Labor leader Steven Miles has been urged by his colleagues to use the dismal Stafford byelection result as an opportunity to reset the Opposition and fine tune the party’s strategy and cohesion.
There are no active discussions to move on Miles, who retains the backing of the party room, but there are frustrations with his lack of progress in the 18 months since the 2024 election.
And as a deadline to settle on an alternative premier before the next state poll approaches, a leadership logjam in the dominant Left faction delays a genuine challenge.
The party retained the seat of Stafford in Brisbane’s inner-north in last weekend’s knife-edge poll, despite an 8 per cent collapse in its primary vote, emerging victorious thanks to Greens preferences.
But a once reliable Labor stronghold has been trimmed to a razor margin of about 1 per cent, with the scale of the swing triggering much soul-searching.
The party’s long-held view is a leader needs two years in the role before the next state poll in late 2028, after internal analysis blamed the last election loss on Miles only having 10 months in the premier’s job.
But Labor sources told this masthead there’s a lack of clarity about who would replace Miles, with one saying “maybe we would be having that [leadership] conversation a bit earlier” if the successor was clear, while another described a “logjam” of contenders in the dominant Left faction.
They hoped the byelection would serve as a wake-up call for Miles and the leadership team to reset and resist being dragged into the gutter by Jarrod Bleijie, the notoriously antagonistic deputy to Premier David Crisafulli.
One senior party room source, speaking to this masthead on condition of anonymity to share internal party matters, said Miles’ attempt to spin the Stafford result was “delusional” and Labor needed to settle on an electable leader before Christmas.
“He’s got to show something in the next few months,” the source said. “You’d want to see some skin taken off Crisafulli.”
But there are mixed views as to who would replace Miles due to the complex organisational structure of the party’s factions.
Left
Since 2015, the dominant Left faction has controlled the Labor caucus. It counts 18 of the 36 current MPs as members – allowing Miles to lead with the backing of influential United Workers Union (UWU) boss, Gary Bullock.
Shannon Fentiman, also on the Left but not linked to the dominant UWU, is widely regarded as a strong communicator and noted parliamentary performer.
She is viewed by some in the party as a more electable alternative to Miles, but is more progressive and unlikely to gain broad support from the Right faction if the Left is split – as it was when Annastacia Palaszczuk stepped down in 2023.
If Miles were to step down, it is expected Meaghan Scanlon would succeed as UWU’s candidate for leader and would then, in turn, have the numbers with the backing of the Right to overcome a split on the progressive side.
But an insider said the looming electoral boundary redistribution, which will result in her Gold Coast seat of Gaven being a notionally LNP seat, has cast doubt over her leadership potential.
The unions within 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 more accurately predicted the swing towards Palaszczuk than his rivals in the union movement had, allowing UWU to seize control of the party room.
With Labor in Opposition, insiders say his influence is waning as the union movement’s base exacts revenge and challenges the controlling manner in which Bullock wields power.
In his place, the mainly public service union Together – through its leader Alex Scott – has slowly been increasing its influence.
Its membership base is growing, and it is widely viewed Scott was influential in persuading two MPs, Jennifer Howard and Corrine McMillan, to defect from the Right to join the Left faction last year.
One recent example of the power shift came when Bullock was replaced by Together president Sharon Abbott as the convenor for the Left.
There is ongoing scuttlebutt Scott is hoping to recruit two more MPs to better contend with the dominance of UWU.
But those close to the union boss say his growing influence is not a play to change the leader, given Miles is both a UWU and Together member, and is more focused on wresting control from Bullock to change the party’s strategies and direction.
Right
Cameron Dick, the former treasurer in both the Miles and Palaszczuk governments and Right faction leader, is well-known with voters and viewed, along with Fentiman, as an electable alternative.
Dick is a strong communicator who’s capable of challenging the LNP in parliament and has been viewed as a potential party leader since before Palaszczuk’s election win in 2015.
But the Right, particularly after the defection of Howard and McMillan, don’t have the numbers to mount a genuine challenge.
Following the Stafford victory last weekend of Luke Richmond, the Right-aligned Australian Workers’ Union member, the faction now has 12 MPs in caucus.
Old Guard
Despite being the junior faction in the party room with six MPs, the Old Guard has typically voted as a bloc and been instrumental in settling leadership and policy disputes under leader Grace Grace.
Crucially, there are question marks over how rising star MP Jonty Bush will vote, after she rebelled against the faction earlier in the parliamentary term during heated clashes over youth crime policy.
It was speculated at the time Bush would leave the faction, but she remains notionally with the Old Guard.
If her vote isn’t guaranteed, this would mean the Right and Old Guard combined have 17 votes compared to the Left’s 18.
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James Hall is the News Director at the Brisbane Times. He is the former Queensland correspondent at The Australian Financial Review and has reported for a range of mastheads across the country, specialising on political and finance reporting.Connect via X or email.
