Annastacia Palaszczuk on success, conflict and the truth behind Gladys Berejiklian feud

After months of being pitted against one another, Annastacia Palaszczuk and Gladys Berejiklian decided they would walk into the pre-Christmas national cabinet meeting shoulder to shoulder in a show of unity.

But security protocols at Parliament House would not allow it.

The two premiers have had different ways of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic despite both leaders assuring their communities that decisions are underpinned by health advice.

Palaszczuk has been cautious when lifting restrictions, while Berejiklian has imposed less tough restrictions in the hope of keeping business ticking along.

They have disagreed, traded barbs and rolled eyes. But away from the cameras, they get along quite well, Palaszczuk insists.

“She’ll always stand up for her state, I’ll stand up for my state, but everyone tries to portray it as some sort of fight and it’s simply not. It is simply not,” she says.

“I think it is over-reporting, we get on incredibly well behind the scenes.”

Palaszczuk believes the fact both leaders are women might have something to do with the headlines.

Their plan to tear down that rivalry narrative was cooked up at a leaders’ dinner, the night before national cabinet met in person before Christmas.

“We had a really good chat,” Palaszczuk says.

“We were actually going to walk into national cabinet together the following morning. But unfortunately, our cars were taken underneath [the building].”

Berejiklian is the daughter of Armenian immigrant parents who came to Australia from Jerusalem and Syria in the 1960s, her father was a boilermaker.

Palaszczuk is the granddaughter of a Polish migrant who fled Europe after World War II and emigrated to Australia where he also worked as a boilermaker.

Despite coming from similar backgrounds, Palaszczuk says: “I don’t think we are similar.”

“[Except the fact] we both have long surnames, and we both have a strong multicultural background,” Palaszczuk says.

Both are incredibly close to their family and were instilled with a strong work ethic from their parents.

“Ever since I was three or four I’ve been going along to different Labor Party events,” Palaszczuk says.

“I used to sell the raffle tickets when I was like five or six.”

Born into a political dynasty, Palaszczuk’s father Henry believes it has always been his daughter’s destiny to lead the state.

Nicknamed Henry the Eighth for his eight consecutive election wins in Inala, Mr Palaszczuk held the western Brisbane seat for 22 years before his daughter took the reins.

She was elected to Parliament in 2006 at aged 37, replacing her father in one of the safest Labor seats in Queensland.

Her accession to the Premier’s office followed decades of political grooming.

After studying arts and law at the University of Queensland, at age 23 Palaszczuk went to the United States to follow Bill Clinton’s election campaign.

Then she went to the United Kingdom where she gained a masters in arts at the University of London, then spent a year studying at the London School of Economics.

The now-Premier also helped out on former UK prime minister Tony Blair’s 1997 campaign.

Known as Stacia to family and friends rather than Anna, she spent years working as a political staffer, honing the craft before taking over her father’s seat in 2006.

“I am still Henry’s daughter. Everywhere I go around the state, particularly in regional Queensland, It is always ‘how is Henry going?’ not how am I going?” she says.

At an event on the Gold Coast on Thursday night where Palaszczuk was the keynote speaker, “there was someone in the audience, and she had come hoping she would see my father”.

While her father remains popular, she has surpassed her father’s successes.

At the October state election, she became the first Queensland premier to increase a government’s seat count across three successive elections, cementing herself as the most successful female politician in Australian history.

Palaszczuk first led Labor to victory in 2015, just three years after the party endured one of the greatest electoral defeats in modern Australian political history. Labor was relegated to opposition, with only seven MPs in the 89-seat Parliament.

Those seven MPs survived the 2015 election and added 35 more Labor members to their ranks, securing crossbench support to form a minority government. It was a victory that shocked many within the party, some of whom were already lining up her successor.

But Palaszczuk had a feeling the tide was turning.

“You don’t sign up to be opposition leader unless you want to be the premier and run the state,” she says.

Sunday marks six years since she was sworn in as the 39th Premier of Queensland at Government House.

“It was pretty special,” Palaszczuk remembers. “One of the most significant moments of my life.”

Her first term as premier was about avoiding risk. Labelled a do-nothing Premier by critics, her leadership style was a swing away from the divisive approach by her LNP predecessor Campbell Newman.

Then came the 2017 election, which again, few thought she would win. She did, picking up another four seats.

The second-term Palaszczuk government was dogged by retreats from controversial policies. Days after the ALP lost the 2019 federal election, Palaszczuk caved to pressure on the Adani coal mine and fast tracked its approvals.

There were also U-turns on planned laws which would have gagged journalists from reporting corruption complaints in the lead up to elections as well as her decision to back down from a captain’s call to name a Suncorp Stadium stand after a former-Labor treasurer.

A string of bad headlines could be enough to reverse a policy decision.

But as coronavirus spread across the country last year, a defiant premier emerged.

With her back to the wall, Palaszczuk gave short shrift to critics of the state’s border closures, from the Prime Minister to members of her own inner circle.

Palaszczuk “completely rejects” the notion she used border restrictions to boost her electoral chances at the October Queensland election.

“We were absolutely focused on keeping Queenslanders safe and accepting the advice of [the chief health officer].”

Half a million dollars of taxpayer money was spent polling Queenslanders opinions on coronavirus and millions more on advertising the Labor government’s economic recovery plan in the lead up to the state election.

In terms of social policy, she sees her legacy as decriminalising abortion and once proposed laws pass, legalising euthanasia and criminalising coercive control – a form of domestic abuse.

“I think we’ve done a lot in social policy, there’s a lot more to do,” she said.

“This year, the parliament will take a vote on voluntary assisted dying.”

Legislation to allow doctors to help terminally ill Queenslanders die will be introduced to Parliament in May and MPs will be given a conscious vote.

Friday is the Vietnamese New Year. Palaszczuk had sent one of her staff to the bakery to pick up a cream bun for me to take home to mark the occasion.

No bun for Palaszczuk though, who is off to celebrate New Year with the Vietnamese community after our meeting. About a third of people in Inala, the Premier’s electorate, speak Vietnamese at home.

Her diary is packed with these types of commitments most nights, but she usually tries to keep Saturday’s free to spend time with her family.

She spends a lot of her spare time with her nephew and nieces, one of whom has been campaigning the Premier to extend school holidays by a few weeks.

A front-page photo from her very first election win more than 14 years ago hangs on the wall of her electorate office next to her university degrees. The walls are painted Labor-red.

“This is where the magic happens,” she says during a short stroll out the front of her electorate office which sits in the heart of multicultural Brisbane.

The Premier spruiks her government’s track record on getting people into work. The state’s unemployment rate sits stubbornly at 7.5 per cent.

“We do not know what the future holds, but all we can do is plan and invest,” she says.

“I think at the end of the day, people want their health, they want a good solid job, to know that their kids have a bright and secure future and they want to make sure that they’re safe.”

By the middle of this year, Palaszczuk will become the longest-serving Australian female head of government, eclipsing the Northern Territory’s Clare Martin.

Before the next election in 2024, she will have passed Peter Beattie to become the longest-serving Queensland Labor Premier since World War II.

Asked what she would say to the critics who thought she did not have it in her to become the Premier of Queensland in 2015.

“Well, I don’t think they say that now,” she quips.