No power or glory in Annastacia Palaszczuk’s handling of scandal

It’s one thing for Annastacia Palaszczuk to say she acted “swiftly and decisively,’’ but it wasn’t the Premier who sacked Jackie Trad from cabinet.

In the face of a widening scandal, Palaszczuk allowed her deputy to front the media on Saturday offering only to stand aside as Treasurer while she faced a second probe by the corruption watchdog in a year, with the hope of a return if she wasn’t charged.

But as the Liberal National Party sharpened its Trad-centric attack campaign for the October 31 state election — trialled with success in the recent Currumbin by-election — it was the faceless men of the union movement who dropped the guillotine.

Palaszczuk on Sunday repeatedly refused to answer questions on whether she had talks with union leaders over Trad’s future or the cabinet reshuffle.

But multiple sources, and the history of the unions’ near-­dictatorial influence over the Palaszczuk government, indicate it was the withdrawal of support of United Workers Union boss and Left faction convener Gary Bullock that ended Trad’s hopes of holding on.

Bullock, who has 18 MPs in his union, protected Trad after last year’s scandal into her undeclared investment property and even appeared to accept her offer to just stand down with a public statement on Saturday that it was the “right decision’’. But growing nervousness among Left faction MPs and the industrial unions changed all that. Trad was to become the pin-up of the LNP campaign, ­particularly in the regions, where voters blame her for Labor’s delays on the Adani coalmine and pandering to the Greens.

Labor is hoping that the “exorcism of Trad’’, as one senior insider described her move to the backbench, will improve their chances of re-election. It can’t hurt.

The elevation of Cameron Dick to Treasurer and Kate Jones to Minister for State Development has put two of the government’s best talents into the most important government jobs, as Queensland faces its long climb out of the pandemic lockdown.

Steven Miles, unlike Trad, is a member of Bullock’s union, and has also earned his promotion in his able and calm handling of the government’s response to the threat of COVID. But a lot of ­damage has been done.

Palaszczuk’s lack of authority over the power of the Left faction and unions will be front and centre of the election no matter how hard she refuses to look back, as she said at her press conference on Sunday, because the voters usually do.