George St Beat: Hell’s bells … pollies can move when they want to
MPs left to run an obstacle course gauntlet to vote, Albomania grips the Sunshine Coast, and the Health Minister gets no reprieve, in this week’s edition of George Street Beat.
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It’s one of the grand traditions of parliament – politicians making a mad dash towards the chamber to vote at the ringing of the bells whenever a division is called.
But for the past few years, Covid rules that allowed proxy voting to keep a cap on the number of politicians in the chamber has meant MPs have not had to worry.
But with the public health directions now expired, the four-minute sprint to get back in their seats returned for the first time this week – and boy was it fun to watch.
Police Minister Mark Ryan was among the first caught short, forced to leg it mid-press conference.
Ongoing renovations at parliament also meant the closing of a number of hallways and usual entrance points, adding an extra obstacle for more than a few puffed-out pollies.
Fortunately, no hamstrings were hurt in the casting of votes this week.
STATE OF PLAY
Labor’s annual school camp was on last weekend as the party held its Queensland state conference at Twin Waters.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk held court with her cabinet given a starring role, federal ministers Anika Wells and Graham Perrett there in force and Queensland’s most powerful person – according to The Courier-Mail’s power list – Gary “Blocker” Bullock also spotted.
But it was the Prime Minister who was the Labor rock star, and we imagine the frenzied screams and cheers when Anthony Albanese showed up would have made the Sunny Coast locals think for a moment the Beatles had been resurrected.
Albo, quite rightly, basked in the glory, while between him, local boy Treasurer Jim Chalmers and the Premier, former prime minister Scott Morrison was the butt of no less than a dozen jabs.
But not all the humour landed, and a particularly cringe-worthy joke made by the Premier about schools being airconditioned – “that’s pretty cool” – got a mass groan from the crowd. “I stole that from Grace,” was her reaction, throwing her Education Minister under the bus.
THE JOYCE (NO) LUCK CLUB
While much of the crowd would have had to traverse the always unpredictable Bruce Highway, it appears plenty of the Labor sect is having its own problems with national airline Qantas.
One of the more bizarre motions of the day was to give the airline’s boss Alan Joyce the sack. Too many lost corflutes perhaps?
The Premier seemed to have no problems navigating the highway however, telling the Labor crowd how good it was to see “all the construction work” the government is doing along the way.
Maybe, but after several hours stuck in weekend traffic, that was not our first thought.
NOT SO CRUISEY
After a pretty consistent hammering over multiple escalating dramas recently, Yvette D’Ath may have thought she was in for somewhat of a reprieve this week.
But the LNP was determined to keep up the pressure on the beleaguered Health Minister, with a left field attack on her attending, of all random things, a Melbourne Cup cruise. The opposition were determined to push the line the reason the previous Friday sitting was cut to a 1pm finish was so Ms D’Ath could go on the cruise.
Friday sittings are usually only held during budget week, but a few were added in to make up for a week’s break following the death of the Queen.
LNP Deputy Leader Jarrod Bleijie first tried to lob a question on the matter during Tuesday’s question time, but that was ruled out of order.
The feisty Kawana MP wasn’t deterred though, bringing it up multiple times during the week – and ordered multiple times to withdraw his comments after D’Ath said she took personal offence.
Just to top things off the LNP called a no-confidence motion on D’Ath on Wednesday, which the Katter party also backed. It was, unsurprisingly given the numbers, unsuccessful, though the opposition took great delight in pointing out to anyone who would listen that the Premier didn’t make an appearance.
QUICK WITHDRAW
And on things being out of order, Energy Minister Mick de Brenni almost got a pretty harsh jab through unscathed this week.
While rising to oppose an opposition motion to rename the government’s seven “satellite hospitals” to “satellite to the hospital”, Mr de Brenni took serious aim at those opposite. “This is an opposition that has the gall to criticise the name of a handful of buildings and this is an opposition that is well known for their racist slurs, their misogyny, their demeaning attacks on health workers …”, before he was interjected.
Despite the protests from the likes of the LNP’s Deb Frecklington and Jon Krause, Deputy Speaker Jonty Bush originally gave the OK – given no comments were directed personally at anyone in the LNP. On reflection she asked him to withdraw – which he did. Another victory for common sense.
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