Queensland election: Diverse frontbench lacks business input

Small-town lawyers, journalists and members of the medical profession dominate the Queensland LNP’s frontbench.

LNP transport and main roads spokesman Steve Minnikin. Picture: Brendan Radke

Small-town lawyers, journalists and members of the medical profession dominate the Queensland LNP’s frontbench, but there is a real shortage of potential ministers with a business background.

Unlike the ALP, whose ministers were largely either involved in the trade union movement or had been political advisers, the Liberal Nation­al Party has considerably more diversity in its frontbench make-up.

But there are only two LNP frontbench members, Steve Minnikin­ and Michael Hart, who have a business background, neither­ of whom could be called “the big end of town’’.

Minnikin was a manager of retail­ properties — at one stage, he was the centre manager for the Runaway Bay Shopping Centre — while Hart ran a small business at Burleigh on the Gold Coast, focus­ing on photochemical mach­ining and laser cutting.

Likewise, the three lawyers on the LNP frontbench are hardly representative of the big end of town. Party leader Deb Frecklington was a lawyer in Kingaroy, while Jarrod Bleijie was a lawyer on the Sunshine Coast.

The only lawyer with more worldly experience is Toowoomba-based David Janetzki, who was born on the Darling Downs and undertook his primary and secondary education there before gaining two degrees from the University of Queensland. He worked as a lawyer in Brisbane and London, before returning to Toowoomba, where he became head of legal and governance for ­the Heritage Bank, then head of banking operations there.

Aside from the lawyers and businesspeople, three of the 18 potential­ ministers come from the medical profession. Health spokeswoman Ros Bates was a nurse before entering parliament, former leader and minister John-Paul Langbroek was a dentist, and Christian Rowan was a physician who also served as president of the Queensland branch of the Australian Medical Association.

There are also three former journalists. David Crisafulli worked in north Queensland as a print and television journalist ­before becoming a media adviser to an LNP member, then being elected as a Townsville City councillor and then a state MP. ­Lachlan Miller was an ABC rural reporter who then worked in ­various lobby groups before ­becoming a media adviser to an LNP politician, then being elected to the Queensland parliament.

Long-time MP Fiona Simpson, who was first elected in 1992, was a journalist on the Sunshine Coast Daily before entering parliament in a seat that had ­previously been covered by an electorate held by her father.

There are also two former public servants on the LNP frontbench, with Andrew Powell working in the Defenc­e Department in Canberra before returning to Queensland, where he worked for the departments of Premier and Cabinet and Child Safety from 2001 to 2009.

The other former public servant is Stephen Bennett, a builder who became head of QBuild in the Bundaberg area, where he is now the local member.

There are two former policemen on the list, Dale Last and Dan Purdie, the latter being in charge of the Child Protection Unit on the Sunshine Coast.

Tony Perrott is the only ­grazier on the list.

While a third of the ALP ministry worked in politicians’ ­offices before they entered polit­ics, on the LNP side only Ann Leahy did, as electoral officer for the western Queensland seat of Warrego, which she now represents.

Finally, deputy leader and Treasury spokesman Tim Mander was a former NRL referee who presided over the 2004 and 2005 grand finals before becoming head of the Queensland branch of the Scripture Union.