Despite Rebecca White’s constant claims that health would be her number one priority, she has walked away from the portfolio and handballed it over to one of the least experienced members of her team.
By dumping health, Ms White is suggesting that either health isn’t as important as she claimed during the election, or that she isn’t up to the job of handling the shadow portfolio.
Giving the health portfolio to a Labor member in the Upper House means that I will not receive a single question from the Labor health spokesperson in Parliament (with the exception of Budget Estimates).
This was Ms White’s first major decision following the election and it’s another spectacular own goal.
It’s now really a question of when, not if, David O’Byrne challenges for the Labor leadership.