‘Been there a long time’: Annastacia Palaszczuk’s allies want renewal
Annastacia Palaszczuk’s factional allies want the third-term Premier to quit before the next election, saying the party needs a leader with more energy.
Annastacia Palaszczuk’s factional allies want the third-term Premier to quit before the next election, saying the party needs a leader with more energy.
Ms Palaszczuk, who is on a two-week holiday in Italy, has lost confidence of key sections of the Labor Party in Queensland following successive polling that suggests her personal popularity has nosedived.
Two of the frontrunners to replace Ms Palaszczuk – Deputy Premier Steven Miles and Health Minister Shannon Fentiman – held a press conference together on Monday.
And Treasurer Cameron Dick has laid out a blueprint for how he says the government can win the next election, releasing a 576-word manifesto to The Courier-Mail.
Mr Dick insisted the Premier had his “full support”, but his unprompted intervention will be seen as a reminder of his aspirations should the leader Ms Palaszczuk be challenged.
Mr Miles said most of Labor’s frontbench had been ministers since the 2015 election and “there are many, many people who could step up down the track”.
“But what we have right now is a strong, stable, united team, led by Annastacia Palaszczuk,” Mr Miles said.
Ms Fentiman conceded that last week had been “challenging” for the government after it overrode its own human rights laws to allow children to be detained in adult prisons and police watch houses. “I think we’re in our third term of government, we’re coming up to 12 months out of the election,” she said. “You know, all of these conversations happen from time to time.”
The Australian has spoken to more than two dozen Queensland Labor figures and there is growing division about whether Ms Palaszczuk should quit or if she remains the party’s best chance of winning a fourth term.
A Right-faction source said the government had hit a ceiling under Ms Palaszczuk and she should bow out soon to allow a rebrand before the October 2024 election. “The Premier has a lot to be proud of, she should leave on a high,” the source said.
“(But) in this game, egos can get in the way of reality. We need a spit and polish, someone with more energy. Not that she hasn’t had energy, but she has been there a long time.”
One Labor source said Ms Palaszczuk could “definitely” win the next election. “She’s always been lucky; she’ll get a natural disaster,” the source said.
Labor Party rules make it near impossible for an internal rival to roll a leader. Ms Palaszczuk, Australia’s longest-serving premier behind Victoria’s Daniel Andrews, would have to decide to leave or be convinced to go.
Another member of the Right said Ms Palaszczuk could be stubborn and was becoming less inclined to listen to advice. “If she doesn’t want to go, she won’t go,” the Right member said.
A strong contingent of MPs still support Ms Palaszczuk, believing her personal brand can get Labor over the line while others fear a change in leader will give support to the LNP’s claims of instability and crisis within the government. Once a prevailing force, Labor’s Right faction has been in rapid decline in recent years, thwarting hopes Treasurer Cameron Dick will ever become premier.
In the dominant Left faction – which controls the numbers in cabinet and caucus – Mr Miles and Ms Fentiman would be frontrunners in any leadership ballot to succeed Ms Palaszczuk.
Former Labor minister Robert Schwarten warned that if “gutless” MPs kept undermining Ms Palaszczuk, the government would lose the next election. “These things develop a life of their own … (and) become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said.
“If I was the Premier reading those gutless people, I wouldn't take them seriously until they had the guts to say it to my face. And you have to question the motivation of those people if they are not prepared to do that.”
The pair served in the Bligh government’s cabinet together. Mr Schwarten said Ms Palaszczuk had been written off too often during her political career.
“She’s pulled it out of the fire on many occasions,” he said. “I don’t ever underestimate her capacity to fight, and neither should anyone else.”
A Labor backbencher acknowledged there was leadership chatter but said there were “always rumblings” sometimes “more intense than others”.
One source said it was unlikely the Premier would want to quit before May next year, because she was desperate to surpass Peter Beattie’s record as the longest-serving post-war Labor Premier in Queensland.
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