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“Jarrod, if you’re watching – and I know you are – just remember this: if you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.”
Sound familiar?
The key difference between Harris v Trump and Dick v Bleijie (aside from the welcome absence of nuclear codes) is that Queensland’s Westminster parliamentary system means Bleijie and Dick did have plenty of opportunity to say it to each other’s face over the past four years.
Steven Miles at Labor’s campaign launch with daughter Bridie, wife Kim McDowell, and former leadership rival Shannon Fentiman.Credit: Annette Dew
But if there was one thing Labor had that the Democrats didn’t, it was the boy from Petrie and his 50¢ fares.
“I was the first person in my family to go to university, and I could do that because of good Labor government policy, but there were challenges,” he told the party faithful.
“One of them was the cost of travelling from Petrie to UQ every day. It made me think, why do we penalise the people who live furthest away with the highest public transport costs, when they are the ones we most want to get off the road?
“Well, I’ve finally been able to do something about that.”
Cue applause.
The 50¢ fares were just the beginning of Miles’s left-wing appeal, of course.
He also spruiked the 12 state-owned servos, the new state-owned electricity retailer, 50 state-owned bulk-billing clinics, an aggressive move to renewable energy, and the newly announced free lunches for all Queensland primary school students (the signature policy of Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, coincidentally enough).
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There were the new police helicopters and satellite hospitals, and almost 46,450 new health workers by 2032 – the year Brisbane will host the Olympic Games, an event conspicuous by its absence in Miles’s remarks.
And it wasn’t the only thing conspicuous by its absence.
Peter Beattie was there. Annastacia Palaszczuk and Anna Bligh were not.
“All former premiers were invited today. Whether they could make it was dependent on their schedules,” Miles told journalists after the official festivities.
Struggling in the polls, Palaszczuk stunned just about everybody last December when she stood down while providing an update on Tropical Cyclone Jasper’s threat to Queensland.
Responding to Beattie’s suggestion she should have resigned earlier to give Miles a better chance, the premier said there was a limit to how long a leader should lead without a mandate of his or her own.
Annastacia Palaszczuk announces her resignation as Queensland premier on December 10 last year.Credit: Twitter
“I’ll leave the commentary to other people, but I reckon I’ve given it a pretty good shake with the 10 months that I’ve had,” he said.
“I’ve worked really hard, I’ve delivered a lot of things that I’m really passionate about, and now I want a mandate in my own right.”
As Miles concluded his speech, Sunøe spun Bruce Springsteen’s We Take Care of Our Own – a mainstay of Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign events, and Joe Biden’s 2020 victory song – in case you were wondering where you’d heard that song before.
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