Steven Miles, now he’s emerged from Labor’s version of succession planning, has six weeks at best to put the party on a competitive footing to win an election next October.

While Annastacia Palaszczuk should have stepped aside sooner, her “silly season” exit gives her successor the Christmas lull to plan how a new-look government will present itself in an election year and the opportunity to hit the ground running by the time the public starts paying attention around the time school and morning traffic chaos resumes.

I started this year writing that I had rarely seen in my 40 years of following Queensland politics a government that had so lost its way, so destined for defeat. And, yes, that period included the corruption-riddled Bjelke-Petersen government.

Little has changed since and, despite her attributes and her lifelong and undoubtedly genuine commitment to shaping a better Queensland, the responsibility must sit with the outgoing Premier. Fortunately, she’s eschewed the ambition to hang in until May to take the longevity record off Peter Beattie.

(And a historical diversion: Beattie had a crack at pre-selection for the seat of Archerfield won by Henry Palaszczuk in 1984 and inherited by his daughter in 2006). There is a belief that the ill-feeling from that snub might have contributed to later tensions between Henry and Beattie and maybe even influenced his daughter’s desire to put the Palaszczuk on the Labor length-of-service medal. But Queensland is like that. Ancient rivalries and inherited privileges carry through generations.

So do some attitudes. Henry Palaszczuk was an affable, almost folksy fellow, capable at keeping farmers onside but not for the bold steps that make great and memorable politicians. During the crippling drought of the mid-2000s, he once told me how concerned he was at the spending needed to build the water recycling grid which one day will spare south-east Queensland from crippling restrictions.

My response was that it seemed expensive but also seemed necessary if population was going to keep growing and the climate was going to change. Yes David, he said, but I think it will rain. It always has.

And it did.

Such faith seems a family attribute. Whether it’s youth crime, housing, transport, the health system or energy transformation, the Palaszczuk Government has taken a steady approach rather than apply the urgency needed to prepare us for the world that’s coming. I look back on the Palaszczuk era as defined by belief that something better will come along – as it did for Labor in 2015 but isn’t any more.

Steven Miles will be the 10th Queensland Premier of my writing life and I really hope he will be the best. But he has some big challenges, particularly, if I’m not to be writing about an 11th Premier by 2025.

The current focus is on the Olympic and Paralympic costs and deliverability but the $10 billion Games are a minnow beside the $150 billion renewable energy program ticking away out of the headlines.

At a household level, cost of living is everything. But so is crime which is very real in the lives of more and more families. And there aren’t enough police to keep our streets safe.

There is overwhelming evidence the health system is failing to keep up with demand but there aren’t enough doctors or hospital beds.

It’s barely fathomable that families are sleeping in cars because there aren’t enough houses to live in.

And school standards are dropping because we don’t have enough teachers to deliver education to a 21st Century standard.

Brisbane’s CBD will soon be dominated by a new casino that is still on L-plates as punishment for its operator’s accommodation of criminals laundering money. And the justice system will soon be really creaking when the retesting of tens of thousands of DNA samples identifies many thousands of alleged criminals who will want to maintain their innocence. There won’t be enough courts but, I suspect, plenty of lawyers.

Every ministerial portfolio has its version of these issues and it’s questionable whether the ministry has the talent to deal with them.

And then there’s the question of water: there is no appetite to turn on the expensive recycling grid as demand grows with population, with the current preference to build another energy-sapping desalination plant. Or maybe not. Because it might rain. Always has.

The new Premier needs to do two things straightaway: first, get a big sheet of paper, identify the issues that need urgent action, not just hope, then put in place a credible and enactable plan to start addressing them by the time school is back.

And secondly, have a reread of the Coaldrake report on integrity in government and note its frequent references to “tone from the top”. You can’t legislate it but you can deliver it. Right now, that’s the job. That’s what you’re paid for. Congratulations Premier and good luck.