It’s 2016 and part of Mr Pitt wants to quit – but doing so would put the young minority Labor government on the brink of collapse and risk everything his close friend Annastacia Palaszczuk worked for.

“I had a felt I had a responsibility to not do that, so much would have been at stake so I couldn’t,” he said.

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Eight years since those weekly flights Mr Pitt is divorced – but in a better headspace and more content with life.

He meets High Steaks in Parliament’s historic Stranger’s Restaurant having just announced his resignation from Queensland politics after 15 years serving his far north electorate of Mulgrave.

The term of the 57th parliament, Mr Pitt’s six years as Speaker and a decade-and-a-half of brutal politics and community service is about to end.

It started in 2009 when he inherited the seat of Mulgrave from his father Warren.

Two years later he’d carve out his first cabinet posting as Queensland’s first minister for mental health – an issue he’d have first-hand experience with 12 years later.

Wearing cufflinks and a gold pin representing parliament on the left breast of his jet-black jacket – Mr Pitt asks if we’d mind if he removed his tie to dress down for lunch.

For the next two hours he’d speak candidly about the highs and lows of politics.

Mr Pitt is the last of the seven Labor MP survivors from the 2012 wipe-out, who spent almost three years surrounded by 78 of Campbell Newman’s rowdy conservatives.

“Walking into the chamber, it was like we were in the endangered species enclosure at the zoo, we just didn’t belong,” he recalls.

“We were a small but mighty group of seven people.”

Two by-election victories grew this group of opposition MPs to nine – almost enough for a netball team – and cultivated a tightly held secret leading into the 2015 election.

“We knew we had a chance of getting a win, but we couldn’t tell anyone that because we told anyone that we never would have won – you had to make sure that it was all about the protest against that government,” he said.

Despite the victory, there were long-lasting effects from that 2012 wipe-out when many of the parliament’s old heads, their institutional knowledge and respect were banished to history.

It’s hardly keeping Queenslanders awake at night, but something Mr Pitt has wrestled with as democratic politics around the globe continues to fracture.

“We should never lose sight of our own individual humanity in that it’s OK to say that there is someone on the other side who’s decent,” he said.

“Parliament is bigger than the executive government, it is bigger than the opposition.”

As treasurer and a proud industrial relations minister, Mr Pitt worked from 2015 to 2017 to unwind LNP policies and reinvest in education, health and public services – moves he said “gave the government its best chance of being re-elected”.

However, by December 2017 effective deputy premier and transport minister Jackie Trad wanted a firmer grasp on the levers of power.

At the time Labor MPs credited Ms Trad with driving government policy and, as head of the powerful Left faction, often got what she wanted.

She wanted and got to be Queensland treasurer, infuriating Mr Pitt.

“She seemed to be have put a very strong case forward – at least in some people’s eyes – that she was going to be better … so she could try to do her best to prove (it) and that was up to her,” Mr Pitt said.

“I was told that by everyone that I did a great job.

“To be asked to be moved aside, and that’s putting it lightly, I didn’t enjoy that.”

He decided to become speaker which – in somewhat of a silver lining – allowed him to fulfil a dream and also stop attending Labor meetings with colleagues, including Ms Trad.

“I don’t want to sit in a cabinet room to watch other people benefit from the work that I did and not being acknowledged for that,” he said.

Over the next three years the treasurer and her predecessor would hardly speak, but Mr Pitt insists the dumping didn’t affect his rock-solid bond with Ms Palaszczuk, who he’d known as a teenager.

“I don’t blame Annastacia for that at all,” he said.

“It wasn’t an easy time for me. It took some time to kind of remember that I’m actually good at these things – it wasn’t about you, it was about other people and their aspirations.”

That dumping as treasurer was made worse, Mr Pitt candidly reveals, due to the emerging struggle of his 17-year marriage and yearning desire to be with his children.

“I won’t blame the job, but I certainly know it didn’t help,” he said.

“Every minister sacrifices a lot, but I felt like I was kind of sacrificing just a little bit more given the age of my children and not living in Brisbane.

“It’s kind of what made the end result of me being ousted as treasurer that much more painful, for what I had sacrificed … that’s what actually made that hurt a bit more.”

As treasurer Mr Pitt would be on the first flight from Cairns to Brisbane for a series of meetings, a press conference and event before arriving home at 8pm.

“At times, people could prey on the fact that I wasn’t in Brisbane and potentially manipulate matters to make sure I was in Brisbane when I probably shouldn’t have been,” he said.

His new role as speaker wouldn’t attract too many headlines – except when one doesn’t turn up for work or arrives with slurred speech.

In the brutal world of politics the rumours remain persistent: Mr Pitt was hungover and drunk twice on the job in 2023.

He locks eyes, speaks softly and firmly denies it.

“I’ve been suffering close to 10 years with back issues to the point where there were certain days I couldn’t get out of bed and use of painkillers was rare and sparingly done,” he said.

On the morning of June 15, 2023 Mr Pitt said he simply took too many.

“I was cognitively fine, but obviously it affected me by the way of having slurred speech and not knowing that because you don’t know how other people are seeing you,” he said.

“My biggest error was not necessarily just the medication change up, the biggest error I made was showing up when I should have had a sick day and that’s really what it comes down to.

“There are very few workplaces that if you have one bad day in 14 or 15 years suddenly people want to crucify you … if one person stumbles other people are very happy to see them stumble and not get up because they’ll benefit from it.

“People trade in information and not always is that information even accurate.”

He went on leave after the incident, which came just weeks after he failed to turn up to the regional sitting of the Cairns parliament – which he attributes to the “bit silly” matter of his alarm not going off.

Bombarded with mounting struggles, Mr Pitt spoke out about his own mental health and the need to recalibrate.

“I would have been an absolute hypocrite as someone who had spent that much time working in and around people with mental ill health if I didn’t admit that I wasn’t in a great place,” he said.

“I was contacted by Mental Health Australia after that, congratulating me on what I did and what I’d said and quite generally talked about ‘you probably saved lives’.”

Keeping him moving through challenges were a ferocious love for his parents and children, community and a wicked sense of humour.

He has strong connections in the film industry and called on one prop-master friend to recreate a replica of parliament’s gemstone-encrusted, gold-plated 8kg mace.

When parliament isn’t sitting the real mace – built in 1978 by Birmingham goldsmiths Marples and Beasley – is held in a glass case and protected by Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Watkin.

As you probably guessed already, Mr Pitt replaced the real one with the fake.

“This one weighs about 800 grams … picking it up Michael’s got a little jolt because this is too light,” Mr Pitt joyfully recalls.

“As the head of security as well as being Sergeant-at-Arms, he kind of thought that there’d been some kind of Ocean’s 11 heist that had occurred and looked extremely panicked.”

With a smile and a gaze out Stranger’s window onto the tree-lined colonnade filled with passing ministers and staff, Mr Pitt leaves parliament content with his contribution.

He received praise from Andrew Denton for championing the progression of voluntary assisted dying in Queensland and just last month created the first Commonwealth, if not world-first deaf parliament.

When the new speaker is chosen after October 27 Mr Pitt will finally have the time for life’s important things – more time with his children, grocery shopping and dotingly caring for his ageing parents.

He’s one of three Labor MPs who have experienced the opposition benches, but isn’t ready to bet on Labor returning.

“I think this election is going to be much closer than people think,” he said.

“I‘ve served under Anastasia Palaszczuk and I’ve served in cabinet with Steven (Miles) and observed him as premier and I’ve been impressed by both of them.

“Steven has brought a lot to the table. He’s a safe pair of hands and I think he brings a different leadership style to Annastacia … not better, just different.”

Steak rating: 8.5/10