Queensland Election 2017: Miller and Hanson play nice before cameras
A RENEGADE rendezvous between Pauline Hanson and Jo-Ann Miller has hurt Labor’s campaign, writes Steven Wardill.
QLD Election
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JO-ANN Miller roared into the Queensland election yesterday like a tiger from the long grass.
The renegade Bundamba MP’s rendezvous with Pauline Hanson at an Ipswich pre-poll booth has torn Labor’s central campaign messages asunder.
Attempts by Annastacia Palaszczuk and her apparatchiks to spin this as an accident of nature brought about by intermittent weather looked decidedly lame given Miller arrived with bootees for Hanson’s newborn grandson.
Labor has argued that One Nation is deplorable and accused the LNP of underhanded deals with Hanson.
However, the spectacle of Miller wrapping her arms around Hanson before a baying media contingent portrays precisely the opposite.
One Nation is not running a candidate in Bundamba because it backs Miller’s efforts as a local MP, which raises the question of who has been doing deals.
The Hanson/Miller meet also shreds Labor’s message that it offers stability while its opponents herald chaos.
Miller has frequently caused pandemonium.
She embarrassed her former Cabinet colleagues at Budget estimates hearings, refused to take up a committee post, chastised Labor over black lung disease and made wild allegations about the Government ignoring her corruption claims.
That is not stability. That is bedlam.
Make no mistake, Miller’s meet with the One Nation matriarch was not a case of political naivety.
It was calculating, cunning and designed to inflict pain.
Miller has been stalking Palaszczuk from the day she was ousted from the police portfolio.
Other Labor leaders would have punted her from the party long ago.
However, there was precious little the Premier could do given Labor’s precarious grip on power and the powerful CFMEU’s fervent backing of Miller.
The tiger in the long grass always lurked with menacing intent.
If Palaszczuk wins this election she may just declare hunting season.
Originally published as Queensland Election 2017: Miller and Hanson play nice before cameras
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