current top lawmaker Ms Fentiman.

Meaghan Scanlon is expected to move out of the environment portfolio to take on housing. Picture: David Clark

Ms Linard is also expected to be moved to other responsibilities, with sources suggesting that she could pick up Environment. What portfolios current ­Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships Minister Craig Crawford will hold is ­uncertain, though he still has Disability and Seniors in his portfolio.

The respon­sibilities for Digital Economy and the Arts will need to be picked up.

The full scale of the reshuffle is expected to be revealed on Thursday.

Ms Palaszczuk has made no public statement about the ­reshuffle, with ministers scheduled to front the media defending the capabilities of cabinet colleagues.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles, appearing on B105, said that the Premier was the ­“captain” of the team and had to decide who would be the “best players in the best positions”, signalling the decision was out of individual ministers’ hands.

Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie says the changes do not serve Queenslanders. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

“In 2017, when I had been the environment minister I got called to a meeting and I said ‘I love being the environment minister, I’d really like to stay’ and she said ‘you’re the health minister’,” he said.

Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie said reports of the three ministers being “side-shoe shuffled” into other portfolios and not sacked from the cabinet entirely showed that there was no consequence for the failures to manage each issue.

“It shows that (the Premier) is putting her interests first, not the people of Queensland,” he told reporters.

Some have speculated rolling out fresh faces in the ­critical portfolios ahead of June’s state budget will allow voters to be satisfied with ­reform as the new ministers are given airtime for major funding announcements.

But the LNP Deputy Leader dismissed suggestions that a reshuffle would allow the Labor government to reset ahead of the election in less than a year-and-a-half.

Police Minister Mark Ryan with Senior Sergeant Stewart McKinlay in Townsville. Picture: Evan Morgan

“Queenslanders are smart enough to know … that the fish rots from the head and the Premier is the leader of this government and the government is rotten to the core,” Mr Bleijie said.

Police Minister Mark Ryan, in Townsville on Wednesday, said he was “fortunate to have this portfolio”.

Asked if he had been given any assurances that he would hold on to his portfolio, Mr Ryan said he was “here doing police announcements”.

But two of the government’s three regionally based minister were quick to signal that they were safe from the portfolio upheaval.

Resources Minister Scott Stewart and Water Minister Glenn Butcher, both also in Townsville on Wednesday, ­indicated that they had not been called up to head to ­Brisbane. The state government’s one other regionally based minister, Mr Crawford, was in Brisbane on Wednesday and has been affected by the reshuffle.

Mr Stewart, asked if he would be staying in his portfolio, confirmed that he hadn’t had a phone call and was ­“continuing to love my resources portfolio”.

Mr Butcher said that the cabinet reshuffle was up to the Premier, but he noted that he had not “received any phone calls to be in Brisbane”.

The Gladstone-based MP also defended the soon-to-be former health minister Yvette D’Ath’s work in the portfolio, calling their relationship through the Gladstone maternity crisis “very positive”.

“Our cabinet is a good cabinet, we’ve gone to elections before with the same cabinet, and I have all faith in all of our cabinet ministers who sit around the table,” Mr Butcher said.