But what is clear are two visions for its path forward without her among MPs,party figures,and the union movement they share deep historical roots with.
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman’s may have fizzled within 24-hours this week,but the embers flared just brightly enough,and long enough,to reveal part of that picture.
Ultimately,a friend and fellow Left faction member,Shannon Fentiman was quick to give Palaszczuk’s sucession pick Steven Miles and his incoming deputy,treasurer,and fellow leadership hopeful Cameron Dick,her full support.Supplied
But first we need to rewind a little:to a shift sometime around late 2021 and early 2022.
Among the roughly half of voters who regularly surveyed forBrisbane Times by Resolve Strategic who thought things would change over the following year,those expecting things would get worse for them personally,and also the state,overtook those thinking things would get better.
The tail end of a pandemic,inflation,housing and cost-of-living pressures,community perceptions of crime,global conflicts,polarisation,bruising public debates. Plenty of fuel for such thought exists.
As that gap widened throughout 2022 and into early 2023,so too did support for the Queensland Labor government,Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk,and even – to an extent – LNP leader David Crisafulli,fall.
But this year has seen another change:the growing proportion of those thinking things would get worse overtook,or got close to,those thinking things wouldn’t change.
This peaked,when pressure on the government over health,housing and youth justice triggered Palaszczuk to by shifting some ministers into different roles. It was here,too,the LNP leant into its tarring of the government as one of.
About the same time,support for the LNP overtook Labor. Palaszczuk’s net likeability dove deeper into negative territory,while Crisafulli’s rose into the positives among the two-thirds of the electorate who knew of him. Among those with a view,a most began to.
Throughout most of this year,,these shifts have been accompanied by internal frustrations from Labor MPs,the Labor Party,and the underlying union movement.
Frustrations around a lack of government action on key promises. Frustrations around other work stalled. Frustrations around a seeming lack of imagination or conviction in efforts to address the issues facing people.
Whatever your opinion of the leader leaving Friday as the country’s longest-serving female premier after almost nine-years and three-terms,her time through (dare I say it…) an unprecedented time – social and economic. But not always,or coherently.
I don’t have any good wines to test the truth of the phrase,but even good governments don’t tend to age like them.
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman says she will nominate to take leadership of the Queensland Labor party.
Which makes make sense. Particularly after nine years in a job most recently including a pandemic which to quit or defeat,, and,ultimately,an effort to from within.
Given the direction things were headed – politically and in the wider community – it’s easy to make sense of how those applying this pressure justified it,too. Whatever your opinion of the approach.
Enter Fentiman and her supporters within the parliamentary party,broader organisation and union movement. While the she declared she held may not have been enough to deliver her the top job,the support for a different approach to was there.
Her pitch talked of fighting for change,energy,fresh ideas,fairness and optimism,listening and delivering through “robust cabinet processes” and “Labor values”.
(Similar questions also – from a community,party members and unions facing the same pressures as those in Queensland.)
Some of Fentiman’s supporters saw her pitch as a way to lean away from public perceptions,with,about the nature of union influence on government.
For others:an attempt to avoid returning to the last all-male party leadership team days of 2005. Or a chance to push even further on issues such as cost-of-living support.
Ultimately,a friend and fellow member,Fentiman was quick to give Miles and his incoming deputy,treasurer,and fellow leadership hopeful Cameron Dick her full support. All involved will want to avoid any further public splits in direction if things now get moving in one.
Miles will need to shake off some of the less positive memories people have of him from pandemic-era screen time. But he does have 11 months to do it before voters pick the next premier. And he may yet steer things down paths those who imagined a different outcome this week will cheer.
But regardless of how things play out next October,the past five days may emerge a sliding-doors moment for the party with lessons to extend beyond state parliament to the.
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