Jobs, integrity the focus for leaders in election eve scramble for last votes
Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deb Frecklington have exchanged barbs â and even compliments â at the final election debate.
While the majority of Queenslanders have already voted, through pre-poll and postal votes, the Labor and Liberal National Party leaders keep campaigning and were able to confront each other directly at todayâs debate.
Organised by the Queensland Media Club, the debate attracted some 350 people â the vast majority of whom signalled they had already voted â with tables bought by the parties, unions, big business, lobby groups and lobbyists. It was also broadcast, and the performance from the leaders ranged from upbeat to critical and dismissive, with Palaszczuk even emotional at one point talking about euthanasia.
Unlike other forums, the format of the debate allowed the leaders to ask a question of each other, which led Frecklington to immediately attack Laborâs history of integrity and misconduct scandals and ask how Palaszczuk could be trusted.
In response, Palaszczuk at first reverted to talking about her handlng of the pandemic â âQueenslanders can trust me because every day Iâm keeping them safeâ â before downplaying the issues Frecklington raised.
âIn those issues that she raised, there was never any finding of any corrupt conduct,â Palaszczuk said.
When it was her time to interrogate, Palaszczuk relayed a question from a nurse to ask how Frecklington could be trusted not to sack thousands of workers as the Newman government had done.
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In front of several union tables, Frecklington suggested it was akin to a âDorothy Dixerâquestion as the LNP would employ 2530 nurses and other health staff and had already ruled out forced redundancies.
âMy daughter Lucy is a second-year nursing student,â Frecklington said.
âI get how tough it is and how hard it is to work in the Queensland health system.â
Frecklington then referred to Laborâs planned efficiency dividend in Queensland Health, which the LNP would drop, saying âI would never, ever ask you to work even harderâ.
The LNP leader later attacked Jackie Trad, again, and questioned how Palaszczuk could expect to choose her Cabinet when the Premier was clearly a âpuppet for the unionsâ.
Palaszczuk retorted âhow are those property developers going?â to applause from the union tables. The Premier had previously raised the issue of Frecklington meeting with developers banned from donating, but said questions about Trad were just playing politics amid the serious issues of the pandemic and recession.
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She then attacked Frecklington over her repeated calls to open the Queensland border, telling the audience âwe could have ended up like Victoria.â
When it came time to again take questions from Press Gallery journalists, one unexpectedly asked the leaders to nominate a good quality in their rival. Frecklington quipped that âthe Premier may need thinking time so Iâll go firstâ and nominated Palaszczukâs advocacy for her constituents.
âThe Premier has been doing that in the Queensland parliament for 14 years on behalf of her community,â Frecklington said.
Palaszczuk said their fathers were able to get along and relayed a similar compliment to Frecklington.
âWeâre all humans, we all just want the best for our families, our communities and our state,â Palaszczuk said.
The leaders mostly repeated their previous public statements on other issues, raising from government debt to the prospects for the economy, and would not be drawn on how they would respond to a hung parliament scenario.
On Laborâs plan to fast-track voluntary assisted dying laws, Palaszczuk revealed she had changed her mind on the issue and for the first time linked it to the death of her grandmother earlier this year.
âIt was a very distressing time for me â I couldnât go and see her when she passed away,â Palaszczuk said, referring to limits on visitors to aged care facilities.
âThe day she called me, when she was in pain, I couldnât go, I had meetings in the city.â
Palaszczuk would vote for euthanasia but Frecklington, who avoided declaring her intentions, questioned why the Premier had âpoliticisedâ such a sensitive and complex issue.
âWe had a bipartisan agreement to send it to the Law Reform Commission so the right people were writing the legislation,â Frecklington said, claiming it was being fast-tracked to help Labor win the seat of Currumbin.
Frecklington vowed to await the legislation to determine whether there were appropriate boundaries before deciding how she would vote.
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