The rift between Shannon Fentiman and Annastacia Palaszczuk is no secret, with many claiming the former Premier handed Ms Fentiman the “poisoned chalice” portfolio of health to take her down a peg.

Here was a fresher faced, hugely popular politician – both in the community and in the party, and a member of the powerful Left faction to boot – and Ms Palaszczuk felt threatened.

While Ms Fentiman, 40, insists she did have a choice in accepting the health ministry – “who else would you have put in?” she asks – the depth of the fracture in the relationship between Labor’s top two women became crystal clear when Ms Palaszczuk made an unprecedented move.

On December 10, 2023, in a press conference announcing her resignation just 10 months out from the state election, she endorsed Steven Miles as her successor.

Ms Fentiman was caught off guard.

It was a Sunday and she was relaxing at home with her husband Matt Collins and 13-year-old cavoodle Harry.

“I didn’t know she was going,” she says, as we carve our way through a 250g Black Onyx rump at Meadowbrook Golf Club.

“My husband was like, ‘Annastacia has called a press conference, I think she is resigning’, and I was like, ‘whaaat?’,” she says, pitch jumping an octave.

“And at the very end of it she said Steven Miles.”

While Ms Fentiman obviously hadn’t yet put her hand up to run, she believes Ms Palaszczuk knew she would.

“I was disappointed that she anointed Steven – most leaders would leave it to the party to decide who was best placed to lead them,” she reveals.

“It was disappointing that she felt she had to weigh in on that.”

Quickly brushing it off, Ms Fentiman went for the top job anyway.

On December 10, she declared it was time for “renewal” and she had “significant support in the party”. The next day, she pulled out.

“It was a tense time,” she says.

“You both hit the phones, but in these jobs you do develop a thick skin and after it was clear that I wouldn’t get there, you rally behind the leader and go, let’s go Steven, let’s win.

“He and I have been friends for a long time – he’s the person I’m closest to in the cabinet – and I mean this genuinely, I was happy that it was going to be one of us.”

That said, Ms Fentiman won’t rule out another tilt at the Labor leadership.

“We’ll see what happens, I wouldn’t say no, but there’s a lot to happen between now and the election and I want to win, we want to win.

“Maybe we should catch up again for lunch at the end of October, my shout, and we can work out what’s next,” she smiles.

If the polls are correct and the LNP and David Crisafulli oust Labor after nine years, Ms Fentiman, quietly confident of retaining her seat of Waterford in Logan, could well be the next Opposition Leader.

This would make her only the third female since Deb Frecklington, who resigned after the LNP’s 2020 electoral defeat, and Ms Palaszczuk who ended Campbell Newman’s reign in 2015.

“I actually get along with Deb outside politics; she’s actually lovely,” Ms Fentiman says.

Speaking of Campbell Newman, he was the driving force behind a 31-year-old Ms Fentiman entering politics.

“I was working as a lawyer during the Newman years,” she explains.

“Do you remember that dispute when a whole bunch of doctors were holding meetings at the Pineapple Hotel (Kangaroo Point)?”

Indeed I do. It was 2014 and around 900 senior medicos threatened to quit over a proposal they claimed would compromise public healthcare.

“Lawrence Springborg (then health minister) and Campbell Newman wanted to put them on individual contracts, and doctors very rarely get mobilised, and I was their lawyer and got very involved,” Ms Fentiman says.

“I was also volunteering at a lot of organisations down here, including the Centre Against Sexual Violence, and they were all getting defunded,” she says.

Evan Moorhead, who lost the seat of Waterford to the LNP in 2012 and is now director of controversial lobby firm Anacta, told Ms Fentiman he wouldn’t run in 2015 and suggested she go for it.

“So I went from having 30 client files to 30,000 constituents, a big jump but I have loved it,” she says.

“Logan gets a bad rap sometimes but it is strong, closely connected and diverse – it has more ethnicities than New York City, which makes it a very vibrant community.”

Loving your community – Ms Fentiman lives in Rochedale South – is one thing, but the ruthless world of politics and public sparring is surely another.

She won’t be drawn on the May incident with Shadow Health Minister Ros Bates, which has been referred to the parliamentary ethics committee.

But to recap, Ms Fentiman posted on social media a video clip depicting Ms Bates yelling “close your legs” during an explosive exchange over maternity services.

Hansard records show Ms Bates said “cross your legs”, which she claimed referred to women being told to try to pause labour until they could reach an open maternity ward.

Be that as it may, Ms Fentiman admits the “theatre of Question Time does not do our profession any favours”.

“There’s a lot that happens in parliament that is very respectful, considered debate on legislation, but that doesn’t make the news and that’s why people continue with the theatre, to get their message on the nightly news.

“Particularly for women, and we do need more women in politics, I just think that will continue to be difficult when that’s all people see.”

Ms Fentiman, also Minister for Women, Mental Health and Ambulance Services and a former Attorney-General, was a star debater on her high school team at Marymount College on the Gold Coast and is regarded as one of the government’s better orators.

I’ve seen her speak off the cuff, at an unscheduled press conference at The Courier-Mail Bush Summit in Rockhampton last year, and she nailed it – certain of her content, persuasive in her message.

So it’s somewhat surprising to learn it doesn’t come so easily.

“I have to tell you, it (parliament) is still a very intimidating environment and I’ve been there nine years but I still don’t always feel very comfortable,” she admits.

“It’s taken me a long time to get up on my feet and be confident, particularly on the other (LNP) side as it’s mainly men, and they’re very loud, and it’s also harder for women to be louder because our voices are higher so I still find it a challenging space sometimes.”

Ms Fentiman, stepmum to two teenage girls, says it is important for women to step outside their comfort zone.

While she says females are unfairly judged on their appearance – “a senior Labor Party person told me a few years ago, ‘you’re doing a really good job but you have to wear more lipstick’” – she wants to be known for being “capable”.

“I was asked to take on health – at the end of the day I did have a choice, I could have said no – but I think it’s important that you put your hand up for the hard roles.

“A lot of people will say health is a poisoned chalice but, to be honest, there were certain issues for the government that we needed to get on top of and we needed good communicators in those complex roles,” says Ms Fentiman, who replaced Yvette D’Ath in May last year.

When asked if she can “fix” Queensland Health – plagued by a raft of problems including ambulance ramping and a shortage of hospital beds – she gives a qualified yes.

“Yes, because the feedback from people on the ground is that the resources and programs we are putting in are making a difference, and every performance indicator we have shows the system is getting better, despite the huge demand,” she says.

“And we have to celebrate the wins, you know, Gladstone got back birthing, Weipa is now birthing for the first time in 25 years, that is huge, we are one of the only states that has the RSV vaccine for newborns, we have free flu and Meningococcal B vaccines … we are absolutely headed in the right direction, it’s not fixed but it is getting better.

“With 130,000 staff treating 70 odd thousand Queenslanders every day, from time to time, something might not go right or we might not meet someone’s expectations, but the system as a whole is working well.

“Yes, it’s under pressure, yes, there’s more to do, but I wouldn’t want to be sick anywhere else.”

On the day we meet, Ms Fentiman has had “a good day”.

“I’ve been at the Gold Coast University Hospital – they’ve started incisionless brain surgery for people with tremors, and this is the nice thing about this job, meeting amazing doctors doing world-leading work, and there was this wonderful patient, Neville, he couldn’t drink a glass of water before and he comes out of surgery and picks up a glass and he starts crying. It changed his life.”

Not every day is good.

Ms Fentiman, who in 2022 married Mr Collins (chief executive of the Planning Institute of Australia and a former chief of staff to Jackie Trad), says “it’s hard to find a balance”.

Up at 6am and turning first to news clippings sent by her staff – “which is probably not wonderful for my health and wellbeing” – she says the travel, weekend work and night-time functions also take a toll.

“In my down time, I love catching up with school mates and people who have known me forever, but I actually just need time with no one. You give so much of yourself in this job.

“I do love it, though, it is the most rewarding part of my career so far, and as long as I have the energy to keep going, I will.”