In the Palaszczuk government’s first term, opponents most frequently criticised Labor’s tendency for “reviewing, not doing”.
The premier had set out to be the antithesis of Campbell Newman. There would be no rushed reforms or thought-bubble policy changes.
Progressive achievements came slowly, always backed by opinion polls showing widespread support and a useful political wedge to use on the Liberal National party. Reforms like legalising abortion and voluntary assisted dying were easy wins for Labor, because they were backed by about 80% of the voting public and created a rift between LNP moderates and some of the extreme elements on the opposition’s rightwing fringe.
Those laws were designed by the Queensland Law Reform Commission: a body established to advise government about significant reforms.
The last time the Queensland government referred anything to the law reform commission was in August 2021, when it asked for advice about overhauling laws related to sex work.
The final report on sex work laws has been delayed, but is due next week. After that, the QLRC doesn’t seem to have anything on its plate.
Last week, the Queensland parliament passed a suite of rushed, punitive and “harmful” new youth justice laws, which experts say will only heighten problems with crime, and which seek to target a cohort of mostly Indigenous children.
It’s certainly valid to question why the government did not refer these reforms – or its youth justice regime – to the Queensland Law Reform Commission.
But it’s also a pointless question to ask, because we know the answer. The government has said plainly that its policy backflip – to charge children with criminal offences for breaching bail conditions – is not about following the evidence, but a response to “community expectations”.
Perhaps the more pertinent question is why significant legal reforms around youth justice are being driven by the police minister, Mark Ryan, and not the attorney general or the minister for youth justice.
Behind the scenes, the new youth justice laws were developed based on suggestions made by the Queensland police service, championed in cabinet by Ryan, and ultimately tabled in parliament by him.
This is the same police service which was found last year to have allowed racist attitudes to flourish. Police are now the de facto lead agency for youth justice, armed with new policies that seek to target certain (mostly Indigenous) children, give police more arrest triggers, and will place more kids in detention.
Cap in hand
The Queensland government is no longer a “review, not do” administration. Now, it is the sort of place where unplanned government announcements, then furious backpedalling, can occur in the space of a few hours.
On Monday, the Courier-Mail ran a front-page story about a report, commissioned by the Queensland Council of Social Services, which painted a dire picture of the rental market. It found 300,000 people were either homeless, or on low incomes and paying more than 30% of their earnings on rent.
The report’s author, Hal Pawson, called for tenancy law reform. And within hours Annastacia Palaszczuk said the government was “looking very seriously at how a rental cap can be put in place”.
The next day’s Courier-Mail front page – headlined “Dunce’s Cap” – lashed the idea of a rental cap, picking up where the newspaper and the real estate sector had left off last year, after forcing the government to back away from land tax changes.
The government then appeared to quickly back away from the idea of a rent cap, instead claiming it was looking at limiting the frequency of rental increases to once a year.
Some within the state government say they’re worried about a pattern of reactive “thought bubble” policy, where the main consideration seems to be doing whatever possible to nullify potential negative news coverage.
This reactive streak is making some ministers and MPs uneasy.
“Real estate agents aren’t going to vote Labor and neither will the keyboard crime warriors,” one Labor source said.
“And I guarantee that in 2024 [when the next state election will be held] the Courier-Mail isn’t going to be campaigning for Labor.”
