As budget day looms, Jackie Trad reflects on the journey to Treasurer
SHE has excelled at rising to the occasion several times in her brief political career, now Queensland’s novice Treasurer faces her biggest test, writes Steven Wardill.
QLD News
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ONLY a quirk of fate ensured Jackie Trad remained in State Parliament at the 2017 election.
Late in the campaign, the chieftains of the Liberal National Party’s state executive had decided to preference the Greens ahead of Trad in South Brisbane.
With the Greens on the ascendancy in the eclectic inner-city seat courtesy of a sweeping anti-Adani sentiment, the LNP’s decision could have brought Trad’s political career to an ignominious end.
Losing the leading light of the dominant Left faction would have also left Labor with a rather hollow victory.
Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls, however, intervened, ensuring the LNP’s decision was overturned.
However, such is the palpable disdain for Trad, along with begrudging recognition of her talent and the pervading role she plays within the Palaszczuk Government, that the LNP hierarchy were willing to take a position anathema to their principles.
Fortune, as they say, favours the brave.
And the consequence of Nicholls’ intervention has culminated in Trad not just getting re-elected but taking the crucial job he had during the Newman government as Queensland’s Treasurer.
Trad would be the first to admit she’s no natural when it comes to numbers.
Asked what her high school maths teacher might say about her prowess in the subject, she laughs long and loud.
“She was a very diligent student but should have started her homework much sooner,” the Treasurer insists her former teacher would say.
That description equally explains Trad’s political career so far.
The mother of two boys, who turned 46 in April, has been on a steep learning curve since being elected in a by-election after Labor’s 2012 annihilation.
Anna Bligh had quit the South Brisbane seat after leading Labor to its worst defeat.
She did so without warning colleagues of her intention the day after the election.
Already deeply wounded after most of its generation-next were washed out in the LNP high tide, Bligh’s decision left Labor scrambling.
Trad at that stage was working in Labor headquarters as assistant secretary.
Even members of Trad’s own Left faction opposed her preselection, including major unions.
Some senior figures believed Cameron Dick, who’d lost his seat of Greenslopes, should be parachuted in.
Despite an unholy alliance lined up against her, Trad prevailed.
She also won the by-election despite a swing to the incumbent LNP government.
Yet fighting for her share is part of Trad’s raison d’etre.
A second generation Lebanese migrant, Trad grew up mostly in East Brisbane while her parents ran a fruit shop in Woolloongabba.
She spent a year of primary school living in Beirut and was the first person in her family to go to university. She studied arts and completed her Masters in public policy.
But politics was a calling that would not go unheard.
Over her first two terms — from Opposition through to minority government — Trad has demonstrated skills beyond her experience.
Yet on occasions she has been caught out not doing her homework.
Several times in Opposition she was forced to apologise to Parliament for inaccurate statements.
In Government, her lambasting of Cairns MP Rob Pyne led to him quitting the Labor Party and further imperilling the Palaszczuk Government’s grip on power.
Her allies say she passionate. Her enemies say she’s impetuous.
On Tuesday, Trad has the hefty responsibility of bringing down the State Budget.
Labor’s search for an economic narrative since riding into government on a tsunami of anti-Newman sentiment has been largely fruitless.
Trad’s challenge is to craft that message, weave meaning between the disparate areas where funding has been prioritised in the past into a more lucid storyline.
She’s diplomatic when asked why she wanted the job.
“Each and every day that I represent my community and I am a member of the executive government it is a great day,” Trad says.
“It is an amazing honour and privilege to serve the people of Queensland and I am very excited and proud to be delivering a budget on behalf of them.”
Her choice of the kind of treasurer she’d like to emulate is far more illuminating.
Like every Labor MP, she picks Paul Keating.
“He was a reformer and absolutely made sure that our nation was set up to take full advantage of the big growth that we saw happening in Asia, particularly China,” she says.
“That was an amazing time in Australia’s economic history.” But her contemporary pick is Victoria’s Tim Pallas because of the “amazing stuff that they are doing in terms of social policy and education policy, particularly.”
Trad’s pick is enlightening.
While her head might be in finances and ensuring vital infrastructure is funded, her heart remains in social policy and the good government can do for those in the community who need a hand up.
When to save and when to spend is the eternal argument within governments and Treasurers aren’t often known for their social conscience.
Trad, however, isn’t the type to accept stereotypes.
And she’d never willingly let fate decide her, or the government’s, destiny.
Originally published as As budget day looms, Jackie Trad reflects on the journey to Treasurer