Brendan Luxton and Annastacia Palaszczuk’s friendship extended back to childhood

Brendan Luxton and Annastacia Palaszczuk’s friendship extended back to childhood and included attending each other’s birthday parties, being co-captains at primary school and even meeting then-PM Bob Hawke together.

Annastacia Palaszczuk and Brendan Luxton were “thick as thieves” as children.

They attended each other’s birthday parties, and became co-captains in Year 7 of Jamboree Heights State School.

Both were interested in politics and continued to spark off each other well into high school, she at St Mary’s in Ipswich and he at Indooroopilly State High.

Living around the corner from each other for two decades, from the 1970s when Jamboree Heights was a sleepy outer Brisbane suburb with few facilities, their families also were close.

They’d car pool for lifts and share in a fruit and vegetable cooperative, with mothers taking turns to go to the Rocklea Markets.

Brendan Luxton and the Premier – pictured in 1984 when they were in Year 10, with Bob Hawke – were close during their schooling.

And in those earlier days, on a Saturday afternoon when Brendan’s postman father Paul would go to the Jindalee Hotel drive-through for a longneck of Fourex, he’d shoot the breeze with Henry Palaszczuk, who was working there.

This was a simpler time, with very few frills and lots of neighbourly support, before Mr Palaszczuk and wife Lorelle packed up their four daughters and relocated ahead of his 1992 appointment as the Member for Inala.

“We lived in ‘nappy valley’ where everyone helped each other,” recalled Brendan’s sister Marita Corbett.

“No one had two cars back then, there was no grocery store nearby so one of the mums would go to Rocklea to buy supplies for everyone else.

“One time when I was really sick with glandular fever and my mouth was ulcerated and I couldn’t drink, Henry brought around a box of straws because we didn’t have any.”

Brendan Luxton’s brother Derek. Picture: Jamie Hanson

Brother Derek Luxton said while his big brother and “Stacia” were “thick as thieves”, he also went over to the Palaszczuks’ house to play.

“I remember as a child going to their house on Dandenong Road, and they stayed firm friends after primary school,” he said.

In 1984 when Brendan learned Prime Minister Bob Hawke was coming to Brisbane, he asked Annastacia, who was also in Year 10, if he could meet him.

Henry Palaszczuk made it happen.

“As our family laughingly says, Bob Hawke had the honour of meeting our ‘Bren’,” Mrs Corbett said.

After graduating from their respective schools, Brendan and Annastacia both studied law at the University of Queensland, and years later, in 2015 when she became Premier of Queensland, her childhood buddy sent her a congratulatory note from Canada, where he’d achieved success of his own.

Ms Palaszczuk was quick to respond, her family said.

A number of years ago Mrs Corbett, an accountant, saw Ms Palaszczuk at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) event and thought nothing of going up to her.

“I identified myself as Brendan’s sister and she asked how he was.

“I said he was doing fine, doing lots of travelling, running marathons and loving life, which back then he was.”

Originally published as Brendan Luxton and Annastacia Palaszczuk’s friendship extended back to childhood