George Street Beat: Premier reacts to cabinet cancellation fallout, flag-gate and MPs expensive talent
The Premier’s eyebrow-raising reaction to her cabinet cancellation, and the biggest scandal since ScoMo’s job juggling. Welcome to GEORGE STREET BEAT’S revival edition.
Opinion
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Welcome to the revival edition of The Courier-Mail’s George Street Beat, a weekly column on all the spicy titbits that fall out of Queensland politics.
Cabinet ruffle over lack of shuffle
A few eyebrows have been raised within Labor’s ranks over the Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s reaction to reporting of her decision to cancel last Monday’s cabinet meeting.
Ms Palaszczuk jetted north to attend the ritzy Hamilton Island Race Week — a move which raised the ire of the Opposition and provided ample Question Time fodder.
George Street Beat hears the Premier — behind closed doors — had an emotional reaction to the news articles sparked by the weekend sojourn.
It’s understood a few eyebrows were raised within Labor’s ranks that the Premier didn’t click none of it was an attack on her private life, rather why her deputy Steven Miles couldn’t fill in for her.
As the Opposition was only too happy to point out, some — though not all — past Premiers have let their sidekick hold cabinet when necessary.
But the Opposition also surely learnt a lesson this week: to publicly disclose its shadow cabinet meetings.
Some poor chum from the Palaszczuk government was obviously tasked with going through the Opposition’s diaries this week after the Premier came under fire for cancelling Cabinet.
The Opposition appeared blindsided during Tuesday’s question time when the government attacked it for having held only 10 meetings last year.
In actual fact, 31 meetings have been held since the end of 2020.
But under the Opposition Handbook, only meetings with external bodies are required to be diarised.
We’re sure this little faux pas will be adjusted (just in case the government ever feels the need to go trawling again).
The things money can buy
What’s 5ft 10, navy and Pink and worth $900?
A cardboard cutout of Deputy LNP Leader Jarrod Bleijie.
So keen was one punter to snag the near-life-size cutout during an auction at the recent UQ Young LNP Menzies Ball, that it went for $100 more than a signed copy of former Prime Minister John Howard’s book A Sense of Balance.
George Street Beat can only imagine how excited Mr Bleijie was when he found out.
Among other items auctioned off were a signed copy of Senator Jim Molan’s Danger on our Doorstep book, a cricket ball also signed by Mr Howard and Brisbane Gin signed by Senator Jane Hume.
All profits went to the UQ Young LNP – which one insider affectionately described as being a boisterous bunch.
Wind beneath MP’s interests
Politicians are notorious for tooting their own horns but it appears only one Queensland federal MP can stake claim to having the proper instrument and CV to be classed a true professional.
Tucked away in Moncrieff MP Angie Bell’s (LNP) register of interests, under assets valued above $7500, is mention of a “Tenor Saxophone Selmer Mark VI”.
Queries to Ms Bell’s office revealed the lesser known fact that she lived a whole other life, for 35 years, as a professional musician and was educated at the prestigious Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide where she came to the attention of late Australian jazz legend Don Burrows.
Ms Bell confirmed her beloved saxophone — the same model used by jazz legends including John Coltrane — was purchased at a music store in Paddington about 15 years ago and has been named “Merlene”.
Selmer stopped manufacturing the Mark VI edition of its saxophones in 1981, and a scan of eBay revealed one in good condition would sell for no less than USD$12,000.
Ms Bell, according to our records, is now the only Queensland federal politician who plays a wind instrument after the electoral demise of Labor MP and oboist Terri Butler.
Flag-gate
In the hullabaloo of revelations former Prime Minister Scott Morrison was secretly in charge of five ministerial portfolios and “fundamentally undermined” responsible government, a separate “provocative insult” to Australians flew under the radar.
Actually it didn’t fly at all, but LNP Senator James McGrath made sure he was there to fix it, immediately dispatching an Australian flag to the office of new Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown.
Ms Watson-Brown’s electorate office in the heart of the leafy electorate of Ryan does not display the Australian flag, instead flying both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.
Senator McGrath, in a letter to the Greens MP, labelled the lack of flag as a “deliberate and provocative insult” and said she had brought shame to the parliament, to veterans and their families.
He also told her to “stop your childish pathetic antics”.
It has been confirmed the flag, enclosed within a mailed bag, was dropped off anonymously at the Ryan electorate office.
“I find it bizarre that during a cost of living crisis Senator McGrath is spending his time snooping around other MPs’ offices at night and packaging up flags rather than fighting for what everyday people need to get by,” Ms Watson-Brown said.
Her office confirmed the Australian flag would only be displayed in her electorate office after a treaty with First Nations people is brokered and Australia becomes a republic.
So just a couple of other things the Governor-General might need to sign off on.
New gig for former minister
Former LNP minister Scott Emerson has joined former Labor state secretary Cameron Milner’s new lobbying and consulting firm – GXO Strategies.
Mr Emerson, who was also a former treasury spokesman while in Opposition, will stay based in Queensland but will work with clients from across Australia.
Mr Milner recently launched GXO after deregistering his former lobbying firm – Next Level Strategies which he was a director at with David Moore.
Its closure followed Professor Peter Coaldrake’s report into the government’s integrity that recommended changes to lobbying in Queensland.
While Coaldrake did not name any lobbyists, his report suggested that lobbyists who worked on the 2020 state election campaign shouldn’t be lobbying during this term of government.
Mr Milner did work on that campaign, including out of the government’s 1 William Street building in Brisbane’s CBD.
Following Coaldrake’s report, the Premier banned three lobbyists including Mr Milner from working with her government for the remainder of this term.
For these reasons, GXO doesn’t offer lobbying services in Queensland but it is registered interstate and federally.
Who sent the flowers?
A small garden appeared inside the Parliamentary Annexe on Wednesday afternoon.
OK, we exaggerate – it was an extremely large bouquet of flowers.
But it was so large that one MP joked they wouldn’t have been able to carry it.
The lucky recipient of the gorgeous, Pink blooms is understood to have been Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
Although George Street Beat worries if she received them on time given she was scheduled to fly to Sydney for a national cabinet meeting that afternoon.
If not, the Premier will be welcomed by lovely, floral perfume in her office when she returns.
Bolt: Why is the Albanese govt giving taxpayer cash to Muslims?
The government’s latest announcement shows exactly what’s wrong with its multiculturalism. Hindus, Jews and Buddhists don’t seem to need such grants to save our “social cohesion”.
Editor’s view: We all might be getting a lump of coal for Xmas
The good economic news the Prime Minister and Treasurer hoped would arrive like a Christmas present seems to have been lost in the mail, writes the editor.