Queensland government moves censure motion, condemns opposition absences from parliament
Queensland's opposition leader has been labelled a "Judas goat" after a string of Labor frontbenchers skipped part of state parliament, resulting in chaotic debate in the House.
Shadow police minister Glenn Butcher, shadow energy minister Lance McCallum, shadow environment minister Leanne Linard, shadow tourism minister Michael Healy, and Greenslopes MP Joe Kelly all missed the morning session, including question time, claiming their time was better served in the regions.
The government moved a censure motion, the first since 2011, against the opposition to note the parliament's official disapproval of the absences.
In fiery scenes, Premier David Crisafulli gave a stinging assessment of the missing Labor MPs in the House.
"I see a lot of vacant seats surrounding the leader of the opposition," he said.
"This place here is where you want to turn up and do some work, Queenslanders expect you to turn up and do some work."
Opposition leader Steven Miles defended his team in parliament, which he said was informing voters of failures in the state budget, delivered yesterday.
"The LNP might think governing is all about Brisbane and all about the parliament, but on this side of the House we will continue to and in fact never apologise for travelling around the state and spending time in regional Queensland," he said.
"We made a deliberate choice today to make sure that regional Queenslanders knew how this LNP government had let them down."
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie went on to attack Mr Miles in parliament, labelling the absences the "biggest farce" he'd seen in 16 years as an MP.
He dubbed the opposition leader a "Judas goat" — a reference to a goat trained to lead other animals to slaughter.
Speaking in his Cairns electorate, Mr Healy said he was best served talking to locals.
"It doesn't matter how I vote, the government has the numbers, what I need to be doing is representing the people up here."
Mr McCallum, an Ipswich-based MP, said he was in Mackay to convey Labor's concerns about the state's finances.
"As part of a robust democracy, it is very important that the opposition holds the government to account, and we're going to take it to David Crisafulli and the LNP and call them out for their broken promises, which is what this budget is full of," he said.
Member for Gladstone, Mr Butcher, said he was in Rockhampton to call out a "bad budget" and would be returning to parliament on Wednesday afternoon.
"We will be sitting till midnight every night this week, so there's plenty of time to go through and do the discussion on the budget we need to," he said.
The opposition's lone Gold Coast MP Meaghan Scanlon left parliament early to deliver a press conference in her electorate, Gaven.
She said the move was to communicate budget cuts during her "lunchbreak" and that she would return to Brisbane later on Wednesday.
"We've had MPs on the ground making sure communities know the damage that's been done in this budget," she said.
Former Labor MP and Queensland speaker, adjunct professor John Mickel, said there was no rule requiring politicians to attend parliament.
He said the opposition was prioritising political messaging over the House.
"Labor in the last election did not just do poorly in the regions, they did badly in the regions, and you can't win Queensland, you can't win government back unless you do well in the regions," he said.
"I have an old-fashioned view that when parliament is sitting, the executive is held to account, and they are held to account in the first instance in question time."
He noted parliament provided a space to scrutinise the government and its budget.
"That's where you can ask the treasurer about his budget, where you can ask ministers about their budget and why they haven't spent or misspent money in regions," he said.
"It is a better look if they're all there, challenging the government."
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, in 2023, now shadow health minister Mark Bailey called out Greens MP Amy MacMahon for leaving parliament early.
Current shadow emergency minister Nikki Boyd and former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk also criticised the South Brisbane MP.
Responding to comments defending Ms MacMahon, Mr Bailey doubled down.
"Calling out an [sic] Member of Parliament for not turning up to Parliament while it is sitting is accountability & scrutiny."
Wednesday's censure motion passed with the votes of the government.
The last such motion occurred in 2011, when Labor premier Anna Bligh censured the opposition for being absent from the chamber for debate, allowing her government to pass three pieces of legislation without debate.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
‘It's not a voucher': This is how Queensland's $100 back-to-school bonus will work
Every Queensland primary school student will get $100 wiped off their back-to-school costs next year, but that won't even cover the cost of pencils and books. The LNP government's Back to School Boost will give $100 to every state, Catholic and independent primary school student from January 1, and it will not be means tested. The payments will cost the government $188.6 million over four years, and can be spent on books, stationery, devices, excursions, uniforms, and extracurricular activities, including sports and arts. Despite it being described in a government press release on Tuesday as a '$100 voucher', Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek clarified on Wednesday that it was not a voucher. 'It's going to go to school accounts, then the parents can use it as a credit towards things they have costs for – so we're not giving people vouchers,' he said. 'Because, of course, what will always happen is, we have people saying 'cash them in'. We want to make sure this is applied to the costs of going to school.' On Facebook, parents said they feared schools would not pass the savings on. It was also not immediately clear exactly how the rebates would work, as the official book list tends to be ordered via an external office supplies company, or parents buy similar items from stores such as Officeworks or Big W. Excursions are billed via schools, but uniforms are often sold through P&Cs, which have separate bank accounts.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Does federal Labor have the courage for change?
To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@ Please include your home address and telephone number. No attachments, please include your letter in the body of the email. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published. Refreshing to read Ken Henry's assessment (' Nature is critical to productivity ', 25/6) that productivity is enhanced by good environmental laws. For too long has the reverse been considered by some leaders, saying environmentally harmful investment projects will create jobs in order to justify such projects. Uncertainty about environmental laws has deterred domestic and overseas investors. As Henry says, processing of raw materials that Australia has in abundance, would create many jobs. Value added manufacturing would add to this. Instead we are destroying our environment. Enacting these reforms would take bold leadership, yet this is what voters are wanting. Writers to this paper have been bemoaning the small, albeit necessary, changes to policy by the federal Labor government. Environmental law reform is best tackled in the first year of this second term, so the resultant improvements in productivity can flow through. Will the federal government have the courage? Jan Marshall, Brighton Nature is fundamental to progress Well said that man. Actually, Ken Henry could have gone further; nature is fundamental to productivity. Cleaning up the wreckage of a fire or flood, or burying livestock in a drought may count as economic activities in assessing the GDP, but they're a negative on the productivity scale. That's without counting the human cost. The unproductive anxiety levels generated by a deteriorating environment and the accompanying social disruption are beyond measure. Labor have the parliamentary mandate, now let's see if they have the vision and the courage to do what has to be done. Driving the lobbyists from the steps of Parliament would be a good first step. John Mosig, Kew Myopic thinking puts business first Ken Henry highlights the urgent need for environmental law reform, as proposed by Professor Graeme Samuel. Strict, enforceable regulation of environmental protection could, as he suggests, provide an investment climate within clear limits which enable business development to proceed efficiently, when and where it can, without damaging the environment. Introducing this legislation inspires determined resistance from businesses large and small, who put their immediate interests ahead of the environment that underpins their businesses longer term. This myopia leaves us sliding towards environmental, and economic, collapse. Chris Young, Surrey Hills Watt should take note of 'briefing note' Environment Minister Murray Watt could hardly get a more incisive briefing note for his task of reforming the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act than Ken Henry's succinct account. Two of Henry's observations were particularly telling. One was that only 5 per cent of the nation's workforce is employed by the industries responsible for ″the extinction of more than 100 species and the loss of more than half the continent's forests″. The megaphones used by mining, forestry, fishing and agriculture sectors give a completely disproportionate view of this fact. His second remark was that the future viability of these industries depends on care of nature, an irony that seems lost on their protagonists. Watt's swift approval of the extension of Woodside's carbon-polluting North West Shelf project, admittedly conditional, does not instil confidence in his commitment to robust legislative reform. I and many others would be happy to be proved wrong on this score. Tom Knowles, Parkville THE FORUM Your taxes at work Your correspondent (Letters, 25/6) offers a good solution to the abuse of superannuation tax concessions. The idea that those receiving four times as much or more than the median wage in passive income should pay minimal tax is indefensible, not least because it means those on low incomes and paying full tax are subsidising those with plenty of money in the kitty. No wonder many young hard-working people are angered and feel enslaved. At present, superannuation returns are strong – a 10 per cent return on $3 million yields $300,000 – while the median wage is about $70,000. Some years may have lower returns, but even one as low as 2.5 per cent (a rare event) earns a healthy $75,000. If superannuation returns are occasionally low, that is generally a flow on from wider economic conditions that cause genuine hardship and threaten employment for others: the impact on them is far greater. The occasional low super return is no justification for year-in, year-out tax minimisation that exploits others including workers and consumers (noting that GST can work as a broad-brush catch-up source of tax revenue) upon which the economy is ultimately dependent. Emma Borghesi, Rye Hard choices needed Columnist Sean Kelly makes some interesting points (Comment, 23/6) about Treasurer Jim Chalmers' statement that much-needed tax reform requires not only courage but also consensus. True enough, but consensus will only occur once the electorate can recognise that it's a matter of the government having the maturity to make the hard choices while there's still an opportunity to choose. Chalmers' three goals of productivity, resilience and sustainability are not just wishful thinking: they should be explicit components of all decision-making, with measurable results. The recent election gave Labor a mandate it must not squander. Jenifer Nicholls, Windsor Delivering fairness Surely if Jim Chalmers is serious about tax reform then he must take account of our current pensions and benefit arrangements. Single people under 55 who receive JobSeeker receive $781 a fortnight while a single age pensioner receives $1149 a fortnight. Everyone accepts that single people on JobSeeker live in poverty. We should have a tax and social security system built primarily on need. It must provide for a living income. The current tax threshold of $18,200 is a joke. Ken Henry in his review recommended then that it should be a minimum of $25,000 annually. Every adult should receive this as a minimum payment. John Rome, Mt Lawley, WA
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘It's not a voucher': This is how Queensland's $100 back-to-school bonus will work
Every Queensland primary school student will get $100 wiped off their back-to-school costs next year, but that won't even cover the cost of pencils and books. The LNP government's Back to School Boost will give $100 to every state, Catholic and independent primary school student from January 1, and it will not be means tested. The payments will cost the government $188.6 million over four years, and can be spent on books, stationery, devices, excursions, uniforms, and extracurricular activities, including sports and arts. Despite it being described in a government press release on Tuesday as a '$100 voucher', Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek clarified on Wednesday that it was not a voucher. 'It's going to go to school accounts, then the parents can use it as a credit towards things they have costs for – so we're not giving people vouchers,' he said. 'Because, of course, what will always happen is, we have people saying 'cash them in'. We want to make sure this is applied to the costs of going to school.' On Facebook, parents said they feared schools would not pass the savings on. It was also not immediately clear exactly how the rebates would work, as the official book list tends to be ordered via an external office supplies company, or parents buy similar items from stores such as Officeworks or Big W. Excursions are billed via schools, but uniforms are often sold through P&Cs, which have separate bank accounts.
