Palaszczuk family bids farewell to 40 years of representation in Inala

It’s been a family affair for decades and today the Palaszczuk era in Inala comes to an end.

It’s been a family affair for 32 years – 40 if you take into account its former incarnation as the seat of Archerfield – and today the Palaszczuk era in Inala comes to an end.

The Palaszczuk family’s history in the seat mirrors a good portion of a fascinating period of Australia’s broader history, when post war immigration began changing the face of the nation.

Henry Palaszczuk, former Labor member for Inala and the father of incumbent Annastacia Palaszczuk, was there right from the very beginning.

The son of Polish immigrants Ludwika and Hipolit (Leo) and born in Germany in 1947, he arrived as a toddler in 1950 and grew up with the suburb.

“I remember that period very, very well,’’ he said yesterday.

“I am actually writing a book about my life up until my 12th birthday, so I have a lot of memories to draw on, and dad was good friends with a Polish photographer in those years, so we have a lot of photographs.’’

Future Premier of Queensland Annastacia Palaszczuk (14yrs) pictured with her father when he was elected as the new Archerfield MLA, also pictured are Julie (3), Catherine (9), Nadia (5) and her mum Lorelle (21/5/1984)

Henry and Lorelle Palaszczuk with daughters Julia, Nadia, Annastacia and Catherine.

Inala was still the site of a United States Military base in the immediate post war years but sprang to life as a fledgling community when that base was turned into a staging post for immigrants, becoming a temporary home for thousands of people, many, like the Palaszczuk family, from eastern Europe.

Inala was the melting pot, a stew of numerous nationalities, and many of the families who had suffered the horrors of war were relentlessly aspirational, determined to seize the opportunities provided by an Australian passport to put the ugliness of war behind them.

Mr Palaszczuk, whose boilermaker father Leo had suffered in both German and Russian labour camps, played his part (quite literally) in building the suburb of Inala.

One of his early childhood memories is going to work with a group of kids pulling nails out of old wooden boards which had been rescued from dilapidated buildings to be used to build a Catholic Church.

By the time he was in his late teens he was training to be a schoolteacher, raising money to build tennis courts, starting up a youth group and learning the skills of community engagement.

By his 30s, married and the father of four daughters, he was moving into Labor politics. Pre-election soon followed in Archerfield in 1984 after the death of the local member Kev Hooper who had held Archerfield (which incorporated Inala) for 22 years,

Inala, as a specific electoral district, came to life as a result of Wayne Goss, another Inala resident who won power in 1989.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk kisses her father Henry, a former Queensland MP, as she arrives at a polling booth in 2017. (AAP Image/Dan Peled)

As the new Labor Premier, Mr Goss immediately began his promised “one vote, one value’’ electoral reforms which included the creation of a new electoral district with the Indigenous name of Inala, meaning resting place or place of peace.

Mr Palaszczuk, slotted into this newly minted seat from Archerfield, cruised to victory on the primary vote alone in Inala’s inaugural election in 92.

It was an outcome mirrored consistently across the years except in the Campbell Newman-led LNP landslide of 2012 when his daughter had to rely on preferences to hold on.

After a series of cabinet positions in the Beattie Government, Mr Palaszczuk retired in 2006 as his daughter took over the seat.

Today he can look back across seven decades to summarise one of the most multicultural electorates in the nation.

(AAP Image/John Pryke)

Immigration, he says, is the defining characteristic of his old electorate.

“We have come from Europe, from eastern Europe after the war, from Vietnam in the mid 1970s, from Iraq during the Iraq war, from the Sudan and surrounding African countries, from Asia, from everywhere,’’ he says.

One need only look at the names of the candidates in today’s contest to grasp the extent of that diversity.

“This community has a unique spirit,’’ Mr Palaszczuk says.

“People care for one another, they might occasionally have their arguments and their disagreements, but the people of Inala look out for one another.’’

Originally published as Palaszczuk family bids farewell to 40 years of representation in Inala