Queensland’s quandary

Abstract

Just as Queensland commemorated the centenary anniversary of the abolition of the state’s Legislative Council, the Labor government under Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, a ‘strong’ leader during the contemporaneous COVID-19 pandemic, found itself embroiled in the most serious integrity quagmire of its seven-year history. Given Queensland’s long history of ‘strong’ – even autocratic – political leadership and compromised government integrity, this article posits three arguments: that the abolition of the Legislative Council and a century of political excess in Queensland since 1922 are broadly related; that legislation in Queensland remains largely ‘executive-made’ and not ‘parliament-made’ law; and that the presence of a democratically elected Legislative Council after 1922 would have mitigated if not prevented much of Queensland’s political excess over the past one hundred years. The article also offers a model for a reintroduced Legislative Council that, given electoral distaste for ‘more politicians’, is unlikely to be approved at referendum.