Newly minted Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has promised she will not lose touch with ordinary people during her term as the state's leader.
Ms Palaszczuk, who was officially sworn in on Tuesday, said her priority was to "run a consensus government" that closely followed the wishes of Queenslanders.
"What I've said to ministers, and I've made it very clear and it's also the way I operate, is that we will consult with people, we will talk to people and we will bring them with us in relation to policy decisions," she told ABC radio on Wednesday.
"People do it tough, and you always have to listen to what they have to say ... for me that is always at the back of my mind."
She said it was easy for those in government to lose sight of the issues that are important to ordinary people.
"As a minister and as a Premier it's very easy to lose touch if you're not out there in the community and you're not out there talking to people because government can be all-consuming," she said.
Ms Palaszczuk said she was passionate about restoring integrity and accountability to the Queensland government by raising debate standards.
"It needs to be about the policy issues and not about the personalities, which we saw over the last three years," she said.
She reiterated her promises to create jobs, and said profits from income-producing assets would be funnelled into paying down debt and restoring frontline services.
She again defended her government's promise to merge state-owned coal-fired generators CS Energy and Stanwell to help pay down debt, pledging it would not push up power prices.
Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg admitted empathy was important and that it was a quality lacked by the Newman administration, in which he was health minister.
"We were so focused on trying to fix the things we needed to do and we lost that empathy with Queenslanders," he told ABC radio.
"When you're actually caught in that, sometimes it's very difficult to see outside of it. I think that was the big problem and the big mistake we made."
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