{"id":17189,"date":"2026-05-23T20:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T20:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/17189\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T20:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T20:54:16","slug":"as-jarrod-bleijie-goes-on-the-attack-does-david-crisafulli-have-oversight-of-his-deputy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/17189\/","title":{"rendered":"As Jarrod Bleijie goes on the attack, does David Crisafulli have oversight of his deputy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have missed it this week amid the shenanigans involving benched Olympics Minister Tim Mander, but the deputy premier of Queensland made a “Dick” joke about his political opponent.<\/p>\n

Yes, you read that right.<\/p>\n

This wasn’t an episode of Veep or The Thick of It.<\/p>\n

It was just another Jarrod Bleijie press conference, where he deployed burns at his political opponents.<\/p>\n

Let’s call them Mr Bleijie’s burns.<\/p>\n

The second in charge in the Crisafulli LNP government gave his frank assessment of the most senior MPs within Labor’s ranks.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

Mr Bleijie described Labor leader Steven Miles as “Miles, the muppet”.<\/p>\n

For shadow treasurer Shannon Fentiman, Mr Bleijie called her “Fentiman, the failure”.<\/p>\n

Frontbencher Grace Grace was labelled “Grace, disgrace”.<\/p>\n

Shadow attorney-general Meaghan Scanlon was dubbed “Scanlon, the scammer”.<\/p>\n

And then when it came to deputy Labor leader Cameron Dick, Mr Bleijie said: “Dick, the \u2026 well, it speaks for itself, doesn’t it”.<\/p>\n

Get it? Burn.<\/p>\n

Sure, making a joke like that is one way to get on the news that night.<\/p>\n

But what does this say about Premier David Crisafulli’s oversight of his deputy?<\/p>\n

Does the premier have a leash on his own attack dog?<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jarrod Bleijie (left) has been referred to as the government’s ‘attack dog’.\u00a0 (ABC News: Lucas Hill)<\/p>\n

Opening up a Pandora’s box<\/p>\n

Mr Bleijie’s comments came amid what’s been a very personal month in Queensland politics.<\/p>\n

We’ve learnt a bit about the living arrangements of Mr Mander, who has stood aside from cabinet after he was referred to federal police<\/a> by the Australian Electoral Commission amid questions about his enrolment status.<\/p>\n

Mr Mander is adamant he has always followed the rules.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Tim Mander stood aside from his role as Queensland’s sports minister after being referred to the Australian Federal Police. (AAP: Darren England\u00a0)<\/p>\n

He and Child Safety Minister Amanda Camm were also forced to reveal they were in a “personal relationship” while in opposition.<\/p>\n

They say they were together, then they weren’t together, and then they got back together.<\/p>\n

Ministers insist ‘no conflict of interest’ before declaring relationship<\/a><\/p>\n

Queensland ministers Tim Mander and Amanda Camm have fielded questions about their relationship and timeline.<\/p>\n

They insist they declared their relationship at the appropriate time,<\/a> which is required under the ministerial code of conduct.<\/p>\n

Labor has prosecuted the issue, and prosecuted it hard.<\/p>\n

And in doing so, arguably opened a Pandora’s box about the personal lives of our politicians that will be hard to close.<\/p>\n

In a bid to hit back at Labor, Mr Bleijie used parliamentary privilege to circulate unfounded rumours<\/a> of an “alleged relationship” between two Labor MPs.<\/p>\n

Both MPs strenuously denied Mr Bleijie’s claim \u2014 and by saying it in parliament, the deputy premier can avoid any legal repercussions.<\/p>\n

He did this during a fired-up question time performance where he also threatened to lift the lid on the personal lives of five other Labor MPs.<\/p>\n

A strange juxtaposition<\/p>\n

But not long after this, in response to a question from Mr Miles about the Mander\/Camm saga, the premier declared how “important” it was for the government and parliament to concentrate on issues important to Queenslanders.<\/p>\n

It was a strange juxtaposition to Mr Crisafulli’s deputy, who only minutes earlier was rattling off a list of MPs he was preparing to attack \u2014 and had raised unfounded rumours of a relationship.<\/p>\n

It looked like a premier who said one thing, and a deputy premier who did something else.<\/p>\n

To be fair to Mr Bleijie, he’s been subject to name-calling in the past from the Labor benches.<\/p>\n

\"Queensland<\/p>\n

In 2017, then-premier Annastacia Palaszczuk called Jarrod Bleijie a ‘dancing queen’. (AAP: Rob Blakers)<\/p>\n

In 2017, then-premier Annastacia Palaszczuk labelled him a “dancing queen” \u2014 presumably in reference to his enjoyment of ballroom dancing.<\/p>\n

It is also not uncommon for deputy premiers to step into the role of attack dog.<\/p>\n

It allows the premier of the day to rise above the fray.<\/p>\n

Mr Miles did it for Ms Palaszczuk when he was second in charge during her time as premier.<\/p>\n

He brandished a copy of the classic Magic Pudding children’s story book during the 2020 election campaign to go after the LNP.<\/p>\n

\"Miles<\/p>\n

Steven Miles with a copy of the children’s book the Magic Pudding at a press conference in 2020. (ABC News: Jessica Rendall)<\/p>\n

When the ABC asked Mr Bleijie last year if he was the government’s attack dog, he coyly replied: “I don’t know, is that how they describe me?”<\/p>\n

“I brawl in the interest of Queenslanders, and I brawl with the Labor Party because they’re so bad,” he added.<\/p>\n

But Mr Bleijie’s burns have undoubtedly gone up a degree or two this past fortnight.<\/p>\n

The last thing the government would want is for them backfire and burn them \u2014 and overshadow the work Mr Bleijie is doing on housing and the 2032 Games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You may have missed it this week amid the shenanigans involving benched Olympics Minister Tim Mander, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6907,22,21,1601,10896,2547,4900,3226,211,212,3227,5482,17089,6014,5481],"class_list":["post-17189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-analysis","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-david-crisafulli","tag-deputy-premier","tag-government","tag-jarrod-bleijie","tag-lnp","tag-qld","tag-queensland","tag-queensland-government","tag-queensland-parliament","tag-queensland-premier","tag-state","tag-tim-mander"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}