Outgoing Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will be remembered as an ‘abject failure’ on every measures except one, Des Houghton argues

Annastacia Palaszczuk was an abject failure by every political measure except one.

She had the gift of the common touch. She was not a nasty cow in the style of some of the so-called “mean girls” who now dominate the Labor Party and the Greens.

Palaszczuk, 54, who announced her resignation on Sunday, had the ability to project homespun optimism, even in times of crisis. And there were plenty of those.

Hardly anyone was surprised that she ousted herself after eight years at the helm. Palaszczuk’s personal popularity was declining, her political authority was evaporating, and her government was dysfunctional at almost every level. It is time for her to go.

Just two months ago she was adamant she would not quit and said she would contest the next election as leader, and she took a thinly veiled swipe at those within her own party who had already begun to undermine her.

“Politics needs good people, not selfish people, not ruthless people, not ambitious people,” the Premier said

However, it had become painfully obvious to everyone inside the party that her government was in a death spiral.

Five polls in a row suggested she could not win the state election set for October 26 next year.

Bellicose Robert Schwarten, a Cabinet minister in the Beattie government, was the first to call on Premier Palaszczuk to resign, telling The Courier-Mail the party urgently needed a “new model”.

Another former Cabinet minister, Bob Gibbs, agreed. Gibbs described the Premier as the “walking dead”, adding that no one in the current Palaszczuk Cabinet would have been talented enough to claim a ministry in the Wayne Goss and Peter Beattie cabinets.

And therein lies a painful truth for the Queensland Labor Party. Gibbs was right. None of the current ministers have put their departments in better shape than when they found them.

Queensland is struggling with a youth crime crisis, a housing crisis and an ambulance and hospital crisis. Literacy and numeracy have plunged and classrooms are in a crisis with mass teacher resignations.

Now struggle-street families are starting to ask why Queensland’s electricity prices are the highest in the country when the state is blessed with vast reserves of coal and increasing volumes of renewables.

A damning report by Queensland Auditor-General Brendal Worrall found that Queensland Police last year failed to respond to 86,594 calls that required a police response.

Leader of the Opposition David Crisafulli said the thin blue line had become thinner under Labor with police numbers falling by 202 officers, despite the ALP’s election pledge to raise them by 1450 by 2025.

“Families should not be left living in fear of becoming the next victim of crime, because the thin blue line is getting thinner under Labor,” Crisafulli said.

The Courier-Mail reported Queensland’s major hospitals were at breaking point and were unable to adequately service patient needs at least 156 times in a recent three-month period.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, meanwhile, jumps at every photo opportunity she can while being accused in state parliament of hiding bad news about the serious hospital failures.

Fentiman struggled to contain the fallout of a scandal inside Queensland Health’s Forensic and Scientific Services division when it was found to be “fundamentally flawed”.

Up to 103,000 DNA crime scene samples, many from suspected murderers and rapists, will have to be reanalysed because the method originally used to test them was faulty.

The Australian’s Hedley Thomas stumbled upon the scandal when compiling his podcast series into the death of 23-year-old stabbing victim Shandee Blackburn.

The blunders, betrayals and backflips undermined Palaszczuk’s leadership and left her with little option but to stand down.

The billion-dollar cost overruns in grandiose projects like Brisbane’s Cross River Rail and the Olympic stadium at the Gabba have shaken public confidence in the ability of Deputy Premier Steven Miles and Transport Minister Mark Bailey.

And Palaszczuk made some poor personal decisions. She tarnished her image during the youth crime crisis skipping town on a “luxury European escape”.

Deputy Opposition leader Jarrod Bleijie taunted Labor leaders in Parliament recently. He said Labor’s greatest hits album was entitled Chaos and Crisis, and that Miles’s favourite track was I Want to Break Free by Queen.

“I want to break free, I want to break free, I want to break free from your lies … God knows, God knows I want to break free,” he said.

Bleijie suggested other songs befitting Palaszczuk ministers including Six Months in a Leaky Boat by Split Enz for Fentiman, and Carly Simon’s You’re so Vain for Treasurer Cameron Dick.

Dick was “a guy so arrogant that he looks down on people and polishes the chandeliers with his nose,” Bleijie told the House.

Palaszczuk became the “accidental Premier” in 2015 when the government of Campbell Newman was wiped out in a landslide. She won two more terms.

Today she gave Miles her “strong endorsement” to replace her.

“Our best days are ahead of us,” she said without a hint of irony.

Des Houghton is a former editor of The Courier-Mail, the Sunday Mail, the Sunday Sun and the Gold Coast Sun.