Trad on the defensive as Palaszczuk calls her bluff

About time. Annastacia Palaszczuk is the only thing a deeply unimpressive Queensland government has going for it and at last she has woken up.

The hiding federal Labor copped on Saturday opened her eyes to what awaits at the state election in October next year unless one of two things happen with the Adani coalmine: either it’s built or someone cogently explains how the project could get so far down the track before the plug was pulled.

The drum on Palaszczuk is that she is a centrist leader from the Labor Right who doesn’t have the numbers to impose her will on a caucus and cabinet that is controlled by the Left. Her deputy and Treasurer, Jackie Trad, the boss of the parliamentary Left, goes rogue whenever she sees fit — most notoriously in 2017 when she led a cabinet revolt to scuttle a royalty deal that had been offered to Adani.

The Premier called Trad’s bluff yesterday. By taking a stand and putting a bomb under an environment department that has instigated one nitpicking delay after another to the mine, Palaszczuk asserted her authority and primacy.

In response, Trad energetically worked the phones, asking right-wingers in the Labor caucus what she could do for them in the state budget she’s now putting to bed. The reasonable assumption was that she had something else in mind.

A leadership change? This is virtually impossible under ALP rules in Queensland, which are even tighter than those put in place federally after the musical chairs between Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and back to Rudd in 2010-13.

But there is no such protection for the deputy leader’s job in Queensland, and Trad knows it. Her actions yesterday were entirely defensive. Palaszczuk has the numbers where it counts: with the voters. The government’s prospects will turn on whether Trad can accept that reality.