Rise and fall of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk
From the rise as ‘accidental Premier’ to leading the state through Covid, ongoing integrity crises and being dubbed the ‘Red Carpet Premier’, this is a look back at Annastacia Palaszczuk’s reign.
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Annastacia Palaszczuk will retire as Queensland’s 39th Premier with a swag of records under her belt – a tenure which began with the historic defeat of LNP leader Campbell Newman and ended with a surprise Sunday morning press conference.
The daughter of Labor minister Henry, Ms Palaszczuk took over her father’s safe electorate seat of Inala in 2006, becoming Disability Services and Multicultural Affairs Minister and then Transport Minister in 2011 under Premier Anna Bligh.
But it was Ms Bligh’s sensational loss to Mr Newman in 2015 which truly propelled Ms Palaszczuk’s eventual fate, when she became Opposition Leader of a group of just seven – a team which included future Deputy Premier Jackie Trad.
Crafting a public image of “Aunty Anna” as Mr Newman’s sweeping public service cuts were met with fierce and brutal opposition, Ms Palaszczuk became Premier in a shock win in 2015 by the slimmest of margins – making her Australia’s first female Premier to be elected from opposition.
Her 2017 win would be similarly tight – with the result taking close to two weeks to be formalised.
But by 2019, Ms Palaszczuk and the Labor Party’s popularity was on a knife edge.
A series of scandals including an integrity crisis spawned from Ms Trad’s failure to disclose the purchase of a property near the planned Cross River Rail threatened to see the party – and Ms Palaszczuk – turfed out at the next election.
Ms Palaszczuk – who had been regarded as a stable, non-nonsense leader – was now being accused of being too slow to act and failing to listen to advice as she refused to dump Ms Trad from her role.
Then came Covid – and Queenslanders tuned in their hundreds of thousands to daily press conferences, as the Premier wielded warnings, declared snap lockdowns and border closures.
Meanwhile Brisbane secured the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games – a feat Ms Palaszczuk describes as one of her biggest legacies.
The pandemic helped secure a historic third victory for Ms Palaszczuk – though Ms Trad was gone, and Health Minister Steven Miles would become her new Deputy.
But soon another integrity crisis would soon engulf her leadership – culminating in Professor Peter Coaldrake’s landmark report – and Ms Palaszczuk would be left with the Covid hangover of the $220m, hardly used Wellcamp quarantine facility.
By 2022 the rumblings about her leadership were becoming a din, with backbenchers and insiders repeatedly saying the Premier had established a group of “yes men” around her – as the government lurched from policy decision to announcement on the turn of a dime.
The “red carpet Premier” came into fruition, as images of Ms Palaszczuk and her high-profile partner Reza Adib at film openings with movie stars threatened her down to earth image.
A cancelled Cabinet meeting to attend a yacht event and an ill-timed European holiday as the country’s cost-of-living issues continued to spiral only fuelled speculation the leader had become out of touch, and the Labor Party needed a change.
Her refusal to even discuss a potential successor only heightened the tension among the upper leadership.
Despite her constant, long-professed tirades that she was going nowhere and it was up to the people of Queenslander to bow her out, that leadership came to an end on Sunday.
Originally published as Rise and fall of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk
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