Steven Miles, UWU expose how Labor politics is done in Queensland

Deputy Premier, now premier-in-waiting, Steven Miles. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Well before the Labor caucus meets in Brisbane on Friday to select a successor to Annastacia Palaszczuk as Queensland premier, the choice reportedly has been made for the party courtesy of those to whom it answers – its trade union masters, who have cracked the whip. So much for elected MPs.

As reported on Tuesday, Deputy Premier Steven Miles, the parliamentary leader of the party’s dominant Left faction, who was always going to be a frontrunner, has secured support from the Right faction, headed by Treasurer Cameron Dick “after long negotiations between union bosses on Monday”. United Workers Union boss and Left convener Gary Bullock – a highly influential, albeit unelected, player in the government behind the scenes – reportedly met Mr Dick’s industrial ally, AWU Queensland branch secretary Stacey Schinnerl, confirming Mr Dick as Mr Miles’s deputy in exchange for the Right’s support.

Mr Dick’s own ambitions to be premier, and those of articulate Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, from the Left, who on Monday afternoon announced her intention to nominate for leader, appear to have been sidelined. The machinations around the succession to the state’s most important job are an indication of how politics (and often government decision-making) has been run in the state for almost nine years. Union clout is disproportionate to the small percentage of voters who belong to a union. Neither is it transparent or democratic. Often it has not produced the best outcomes on economic policy, industrial relations or increasing the size of the public service. It is how Labor, elected three times under Ms Palaszczuk, operates. Voters should take note.