Analysis: Annastacia Palaszczuk will likely back Mark Bailey in crisis

Just as she has done on countless occasions, the short-odds are on Ms Palaszczuk staring down a disgruntled back bench and sticking by her under-siege minister, writes Stephanie Bennett.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (front) and Transport Minister Mark Bailey (right) inspect a new Gold Coast tram recently. Picture: Tertius Pickard/NCA NewsWire

The chances of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk booting Transport Minister Mark Bailey over the disastrous train manufacturing cover-up are slim.

Just as she has done on countless occasions, the short-odds are on Ms Palaszczuk staring down a disgruntled back bench and sticking by her under-siege minister.

The last one to cause Ms Palaszczuk such headaches was Health Minister Yvette D’Ath – with Ms Palaszczuk mercy-swapping her back to attorney-general after months of pressure to sack her.

A rumbling back bench is not exactly a rarity, though the past month has given them plenty of fodder to be grumpy about.

Any fool can see the mishandling of the issue by both Mr Bailey and Ms Palaszczuk has been a free kick to the LNP, and landed right on two of Labor’s biggest perceived weaknesses: wasteful spending and lack of transparency.

The painful drip-feeding of information culminating – for now – in an investigation by Ms Palaszczuk’s director-general Rachel Hunter had the misfortune of also coinciding with the The Courier-Mail revealing the government was ditching one of Professor Peter Coaldrake’s integrity recommendations.

Professor Coaldrake’s concerns over the relationships between public servants and ministers also had echoes throughout the Bailey drama.

The emergence of an email from his office asking TMR to “delete reference” – set to be investigated by Ms Hunter – was just the kind of thing Professor Coaldrake’s report shined the light on. The blame shifting on to staff throughout the whole fiasco also left a stink.

Today’s caucus meeting will be fiery, but the Transport Minister will, in all likelihood, live to fight another day.

Whether the same can be said for this government come next year’s election – should they continue down this path of dodging, weaving and hiding the truth from Queenslanders – is another story.

Originally published as Analysis: Annastacia Palaszczuk will likely back Mark Bailey in crisis