Clear winner emerges from Queensland Labor’s backroom deal: the LNP

Incoming Queensland premier Steven Miles. Picture: Glenn Campbell / NCA NewsWire

The winner of Labor’s contest for the next Queensland premier is … Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli.

A murky deal, hatched by union bosses long into Monday night, delivered the leadership to two blokes after almost a decade of women holding the power.

And, with the choice of Steven Miles as premier and Cameron Dick as his deputy – to be ratified in Friday’s vote of a mostly cowed and craven caucus – Labor has likely given away its last chance of winning next year’s election.

Shannon Fentiman, brought in this year to rescue the health portfolio (previously held by Dick and Miles), was rubbed out of contention almost as soon as she threw her hat in the ring.

But lost on those same powerbrokers, who just a week ago gave Annastacia Palaszczuk her marching orders, is that the youthful minister was probably the only one capable of leading a reset of a third-term government on the nose. These union bosses picked the next Queensland premier because of undeclared promises about some industrial biff rather than on who is best to lead the state.

Who needs the opinion of the 52 elected MPs in a Westminster system when Labor’s parliamentary wing is being flown remote from Peel Street (home of Queensland unions)?

And did anyone stop to think that both Miles and Dick are seen by voters as the loyal lieutenants of Palaszczuk who, after nine years, was facing the “It’s Time” factor, if nothing else.

Fentiman offered two things: enough distance from the leadership of the Palaszczuk government and a demonstrable ability to match Crisafulli on the stump.

The LNP leader is light on policy detail but is disciplined and a proven communicator.

He is yet to be properly tested.

Fentiman, who has held various portfolios since being elected as a tyro MP when Palaszczuk first took office, was always treated by the premier as a threat. ­Despite that, Fentiman was elevated to health in acknowledgment of her skills as polls showed the portfolio was dragging down the government’s support.

Over recent months, she ably handled the various scandals in the stretched health system and often took the fight to the LNP.

Palaszczuk saw her as a fix it, but Miles and Dick were blinded by their own ambitions.

One senior ALP insider told The Australian that Crisafulli has been “given the one he wanted” to face at the October 31 election.

Miles is a seemingly competent minister and is well-liked in the caucus. But he stumbles at press conferences and is laden with policy baggage, including the white elephant of Wellcamp.

The long “friendship” that Miles and Dick professed to share at Tuesday’s press conference is laughable. They barely talk outside of the cabinet room and have been bitter rivals for years.

This a government with meagre achievements in real reform or improvements in service delivery despite the resources sector continuing to deliver riches to its bottom line.

But it has done much on the gender front; Palaszczuk was the first female political leader to come from opposition and be re-elected, not once but twice.

She strengthened protections for women in domestic violence situations, decriminalised abortion and increased female representation to half of the cabinet.

Against that light, the 1980s-era backroom deal that secured the leadership for Miles and Dick will also be viewed dimly by some.