Annastacia Palaszczuk loses three ministers on Queensland election eve

Queensland’s high-profile tourism minister Kate Jones has become Annastacia Palaszczuk’s third minister to retire in a week.

Queensland Tourism Minister Kate Jones. Photo: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk faces a series of bruising factional battles after the resignation of three of her ministers in five days, despite her pleas for the trio to stay.

State Development Minister Kate Jones, Mines Minister Anthony Lynham and Communities Minister Coralee O’Rourke have all confirmed they will not contest the October 31 poll, setting the scene for preselection stoushes in at least two electorates.

Left faction member Ms O’Rourke’s ultra-marginal Townsville-based seat of Mundingburra is being targeted by the pro-mining Right faction, sparking a retaliatory strike by the Left on Dr Lynham’s safe Brisbane seat of Stafford.

Ms Jones is one of the government’s strongest performers and had been touted as a potential future leader, but she is understood to have been frustrated in recent months with Ms Palaszczuk’s leadership, and the influence of the unions and factions, which had thwarted her elevation to a senior economic portfolio until former deputy premier Jackie Trad was forced from cabinet.

Her relationship with the business community, and parliamentary experience — she was first elected in 2006 and became Queensland’s youngest cabinet minister in 2009 at 30 — is expected to leave a void in Ms Palas­zczuk’s leadership team.

Dr Lynham told The Australian suggestions he had been pressured to leave by his own Right faction and the AWU were “absolutely incorrect”.

He was leaving parliament to return to his first career of medicine, in which he had served for decades as a successful maxillo­facial surgeon, he added.

“I’m not a factional player and I know nothing about the intrigues of any machinations. This is my call,” he said.

He said he was “very honoured” that Ms Palaszczuk and others had asked him to run again, but he said he had achieved what he entered parliament to do: a cut in pub-opening hours to ­drastically reduce alcohol-fuelled violence.

Dr Lynham, who won Stafford at a by-election in 2014 and was swiftly promoted to minister when Ms Palaszczuk unexpectedly won the 2015 election, said he could no longer give “100 per cent” to his electorate and maintain his medical registration.

He volunteers at an Aboriginal health centre on Saturdays and travels to Papua New Guinea in his holidays to keep his hours up, but could no longer manage the juggle.

After a battle with breast cancer, Ms O’Rourke will quit parliament despite Ms Palaszczuk asking her to stay to preserve the benefit of incumbency in the bellwether electorate of Mundingburra, which hangs on a knife-edge margin of 1.1 per cent.

While Ms Jones’s small and tight-knit Old Guard faction is expecting an orderly handover to her successor — tipped to be Jonty Bush, an advocate for the rights of victims of violent crime — in the Brisbane seat of Cooper (10.65 per cent), there are battles ahead in Stafford and ­Mundingburra.

In Stafford (12.1 per cent), Dr Lynham’s Right faction is backing his former campaign manager and Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath’s former chief of staff Jimmy Sullivan.

It is understood that Gary Bullock’s United Workers Union and the Left faction are expected to also put up a candidate.

 

There is also a battle for Mundingburra, a crucial marginal seat, where an AWU-Right contender and a pick from Ms O’Rourke’s Left faction will face off.

In her valedictory speech to parliament, Ms Jones said she had been shaped by the experience of defeat by Campbell Newman in her seat in 2012. “I had the humbling experience of losing, but that strengthened my resolve,” she said.

In 2014, when Ms Palaszczuk convinced her to run again at the 2015 election, Ms Jones reassured her husband — with whom she shares two young children — that there was no way the small Labor opposition would ever be able to form government.

“That victory happened three years later in 2015, when I became only the second challenger in Queensland’s history to unseat a sitting premier,“ Ms Jones said.

“I, of course, had assured my husband, Paul, that when Annastacia, the then leader of the opposition asked me to run against Campbell Newman in 2014 that there was no possible way we would form government.

“As the local member, in opposition it would be totally manageable with our then four-year-old son and 10-month-old daughter … well, as they say, the rest is ­history.”

She thanked Ms Palaszczuk for her leadership to ensure Queensland “remained one of the safest places in the country and in the world during the coronavirus pandemic”.

“Even in the face of relentless pressure, orchestrated attacks, and downright bullying online, she has remained steadfast in her decision to keep Queenslanders safe, to keep my family safe,” Ms Jones said.

Queensland Labor senator Anthony Chisholm — the former ALP state secretary and campaign director from 2008 to 2015 — said the ministers’ departures was an opportunity for Ms ­Palaszczuk.

“I recall in the lead-up to the 2004 state election when three Beattie government ministers retired — it was a great opportunity for renewal of the cabinet and the Labor team,” Senator Chisholm tweeted.

“It presents the same opportunity this time for (Ms Palas­zczuk) and her team.”