React and repeat? What Palaszczuk’s cabinet shake-up could really tell us

Craig Crawford was almost on the plane. In the Cairns-based MP’s retelling last week, he had been about to jet off back home from Brisbane when the text message from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s chief of staff popped up.

Crawford, like many other ministers in the third-term Labor government, would then trek to the tower of power at 1 William Street for a Wednesday meeting with Palaszczuk to be dished out new roles in a cabinet reshuffle.

Another, attorney-general-again Yvette D’Ath, was given her news the day prior and just moments before facing journalists as health minister on one of the various spot-fires she had been facing in recent months.

“There has been a concerted call for me to be moved on … at some point, decisions have to be made [around] what’s in the best interest of the people of Queensland and the government,” she would say days later, at a separate press conference to the premier.

When she emerged with the details on Thursday, Palaszczuk herself was keen to paint the situation as a reset for her government, which has faced pressure on three major fronts: health, youth justice and housing.

But a reset with an eye to the October 2024 state election.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she had listened to the concerns of Queenslanders before pulling the trigger on her ministerial reshuffle.Credit: AAP

The pressure for such changes can come from many places, according to Queensland University of Technology adjunct associate professor John Mickel.

Mickel, himself a minister in two past state Labor governments, said the factors weighed up by a premier in shifting their frontbench around usually involved a combination.

These include how other cabinet members felt about the performance of colleagues, complaints filtering up from backbench MPs, and how their performance was measured in and through the media by the public.

“Any government going into an election year would [also] be mindful of that,” Mickel said. “If there is any pressure on those ministers and their performances, now is the time for a reset.”

While the reshuffle surprised some in government, it was not an unexpected response to its recent troubles and was reportedly being considered since last month’s slipping polls (despite Palaszczuk’s insistence in February it was not on the cards).

In an interview at the weekend, Palaszczuk also softened her previously harder line on questions of who might replace her when she eventually stepped down from the top job, saying she was “equipping” a “handful of people”.

Regardless of reasons for the ministerial changes, whether the move will truly reset things may depend on whether the public is happy with simply the appearance of being heard or talked to better.

Without any change to how the government governs – in the direction of the nuanced and occasionally unpopular long-term solutions it knows are needed in problem areas – that appearance will be all the reshuffle really delivers.

Labor has shown on many occasions now that it can be spooked into reaction by loud or scary-enough voices. The reshuffle itself is only the latest example.

ICYMI

One other thing that will be changing is the structure of some departments under the new ministerial regime – with directors-general also being shifted and departments (such as housing) being expanded or (such as youth justice) tacked onto others.

Amid its campaigning on the three key issues tied up in the reshuffle, the LNP has drawn attention to the fact last year’s review of government culture and accountability urged “self-restraint” around the often-disruptive rearrangements (somewhat ominously) known as “machinery-of-government” changes.

The freshly minted ministers have been quick out the gate since Thursday, with Health Minister Shannon Fentiman already touring central Queensland hospitals with maternity issues and visiting one of the under-construction “satellite hospitals” near Ipswich.

Returning to the role after a 2½-year hiatus, Youth Justice Minister Di Farmer travelled to Toowoomba to launch a joint police team announced in February.

(The government’s expired and expiring evidence-based youth justice plans, which advocates say have been side-stepped for more recent “knee-jerk” reactions, are also no doubt on her agenda.)

In the housing space, millennial minister Meaghan Scanlon fronted media on Monday to spruik the 27 lots of excess government land pinpointed by a housing summit-sparked audit now being considered for eventual development.

She has also already been drawn into arguments across all three levels of government about the use of the Pinkenba quarantine site for emergency housing.

HEADS UP

For now, let’s stick with Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, who has been driving the Pinkenba push and faces council elections in March next year gearing up as the next major test for the LNP political brand across Brisbane’s greening inner city.

We couldn’t help but notice Schrinner’s recent candidate announcements in two wards being vacated by long-term Labor councillors featured no mention of the LNP beyond a party authorisation deep in the privacy and legal info section of their Facebook pages.

Both have instead been labelled the “Lord Mayor’s representative” for their respective wards.

Meanwhile, the state parliamentary committee looking at support for victims of crime has now wrapped up its final report – backing many of the calls made by Brisbane-based Labor backbencher Jonty Bush earlier this year.

The Labor-controlled committee, of which Bush is a member, has also recommended the government waive fees for state-issued ID documents and number plates needing to be replaced by victims after a crime.

The LNP and independent Noosa MP Sandy Bolton have criticised the lack of time given to the inquiry and need for reform of the committee system it operated under.

Parliament will also return this week, with laws to allow the earlier naming of alleged sexual offenders set to be introduced.

But aside from different faces answering questions on the trickier topics, maybe don’t hold your breath for too much else to have changed.