The expectation that former Premier Campbell Newman would win was huge. It shaped the way the Liberal National Party and Labor both ran their campaigns.

It also meant that many ambitious Labor wannabes didn’t run for preselection for the 35 seats that changed from LNP to Labor that election.

ACCIDENTAL

Ms Palaszczuk became the accidental premier, with a mediocre team, deposing a government that had its problems but was heading in the right direction and making impressive gains, and that has shaped the past eight years of government.

Out of the seven Labor members left after the Newman landslide, Anna Bligh, the defeated premier, was unavailable, and out of the other six – Tim Mulherin (Mackay), Curtis Pitt (Mulgrave), Jo-Ann Miller (Bundamba), Bill Byrne (Rockhampton), Annastacia Palaszczuk (Inala), and Desley Scott (Woodridge) – Ms Palaszczuk was elected unopposed.

If not so completely in the wilderness, Cameron Dick, Kate Jones, Paul Lucas, Andrew Fraser and others would have probably been nominated for leader. Ms Palaszczuk would not have stood a chance.

Which led to the electoral dynamics. As Labor had been so comprehensively wiped out, voters didn’t think there was any chance of them winning.

True, polling had them between 51 and 46 per cent of the two-Party preferred vote in the lead-up to the election, but there were all those seats they needed to win, and almost no one thought they could do it.

Added to that, Labor hadn’t developed, or prosecuted, the policies to look like an alternative government.

This was why Anthony Chisholm, the Labor campaign director, copied what the Liberal-National Coalition had done in the 1995 State election and ran a protest vote campaign.

I knew all about those campaigns, because I had strategised the Liberal one, and also because Mr Chisholm had read some of my accounts of it.

Protest vote campaigns only really work when the other side doesn’t know what you are up to – there are basic strategies to inoculate against them.

Unaccountably, the Liberal Party didn’t use any of them.

So instead of Mr Newman scoring a narrow win – probably losing his own seat, but being parachuted back into parliament via the resignation of a backbencher – the LNP was cast into the wilderness.

SMARTER

It was not given the chance to mend its ways and do politics smarter.

Mr Newman’s philosophy was classic small liberal: low taxes, modest borrowings, efficient government, a muscular social welfare net, and leaving as many decisions up to individuals, families and businesses as possible.

A former army officer, he is also keenly patriotic and family-oriented.

These are all characteristics that could have been used over a couple of terms to make durable inroads in the outer-suburban seats that dictate the results of Australian elections, but he didn’t get that opportunity and was penalised for a rocky first term.

The Opposition spent the next (almost) nine years running away from the Newman legacy. This was another lucky break for Ms Palaszczuk.

The LNP couldn’t mount an effective criticism of her because as soon as they did, she’d claim they were just Newman acolytes, and they weren’t prepared to defend that position.

So, the Palaszczuk years were a period of rolling back, uncontested, all the things Mr Newman had done, as well as tilting policy in the direction of favoured constituencies, like trade unions.

The telling thing about Ms Palaszczuk’s legacy is that almost all of her colleagues, like the Prime Minister, who have praised her, have done so for being a woman or being in power for so long.

Most really successful leaders have a signature policy that defines them.

For Prime Minister Bob Hawke, it was reconciliation, for Prime Minister John Howard, the GST, or “deciding who will come here and on what terms”.

For the longest-serving Queensland premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, it could be abolishing death duties.

For another Queensland premier, Peter Beattie, cleaning up the Labor Party, as well as the “Smart State” initiative.

For Anna?

It might be voluntary assisted dying legislation or legalising abortion up to term, but in these, she was following others, like Premier Daniel Andrews in Victoria.

DYSFUNCTIONAL

The Olympics could be ranked as an achievement, but as more and more of the costs are becoming apparent, the process appears dysfunctional, and as times get tougher for voters, this might not be the initiative to be known for.

Besides, it is not a policy, just an event.

Mr Newman cut budgets and moved to right-size the public service.

He cracked down on law and order, particularly bikies; eliminated waiting lists for dentistry; raised hospital performance to the highest standards in Australia; put more police on the beat; reformed education by giving principals more autonomy; reformed the housing regulator; and introduced innovation into management of the public housing stock.

But what has Ms Palaszczuk done?

She’s increased the size of the public service by 25 per cent since coming to power while the population has only increased by 13 per cent.

In 2026, State debt is projected to be close to three times what it was in 2012, and State income (effectively taxes) has been increasing by 7.7 per cent per annum, including a super-tax on coal which creates a sovereign risk that will discourage more mining.

Projects regularly run over budget, with signature ones like Cross River Rail, the Gabba redevelopment and the Gold Coast faster rail project running anywhere up to 170 per cent over budget.

Tough-on-crime laws were relaxed (although some of this has been reversed after several horrific murders). Hospital waiting lists have increased, despite an increase in hospital beds.

Last year, it was reported that Queensland Police actually shrank in size.

The Education Department is back in control of schools, and the latest Program for International Assessment (PISA) scores continue to dive.

ENTRENCHED

Construction union CFMEU has become entrenched in the building industry, with the “CFMEU tax” – the government’s Best Practice Industry Conditions policy which effectively mandates the CFMEU on large projects – inflating costs by 30-40 per cent.

Since 2013, the social housing stock in Queensland has increased by less than 2 per cent—from 51,675 to 52,463.

And then there’s COVID.

While Ms Palaszczuk won strong electoral support for her measures, particularly in electorates with an older demographic, that was then, and the population has moved on.

At the time lockdowns were implemented it was obvious they would cost more in health outcomes than they would save.

In retrospect, while that might not be widely recognised, everyone knows they couldn’t be done again because the economy couldn’t afford it.

They also remember the inhumanity and the capriciousness of some of the measures – footballers allowed in, but pregnant women from Ballina re-routed to Sydney rather than the Gold Coast; Black Lives Matter marches, but peaceful protests not.

Ms Palaszczuk’s relationship with the unions bears special mention. I understand that when she first won the State election, the nurse’s union had an officer sitting in the Health Minister’s office dictating policy.

No wonder that when a rival union, the NPAQ, was formed, the government bent over backwards to change the legislation to try to put them out of business.

The CFMEU is another organisation that has privilege. As is the Electrical Trades Union who had a direct line to Energy Minister Mark Bailey.

The link between Labor and unions is institutionally corrupt.