‘Pathetic’: Steven Miles slammed for ‘graceless’ speech after losing Queensland election

Outgoing Queensland Premier Steven Miles has been slammed for a “graceless” election night speech in which he refused to concede or congratulate his opposition.

The Labor leader finally phoned his successor David Crisafulli to concede defeat on Sunday after the Liberal National Party won enough seats to form a majority government.

Mr Miles had faced widespread criticism over his speech on Saturday night in which he would not officially concede, stating the count was “too close to call”.

He failed to congratulate Mr Crisafulli and instead used his time to thank and congratulate his own MPs and supporters.

Former Labor MP and party elder statesman Graham Richardson slammed it as a “boofheaded performance”.

“It was as graceless as it was pathetic, I’m not going to defend that,” Mr Richardson told the Sky News election night panel.

“That was a load of crap and I’m very disappointed. I think you’ve got to show a lot more grace, you’ve got to be able to cop one on the chin, you’ve got to be able to lose well as well as win well in this game because both of those things will happen to you.”

Mr Miles’ Labor predecessor, former Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, agreed he could have spoken about Mr Crisafulli and his family during the speech.

Former Queensland LNP Premier Campbell Newman described it as “tactless”.

“It showed no grace,” he said. “That was shocking. I mean, that leaves everyone with the very bad taste.”

Queensland LNP Senator James McGrath said it was “one of most ugly, graceless speeches I’ve ever seen on election night”.

“Have the moral integrity to contact the winner of the election of the election and say I’m conceding,” he said.

“It’s good manners. That was his pitch to stay on as opposition leader. It was ugly, ugly politics.”

Federal Labor MP Patrick Gorman agreed Mr Miles’ speech was “clearly a pitch to his colleagues” to stay on as opposition leader.

“He was clearly saying I want to stick around and that he thinks he’s got a chance of winning it back in four years,” the Perth MP said.

“That was clearly what was going through his mind, it wasn’t a speech to all of us on this panel or elsewhere. Clearly he’s a fighter, he fought throughout this election campaign, he wants to keep going and good on him.”

Sky News political editor Andrew Clennell suggested Mr Miles may regret his “tone deaf” decision not to give a proper concession speech.

“The voter has made an adjudication, respect the voter and concede,” he said.

“The problem is, you just have a rush of blood to the head. You make a stupid call like that and you get judged on it forever.”

In his election night speech, Mr Miles insisted that “whatever the final number of seats, I will keep doing what matters for Queensland”.

“I will never stop fighting for our Labor agenda and I will never stop holding the LNP to account,” he said.

The Murrumba MP, who ascended to the top job following the retirement of Ms Palaszczuk in December, told supporters it was “always going to be a challenging election for Labor, but I have no regrets about the campaign, or indeed, my last 10 months as Premier”.

“Queenslanders know what I believe and what I stand for, while David Crisafulli ducked and weaved and tied himself into the tiniest, small target Queensland has ever seen,” he said.

According to Sky News, the LNP has secured 49 seats — two more than needed to form a majority government — to Labor’s 34 with six seats remaining in doubt.

Appearing on the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday morning, outgoing Deputy Premier Cameron Dick refused to confirm whether he’d back Mr Miles as opposition leader — a position which will be decided by the state party room.

“I think that it is too early,” he said.

“I’ve been reaching out to my colleagues and candidates. There’s a lot of people who are feeling a lot of hurt.”

Mr Dick also dodged questioned as to whether he would consider taking on the position.

“I have honestly not made a decision yet,” he said.

“I do want to talk to my colleagues. I want to hear from others first and want to think through that and think through that with my family.”

However, senior federal Labor minister Murray Watt, who is also from Queensland, defended Mr Miles’ performance and said his concession speech was “terrific”.

“I thought he talked about the great effort from Labor and its volunteers acknowledged what Queenslanders had had to say through their voting patterns,” he said.

“I think to be fair to Steven, at the time that he gave that speech last night, the result was pretty unclear. The LNP hadn’t reached a majority at that point in time, so I thought that his comments were valid.”

— with NCA NewsWire