Is this a shake-up, or just another political shakedown?
Surrounded by intrigue, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s sacrifice of beleaguered Health Minister Yvette D’Ath barely moved the political needle this week. Madonna King asks whether it was worth the effort
The removalists need barely work up a sweat to shift the ministers subject to Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Clayton’s reshuffle.
No one loses a dollar in salary, a ministerial driver or admission to the executive floors of 1 William St. They’re just moving floors as penalty for their flaws.
If this is meant to be a re-set, it is doomed to fail and further entrenches the view evident in the polling that the government is reactive at best but mainly unresponsive to the issues on voters’ minds.
If we are to have any faith that shifting Yvette D’Ath, Leeanne Enoch and Leanne Linard from the Health, Housing and Youth Justice portfolios will achieve anything, we first have to believe that they have been the sole architects of their failing policies.
Not so. This is a Cabinet system of government and the policies under fire are the policies of the whole government, influenced by the ministers but shaped by a whole ministry and government.
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Nothing there is going to change.
So what we are going to get is three familiar faces to reassure us all is well in with the health system, the youth justice system and the housing system – when we all know it is not.
This “reshuffle” highlights the shallowness of the Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her team’s obsession with shaping a message rather than delivering outcomes. Pity it’s so bad at it.
What we all well understand is that the problems in each portfolio have not arisen overnight. They are the accumulation of years of missteps and poor setting of priorities. The usual pattern is denial of the problem, then a bandaid solution before serious remediation to convince the voting public that all will be well.
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This was a technique developed and executed with finesse by Peter Beattie before he realised his time was up and that salesmanship alone would not deliver results. But at least he fronted the media, to be questioned over his decisions.
No one since has had the salesmanship of Peter Beattie but the implication in this reshuffle is that we will get a group of ministers relocated from existing portfolios to sell us the government’s achievements in its most vulnerable areas.
In addition, there is a strong view within Labor circles that shifting Shannon Fentiman to Health is also a means of knocking the shine off a well-performing young female minister who could emerge as a successor or rival to the Premier.
Those who know her say she is far from thrilled at taking carriage of the government’s hot potato.
And what are the stakeholders in the departments to be taken over by the demoted ministers to make of their standing as boltholes for the perceived under-performers?
Remember last year’s integrity crisis which led to a broad and damning review of the state’s integrity functions and governance standards by Professor Peter Coaldrake.
Both his interim and final reports referred repeatedly to the quality of “tone from the top” in this government – both at a political and administrative level. He wasn’t being complimentary but was pointing out that standards are determined from the top of any organisation.
The Premier promised to implement his report “lock, stock and barrel” before even reading it. And the government is steadily setting about doing so.
But the tone from the top hasn’t changed. And that surely would be a good place to start if there is to be a serious reset of this tiring government.
