Queensland election: Deputy Labor leader Tim Mulherin quits four days into campaign

LABOR’S deputy leader has quit politics four days into the campaign, triggering a “captain’s pick” of a replacement candidate.

LABOR’S deputy leader has quit politics just four days into the election campaign, forcing Annastacia Palaszczuk to make a “captain’s pick” of a replacement candidate for marginal Mackay.

Former cabinet minister Tim Mulherin yesterday announced his shock retirement after nearly two decades as the member for the mining and sugar city, citing health and family reasons.

Ms Palaszczuk, campaigning in Mackay, moved swiftly to handpick a replacement from Mr ­Mulherin’s Labor Unity faction, primary school teacher-turned- union organiser Julieanne Gilbert.

Mr Mulherin’s big margin in Mackay was eroded to 0.5 per cent by 2012’s unprecedented swing to the Liberal National Party.

Ms Palaszczuk yesterday denied Mr Mulherin’s retirement was a big blow for the party so soon before the January 31 polling date, insisting she saw the writing on the wall when he suffered serious health issues last month.

“We’re going to fight really hard ... it is a grassroots campaign,” she said. “We do not have the massive amount of money that the LNP has raised. We have to fight this door to door, street to street.”

The Queensland Council of Unions yesterday issued a call to arms to donate, join rallies and support street stalls to drive a message to voters to “number every box and put the LNP last”.

In Mackay, there was no local vote to preselect Ms Gilbert; Ms Palaszczuk said she rang Labor state secretary Evan Moorhead yesterday to inform him of her choice of candidate.

Mr Mulherin will stay as deputy leader until the election. He explained tearfully that he’d made the decision to resign with “a heavy heart and deep regret”. He revealed he was forced to cancel heart surgery last month due to the sudden death of his father, so he was quitting to focus on his health and his family.

The ALP was left with just seven MPs after the 2012 landslide. It now has nine, after two by-election victories.

Mr Mulherin said the past three years had been “character building” for the small opposition.

“(Ms Palaszczuk’s) a great leader that will go on and lead us to victory,” he said. “It’s a herculean effort, we’ve got to win 37 seats to get (a) majority, but I believe she’ll be a great premier if we can win the 37 seats.”

In Mackay, Ms Palaszczuk ­announced that, if elected, Labor would spend $9 million over three years employing 45 more guidance counsellors in large state high schools. It’s the second new policy Labor has announced of the campaign, while Premier Campbell Newman has steadfastly refused to detail any, instead insisting on repeating his government’s first-term achievements.

The campaign will be effect­ively suspended today while both party leaders attend a funeral service for the eight children allegedly murdered in Cairns last month.

Ms Palaszczuk is then expected to return to Brisbane and campaign with federal Labor leader Bill Shorten tomorrow.