Who’s who and how they pick their leaders
Labor leader Steven Miles has been encouraged by colleagues to use the dismal byelection result in Stafford as an opportunity to reset the Opposition and fine-tune the party’s strategy and integrity.
There are no active discussions to challenge Miles, who retains the support of the party room, but there are disappointments over his lack of progress in the 18 months since the 2024 election.
With a deadline to agree an alternative prime minister before the next state poll looms, a leadership deadlock in the dominant Left faction is delaying a genuine challenge.
The party retained its seat of Stafford in Brisbane’s inner north in last weekend’s tight-knit poll, taking victory thanks to the Greens’ preference despite an 8 per cent drop in the primaries.
But the once reliable Labor stronghold has shrunk by a margin of almost 1 per cent, and the scale of the swing has triggered much soul-searching.
The party’s long-held view is that a leader needs two years in office before the next state poll in late 2028, after internal analysis showed its last election loss was down to Miles spending just 10 months in the premiership.
But Labor sources said there was a lack of clarity on who would replace Miles on this byline, with one saying “maybe we would do that too”. [leadership] “If his successor is outspoken, the conversation is a little early,” said another, while another described the “congestion” of contenders in the dominant Left faction.
They hoped the by-election would serve as a wake-up call for Miles and his leadership team to reset and resist being dragged into the ditch by Prime Minister David Crisafulli’s notoriously hostile deputy, Jarrod Bleijie.
A senior party room source, who spoke to this imprint on condition of anonymity to share internal party matters, said Miles’ attempt to distort the Stafford results was “delusional” and Labor needed to agree an electable leader before Christmas.
“He needs to show something in the next few months,” the source said. “You’d like to see Crisafulli skinned.”
However, due to the complex organizational structure of factions in the party, there are mixed views on who will replace Miles.
Left
Since 2015, the dominant Left faction has controlled the Labor Party group. Of the 36 current MPs, 18 are counted as members, allowing Miles to lead with the support of influential United Workers Union (UWU) boss Gary Bullock.
Shannon Fentiman, also on the Left but not affiliated with the dominant UWU, is widely regarded as a strong communicator and well-known parliamentary performer.
He is seen by some in the party as a more electable alternative to Miles, but he is more progressive and is unlikely to gain broad support from the Right faction if the Left splits – just as it will when Annastacia Palaszczuk resigns in 2023.
If Miles resigns, Meaghan Scanlon is expected to succeed as the UWU’s leadership candidate and then have the numbers to overcome the divide on the progressive side with support from the Right.
But an electoral boundary redistribution that would see the Gold Coast seat of Gaven conceptually become an LNP seat cast doubt on his leadership potential, insiders said.
Unions on the left
Bullock’s factional power stems from his role in planting UWU candidates in supposedly unwinnable electorates just before Labor won government from Campbell Newman’s LNP in 2015.
An astute political operator, he had predicted the tide towards Palaszczuk more accurately than his rivals in the union movement, allowing the UWU to gain control of the party room.
With Labor in Opposition, insiders say its influence has waned as the union movement’s base takes revenge and challenges Bullock’s grip on power.
Instead, the mainly public service union Together – through its leader Alex Scott – is slowly increasing its influence.
Its membership base is growing and Scott is widely seen as being instrumental in persuading two MPs, Jennifer Howard and Corrine McMillan, to leave the Right and join the Left group last year.
A recent example of a shift in power occurred when Bullock was replaced as the Left’s convenor by Together president Sharon Abbott.
Scott hopes to get two more MPs to better combat UWU dominance.
But those close to the union boss say his growing influence is not a ploy to replace the leader, given Miles is a member of both the UWU and Together and is focused on wresting control from Bullock to change the party’s strategies and direction.
Right
Cameron Dick, former treasurer of both the Miles and Palaszczuk governments and leader of the Right faction, is well known among voters and is seen as an electable alternative alongside Fentiman.
Dick is a strong communicator who could challenge the LNP in parliament and has been seen as a potential party leader since Palaszczuk’s election victory in 2015.
But the Right simply does not have the numbers to mount a real challenge, especially after the departures of Howard and McMillan.
Following the victory of right-wing Australian Workers Union member Luke Richmond in Stafford last weekend, the group now has 12 MPs in the caucus.
Old Guard
Although the subgroup in the party room with six MPs, the Old Guard often voted as a bloc and were instrumental in resolving leadership and policy disputes under leader Grace Grace.
More importantly, there are questions about how rising star MP Jonty Bush will vote after he rose up against the group during heated clashes over youth crime policy at the start of the parliamentary term.
There was speculation at the time that Bush would leave the group, but he conceptually remains with the Old Guard.
If his vote is not guaranteed, that means the Right and Old Guard have a combined 17 votes compared to the Left’s 18.
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James Hall is News Director of the Brisbane Times. He is a former Queensland correspondent for The Australian Financial Review and has covered a range of headlines across the country, specializing in political and financial reporting.Connect with: X or email.
