‘Might be news to Peter Dutton’: Miles defends Labor’s union history

Queensland’s incoming premier Steven Miles has given a staunch defence of unions and the movement’s deep history with the Australian Labor Party while pushing back on suggestions he was “utterly owned” by them.

His path from deputising for Annastacia Palaszczuk to the top job after she formally steps down on Friday was cleared when Health Minister Shannon Fentiman dropped her own short-lived bid.

“It might be news to Peter Dutton, or some people, but the Labor Party was formed by the Australian trade union movement,” premier-to-be Steven Miles said on Wednesday.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Briefly duelling pitches from the dominant Left faction, headed by Miles, meant extensive talks to shore up support among MPs, with union loyalties and the minority Right and smaller-still Old Guard factions key to determine who had majority support.

Such group loyalties are common among the Labor Party, the federal Liberal Party and LNP, and Greens.

After meetings of MPs and unions late into Monday night before Fentiman’s withdrawal, the close relationship of Miles and United Workers Union boss Gary Bullock – whose aligned MPs form the largest Left grouping – has come into focus.

Anonymous Labor MPs have been quoted questioning the influence of Bullock – whose support helped Palaszczuk’s seven-MP opposition regain government in 2015 – with union and Labor figures also uneasy.

But the sharpest public criticism has come from the LNP.

Both the state opposition and their Queensland-based federal counterparts, including Liberal leader Peter Dutton, have sought to portray the handover of power outside an election as an unsavoury action by “faceless union leaders”.

“I saw a comment yesterday from somebody in the Labor caucus who rightly pointed out that if Steven Miles becomes premier ... he will be completely and utterly owned by Mr Bullock and the union movement, and that is not what Queenslanders voted for,” Dutton said.

Miles faced a barrage of questions around discussions or agreements between MP factions and aligned unions amid negotiation of the handover Palaszczuk sought, and only made public for the first time, in her “strong endorsement” of her deputy Miles on Sunday.

“It might be news to Peter Dutton, or some people, but the Labor Party was formed by the Australian trade union movement,” he said.

“The trade union movement has a very strong role in the Labor Party. I am proud to be a member of two unions. I am proud of the work I did at those unions.

You’ll never find me ashamed of my links to working people, to the work that our trade unions do ... to try to support those working people.

Steven Miles

“At the end of the day that is what the Labor Party was formed to do and is the kind of leader I will be. These unions that you are disparaging represent tens of thousands of Queenslanders. Peter Dutton might not like those workers, but I certainly do.”

While saying there were “many conversations” he’d had since Sunday, and many more he was not involved in but which people had “a right to have”, Miles said the only deal he was party to was the agreement for Treasurer Cameron Dick to become his deputy.

Dick said Miles had asked him in a one-on-one talk about noon on Monday after the Palaszczuk-less cabinet attended its first cyclone briefing. He agreed to put his own leadership ambitions aside and ensure a quick resolution.

Palaszczuk, the most senior member of the Right, stepped back from factional meetings as premier.

Asked about this on Tuesday, Miles said this would be a detail worked through with his Left colleagues, but he had offered the leadership of that group to Fentiman.

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