The 60th ALP State Conference wrapped up recently, cementing a number of important policy platform changes as Queensland Labor prepares for the 2028 state election.

The Conference, the first since the election loss last year, was an important opportunity to amend the state platform since it last met in 2023. In addition to a wide range of policy changes, several key resolutions were also adopted by delegates.

Some of the big-ticket items receiving support included:
• establishing a State-owned insurer to better protect regional Queenslanders who are at greater risk from natural disasters.
• committing Labor to truth in political advertising reform.
• ensuring that the Labor Party invests in recruiting and retaining young women.
• opposing the sale of government assets and any outsourcing of public health services,
• supporting Queensland state school teachers and the QTU campaign for an agreement that provides for safe and fair workplaces, addresses the teacher shortage crisis and provides salary increases that value the profession.
• recognising the increasing risks to teachers and other staff from occupational violence and harassment
• expanding TAFE in regional and rural areas, as well as recognising the importance of a quality arts education.
• supporting paramedics to receive an increased superannuation rate.
• exploring an expanded workers’ compensation scheme for health workers.
• recognising housing as a human right.
• strengthening penalties for real estate agents that do the wrong thing by tenants.
• committing to reversing the LNP’s shameful attacks on people living in public housing.
• supporting stronger regulation of AI to protect workers’ rights.
• standing in solidarity with Torres Strait Islanders in their fight against climate change.
• recognising wildlife carers and supporting their work.
• committing to a just transition to a renewable energy future.
• ensuring water security measures consider climate change.
• supporting the rights of intersex people to bodily agency, self-determination, and autonomy.
• calling for the urgent expansion of the rollout of full-sized, fully enclosed driver safety barriers on the public bus network,
• ensure culturally and linguistically diverse Queenslanders have the right to an interpreter when accessing government services.
• commiting to a youth justice system that is focussed on early intervention and is culturally appropriate, particularly for young First Nations people.
• calling on the federal government to ensure aid flows to Gaza and to pressure Israel to stop using starvation as a weapon of war.
• making it easier for regional Queenslanders to access the care they need, including voluntary assisted dying.

The Conference also adopted a resolution commiting to further Party reform, the first for over a decade, with a view to making the Queensland ALP more democratic, participatory and transparent. The process to transform the State Branch into a mass-based political organisation will commence in 2026. Part of the reform process will be further overhauling the platform by making it election ready, reflecting Labor values and

The 2026 ALP State Conference will be held August in Brisbane.

Even blind Freddie can see that the Crisafulli government is paying only lip service to its so-called commitment to net zero. No sooner had Murray Watt landed significant environment reform which had been in limbo for five years, Crisafulli finds reason to criticise it because Watt was able to find common ground with the Greens by compromising on some issues but maintaining the essentials of Labor’s plan.

As Watt pointed out the Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young negotiated with maturity and in good faith until a deal could be reached and Greens leader Larissa Waters then sealed the agreement.

The Coalition, on the other hand, were hoping to push it into the new year by sending a hotch-potch of MPs each bringing their own amendments, making it difficult for Watt to decide where they stood. Now Crisafulli laments because his colleagues at the federal level dealt themselves out of the equation by simply playing politics.

Actions speak louder than words. Crisafulli has repealed Queensland’s 2030, 2032 and 2035 renewable energy targets and quashed renewable energy investment He is now happy to keep increasingly unreliable coal power stations on expensive life support.