With her personal popularity in free fall, Annastacia Palaszczuk jumped before she was pushed

Annastacia Palaszczuk jumped before she was pushed.

The Queensland premier may have won three elections on the trot, beginning with the shock victory over Campbell Newman in 2015, but she had lost the backing of many in her caucus, cabinet and the all-powerful unions.

The problem for them was that the personal popularity of Palaszczuk, the magic carpet that carried Labor into power, has been in free fall for over a year among voters.

They began to really start to turn-off around June last year, as the premier came under fire for her apparent penchant for striding the red carpet at swanky event after event while voters were feeling the squeeze of interest rate rises and inflation.

Successive polls showed Palaszczuk on the nose and Labor facing defeat at next year’s October election.

In August, The Weekend Australian revealed in a front-page article that the premier had lost the support of key sections of the caucus, cabinet and union leadership and wanted her to quit to give the party a chance.

The impact was worsened when the premier, who had uncharacteristically ignored calls from this masthead to discuss the looming piece, took off on a holiday to Italy (that was not foreshadowed to most of her staff and cabinet) on the morning it broke.

Palaszczuk on holiday in Italy with her partner Dr Reza Adib. Picture: John Nguyen

Later, it was easy for Palaszczuk to dismiss that the discontent existed and was widespread because no-one, it seemed, had the spine to confront her or dare to start doing the numbers for a spill.

Last week, the premier – in a long discussion with this reporter – repeatedly dismissed any suggestion that her premiership was under question, even as union polling was being conducted in the field and union officials began to publicly criticise her leadership.

Palaszczuk appeared to buy time, last week saying caucus were the only ones who could decide her fate and they weren’t meeting until next February.

But the pressure kept mounting.

Insiders have told The Australian that Gary Bullock, union official and Left faction leader, began to waver in his critical support of Palaszczuk after MPs and his counterparts in the union movement began to question his judgement.

That was the final straw with which Palaszczuk was clinging to power. She knew she had to go, and to go without a fight.

That is the influence of the union movement over Labor in Queensland.

It is no surprise that the outgoing premier has anointed her deputy, Steven Miles, who is also a favourite of Bullock.

But that doesn’t mean anything.

Labor is looking to avoid a contested ballot, and avoid a messy brawl for the leadership.

If it went to a ballot, the votes would be split between MPs, the ALP membership and affiliated unions.

Everybody wants to keep that from happening.

But some MPs believe Miles isn’t up to the job and that Health minister Shannon Fentiman is the only one capable of pulling-off a win or, at least, saving Labor from a wipe-out.

There will be a lot of backroom discussions in the next few hours, maybe days, to work out who will succeed one of Labor’s most electorally-successful premiers.

And, at this stage, the only winner from this will be LNP leader David Crisafulli.