It was a busy and brutal week in parliament. There is a lot to report so I’ll jump to it!

Housing was a hot-button issue again this sitting.

Parliament paused for an hour this week so members could speak to the record in a condolence motion for the former member for Gregory, Vaughan Johnson OAM.

The tributes came from all sides of the House and were heartfelt, admiring, affectionate and funny. You can read or watch them by clicking on this link, then scrolling to “Condolence Motion” and clicking on that heading.

I can hardly bring myself to relate this week’s doings in the Queensland Parliament. They were simply shameful.

Extension of Emergency Powers

This was the week that the Queensland Parliament debated the Palaszczuk Government’s extension of the public health emergency powers.

Welcome back to parliament. Since the last time we met, the entire south-east corner, from Bundaberg to the border, has experienced flooding.

As Gregory sweltered through a dry heat-wave and a continuing drought, places in the south-east were receiving their total annual rainfall in a matter of not days, but hours!

Welcome to the first week of parliament for 2022. The backdrop was a series of public questions about the integrity of the Palaszczuk Government raised by senior figures – both current and former – whose expertise is overseeing these very issues.

“If you thought last year was hard, you should see the next three!”

If your child received this text from a bully at the school “Break Up”, you’d be concerned.

But this was from a 44 year old father of three. This was the Deputy Premier of our State, sneering at the cross-benchers in our Queensland Parliament on Wednesday.

My best description of parliament this week is hysteria and “Hail Marys”.

Give Us Some Divine Intercession

A “Hail Mary”, in American football, is a long, forward pass made in the last minutes of a game in a desperate attempt to win. It is named after the beloved Catholic prayer for divine intercession because it needs a bit of that too.

It seems to me like we could all use some divine intercession this week.

Today, the Chief Health Officer told Queenslanders, “We are all of us going to end up being infected with COVID.”

She went on to say that getting vaccinated is the best way to protect yourself and your family. She could have added – and your community and your local hospital.

This morning’s headlines have the nation shaking their heads over the brazen use of COVID19 for political point-scoring by the Queensland Premier.

It is infuriating. It is absolutely disgraceful and worst of all it treats Queenslanders with utter disrespect.

This week Australia has watched anxiously as the outbreak of the Delta strain in NSW continues to expand. With daily case numbers touching Melbourne’s peak of 700 a day, and still too many infectious in the community, there are now serious concerns about how the NSW health system will cope.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, their lockdown keeps getting extended week by cruel week, for the same reason – too many infectious in the community before they are picked up with testing.