Union powerbroker Gary Bullock refuses to back Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk
Queensland’s top political powerbroker has refused to declare his support for Annastacia Palaszczuk as trade unions fall silent on whether the premier should lead Labor to next year’s election.
Queensland’s leading political powerbroker, Gary Bullock, has refused to declare his support for Annastacia Palaszczuk as the trade union movement falls silent on whether the Premier should lead Labor to next year’s election.
Ms Palaszczuk, who is in Italy with her partner, is under pressure to retire, with several of her ministerial colleagues, backbenchers and close allies privately saying she needs to quit.
The Australian contacted eight unions affiliated with the ALP about whether they still supported Ms Palaszczuk as leader, and only the Premier’s own union responded.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles and Health Minister Shannon Fentiman remain frontrunners in any leadership ballot to succeed Ms Palaszczuk.
Their unions – United Workers Union and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union – both responded with “no comment” when asked whether Ms Palaszczuk was best to lead Labor to the October 2024 election.
Mr Bullock, an UWU official and member of Labor’s national executive, is key to determining whether the party should change leaders. He has not responded to repeated approaches for comment by The Australian in the past week, and on Thursday an UWU spokeswoman said “Gary is not answering questions on that”.
The state’s peak union body, the Queensland Council of Unions, did not directly address questions on whether Ms Palaszczuk was the best person to lead the party to the next election.
QCU general secretary Jacqueline King said unions expected a “a united Labor leadership team”.
“The alternate is an LNP government, who have a clear track record of cutting jobs and services for all Queenslanders,” she said in a statement to The Australian.
State secretaries from the Transport Workers Union and CFMEU were unavailable to comment on Thursday.
Other unions, including the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the Electrical Trades Union and Together, did not respond to questions on whether they supported Ms Palaszczuk as leader.
Stacey Schinnerl, head of Ms Palaszczuk’s Australian Workers’ Union, said she backed the premier “110 per cent”.
“She has the full support of the AWU – to the next election and beyond,” Ms Schinnerl said.
“She respects our hardworking frontline public servants, she supports job-creating industries and she is delivering the largest infrastructure build that Queensland has ever seen.”
Speaking on the issue for the first time, Queensland ALP state secretary Kate Flanders said she “absolutely” still supported Ms Palaszczuk as leader.
“The Premier has a proven track record of acting in the interests of Queenslanders and she has a great vision for our state,” she said in a statement.
Ms Palaszczuk revealed from holidays in Naples that she is suffering from health issues and was upset that news photographers had taken her picture on a private holiday. “I don’t want to say anything … I have got some health issues,” she said.
Unrest over Ms Palaszczuk followed a poor parliamentary week and three successive polls suggesting the state government was headed for defeat in October next year.
The Australian has spoken to more than 30 Queensland Labor figures in the past week and there is a growing sense within the party that Ms Palaszczuk’s political days are numbered.
“Nobody wants to roll her, that would be messy,” a Labor figure said, on the condition of anonymity. “Ideally she would go on her own, but she may come back (from Europe) and dig her heels in.”
Others maintain Ms Palaszczuk is Labor’s best hope of securing a fourth-term in office, having increased the party’s seat count at three elections.
Labor Party rules in Queensland makes it difficult for an internal rival to roll Ms Palaszczuk, with at least 50 per cent of her MPs needed to support a petition to the ALP state secretary for a ballot. Ms Palaszczuk is on leave until September 11.
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