Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk holidays in Italy as leadership discontent grows
As Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor comrades knife her from afar, did the Queensland Premier make a grave error by jetting off on a romantic Italian holiday?
As Annastacia Palaszczuk strolled the cobblestone streets of the Italian seaside city of Naples this week with her surgeon beau Reza Adib, she may have wondered if their romantic holiday was a mistake.
Trouble had blown up in Queensland on the morning of her departure last Saturday, and the Amalfi coast promised to be a sanctuary away from it all.
Bruised from one of the worst weeks of her eight years in power – with widespread outcry over her government’s decision to bypass the usual parliamentary scrutiny and shove through laws allowing kids to be held in police watch-houses – the veneer of her long-unassailable hold on the leadership had been shattered.
A front-page story in The Weekend Australian revealed that, for the first time since Palaszczuk won government with a shock election win in 2015, she had lost the confidence of her party and key Labor figures wanted her to quit.
The Premier had, uncharacteristically, ignored questions from the newspaper sent via text the day before publication.
And her office had given none of the customary notice of her impending two weeks of leave.
Most Labor MPs and even those supposedly closest to her, including Treasurer and fellow Right faction member Cameron Dick, as he publicly revealed later in the week, had no idea of her holiday plans.
It was an insight into the isolation of the Queensland Premier who, while delivering three election wins on the trot on the strength of her public popularity, has struggled to be liked by a Labor caucus and cabinet dominated by the Left faction.
And as the government moves towards the last 12 months of its term, and the toughest election contest in years, there is a widening belief the Palaszczuk magic is gone.
Some MPs and ministers believe she has just “checked out”, more interested in living the high life with Adib, for whom she publicly declared her love in The Courier-Mail newspaper in September 2021.
Three published polls in recent months – and earlier internal ALP research – show the government is headed for defeat against an invigorated Liberal National Party opposition, with the Premier a drag on the Labor vote.
Her personal popularity was in free fall across all the polls, with the last two showing voters rated LNP leader David Crisafulli slightly ahead as preferred premier, even though a fair chunk had never actually heard of him.
But there is little the caucus can do.
State ALP rules, introduced in the wake of Kevin Rudd’s removal as prime minister, make it nearly impossible to oust a sitting Labor leader unless it is in the aftermath of an election loss.
To mount a midterm coup, more than half of the caucus must petition state secretary Kate Flanders to trigger a spill.
The ensuing ballot for the leadership is then evenly divided between the parliamentary party, eligible grassroots members and affiliated unions.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles and Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, both from the Left faction, are the favoured contenders. Dick has ambitions but, as a member of the Right, doesn’t have the numbers.
A failed knifing of the Premier would be disastrous.
The push for her to quit is not universal; some MPs believe her proven campaign skills can pull a win out of the hat while others in the ministry, seemingly protected by virtue of Palaszczuk’s reluctance to dump cabinet ministers, fear for their jobs under a new leader.
Those wanting change, including union leaders who spoke to Inquirer on condition of anonymity, are hoping she falls on her sword.
But as one senior ALP source noted archly: “She’s never acted in a way that’s not best for her. And Reza likes getting dressed up for all those events.”
Despite the public displays of support and unity in the past seven days, the dysfunction within the cabinet has increasingly been there for all to see. In question time on August 22, the first day parliament had sat since May, Inquirer noticed the Premier and her colleagues barely exchanged words or even glances as they fended off opposition questions about youth crime and claims of a cover-up over a $2bn blowout in the construction of new trains.
Multiple sources say the Premier rarely talks to Dick, outside of formalised pre-cabinet and budget-related meetings, or to Fentiman, who has seemingly filled the shoes previously worn by Kate Jones (who retired ahead of the last election) in receiving icy treatment from the boss.
Palaszczuk’s diaries reveal she has had just three one-on-one meetings with Dick since the start of last year.
In the same 18-month period, she has not met Fentiman alone once.
Miles replaced Jackie Trad as deputy premier after the then Left factional leader lost her inner city seat in 2020.
He has sought to play a “loyal deputy” role to Palaszczuk, unlike Trad who was often at war with the premier.
But, like Fentiman and Dick, he wants the top job.
Palaszczuk has never been a reformist or too bothered with driving policy like her Labor predecessors Wayne Goss, Peter Beattie or Anna Bligh.
She initially won power with an “Aunty Annastacia” persona that was a foil to the pugnacious one-term LNP premier Campbell Newman, who sacked thousands of public servants and put the state-owned electricity network up for sale.
After Palaszczuk’s first-term of a middling minority government, voters gave her a second chance and outright majority in 2017.
In late 2019, polls started to show she might in trouble. But within months the pandemic hit and her daily press conferences and absolutism in locking down state borders were rewarded with an increased majority at the October 2020 election, driven by a surge in pensioner support.
But almost as soon she was returned to office, earning a place among Australia’s most successful Labor leaders, the government was facing crises on several fronts.
Investigations by this newspaper about the Premier’s interdependence with Labor-linked lobbyists – who ran her 2020 re-election campaign, literally from her office – and pervasive influence of unions fuelled an integrity scandal.
It eventually forced Palaszczuk to order the Coaldrake review, which recommended a suite of reforms to address a perceived politicisation of the public service and resulted in the banning of three of the lobbyists. But while her government was facing crisis, she seemed to be out partying.
The twice-married daughter of Beattie government minister Henry Palaszczuk was seen with Adib, a laparoscopic surgeon, at one glittering society event after another.
Whether it was at the Logies, the premiere of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, or the weekend races, the “red carpet Premier” – as the LNP dubbed her – began to worry about the backbench, particularly those in marginal seats facing rising living costs.
Until this term, Palaszczuk, 54, might have got away with it.
But up against Crisafulli, she can no longer coast.
The LNP leader is the first battle-ready politician she has faced as Premier: disciplined, tenacious and ruthless.
While his predecessors Deb Frecklington and Tim Nicholls were dismissed as Monday-to-Friday opposition leaders, Crisafulli is indefatigable.
The 44-year-old sat at Newman’s cabinet table before both Newman and Crisafulli were turfed out of their electorates and government in 2015.
After the defeat, Crisafulli abandoned his hometown of Townsville – and his north Queensland marginal seat – and shifted his young family south to the conservative heartland of the Gold Coast.
His ruthlessness was on show when he rolled sitting LNP MP Verity Barton for one of the state’s safest LNP seats, Broadwater, in 2017 and set about resurrecting his political career.
Backroom operatives in LNP headquarters tried and failed to install Crisafulli as leader in 2020 in a ham-fisted insurgency against Frecklington.
He finally took the opposition leader’s job after the LNP’s 2020 election loss, and his strength has been a relentless attack on three of the government’s weaknesses: youth crime, health and housing.
Crisafulli has the gift of the gab and is talented at avoiding tricky questions. The test will come as he faces more and more scrutiny ahead of the election.
He has to win over Brisbane, a fortress of seats for Labor, which will be difficult as he navigates the competing views on contentious issues between the city and regions.
On the other side of the political divide are Labor’s three leadership contenders: Palaszczuk’s deputy Miles, rising talent Fentiman and Treasurer Dick.
None of the trio has yet had Crisafulli’s mettle to knife one of their own.
As leader of the dominant Left and protege of union boss and factional president Gary Bullock, Miles should be a shoo-in to replace Palaszczuk.
Bullock ostensibly has the numbers. Of Labor’s 52-person caucus, 34 MPs – or 65 per cent – belong to the Left or are card-carrying members of Bullock’s United Workers Union, or both.
In cabinet, his concentration of influence is even greater: 12 of 18 ministers (67 per cent) are aligned with Bullock.
The union boss is one of the few people who supported Palaszczuk during the dark days of opposition, giving her confidence and resources to lead just seven Labor MPs (out of the then 89-seat single-house parliament) back into government.
It has ensured his own power with an unrivalled access to the Premier.
Some in caucus and the union movement believe he has nurtured Miles for the same purpose.
Fentiman doesn’t enjoy equal proximity to Bullock, but there are doubts Miles possesses the steel required to be premier.
Some Labor elders have more confidence in Fentiman, a former lawyer who led much of the government’s recent legislative agenda as attorney-general. Some see her as the needed “fresh face” for Labor, as Miles is unpopular with some voters after often being deployed by Palaszczuk to handle bad news or lead attacks.
Dick might be the strongest parliamentary performer of the three, with the economic grunt that comes with being Treasurer for three years.
But unless he finagles an unlikely cross-factional deal with Bullock and the Left, Dick’s burning ambition to be premier will remain unrealised.
All is likely to be revealed on Monday, September 11, when Palaszczuk is due to start back at work after jetting home from Italy.
So far, the belief is that Bullock – who refused repeated approaches by The Australian in the past week and has declined to declare publicly his support for Palaszczuk – wants Palaszczuk to lead Labor to the next election.
And she has the added incentive of being able to beat Beattie’s record nine years and 80 days in power if she stays until next May.
But those who want her gone argue that the government needs at least 12 months to bed in a new premier, clean out the cabinet deadwood and prepare to campaign for the election in October next year.
Despite declaring in recent months that she would lead Labor to the election, there are signs Palaszczuk may be reconsidering.
The Premier surprised many this week when she told reporters in Italy, who asked about the leadership speculation, that she was suffering from unspecified health issues.
Some in Labor say it could be the first sign she is willing to go.
But, if not, and the famed stubbornness of the Premier kicks in, she will return to Queensland and march into back-to-back cabinet and caucus meetings, surrounded by the colleagues who would have spent the past two weeks knifing her from afar.
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