George Street Beat: Qld politics news and gossip
Queensland’s Treasurer has experienced a similar out-of-body experience to embattled US President Joe Biden. THIS IS GEORGE STREET BEAT
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There’s no doubt Cameron Dick has been in the political trenches throughout his career, but for a moment this week the Deputy Premier and Treasurer believed he had served in an actual war. It was his own Joe Biden moment, if you will.
Mr Dick was at budget estimates when he was asked a question by Greens MP Amy MacMahon about whether the government knew where shells manufactured by Rheinmetall NIOA in Maryborough were being on-sold.
He was, unsurprisingly, not aware of what she was on about, but then launched into a passionate defence of Australia’s involvement in arming Ukraine against Russia.
“I am proud that, outside of NATO, the nation that has made the greatest contribution to the war to defend Ukraine is the Commonwealth of Australia. I could not be more proud as a veteran of the Second World War,“ Mr Dick said.
He was quickly corrected by committee chair Linus Power, who reminded him he was the “son of a veteran”.
“You are not that old,” shadow treasurer David Janetzki said.
“That is true. My father had a big impression on me,” Mr Dick said.
If the family connection wasn’t enough to keep Australia’s war history front of mind, Mr Dick also happens to be born on Anzac Day.
For the record, Mr Dick’s father Allan Dick joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1939 when he was 18 as a signalman.
During his service he travelled to the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, where he served from 1943 and for the remainder of the war on the HMAS Ararat, which was one of 60 Australian minesweepers.
$2200 FOR MP’S CANCELLED TRIP
The flights were booked and the bags packed for the nine-day taxpayer-funded government-sanctioned trip to Italy. But Minister Grace Grace’s missions to strengthen the “bilateral relationship” with the European nation was not to be – and she has Annastacia Palaszczuk to blame for it.
The latest ministerial overseas trip disclosures revealed Ms Grace was due to travel to Italy from December 11 to 20 last year to “enable a deeper understanding of innovative initiatives, and support the (education) department’s strategy”.
Ms Palaszczuk’s decision to announce her shock resignation as Premier at a cyclone-focused press conference on December 9 is understood to be the reason why the trip was cancelled.
And so Ms Grace, as the revered leader of the tiny but mighty Old Guard faction, had to rip up those boarding passes and rally the troops – all nine of them her included – for the ensuing leadership biffo.
The cost to taxpayers for the cancelled trip? $2256. The cost to Italy? Immeasurable.
And it turns out the democratic slaying of Labour across the ditch and sheer luck of timing meant Minister Di Farmer was also in Queensland.
Travel logs show she was slated to head to New Zealand in her capacity as youth justice minister from December 7 to 9.
The trip was deferred after New Zealand, at its October 2023 election, ditched NZ Labour for the Nationals – throwing the very programs Ms Farmer was due to learn about into limbo.
This too was eventually cancelled, at a cost to taxpayers of $922.
NO FLY ZONE
Speaking of international sojourns, no ministers have travelled overseas, or are due to travel overseas, since Steven Miles became Premier. But of course as we’ve previously mentioned Speaker Curtis Pitt secured permission from Mr Miles for a nine-day trip to the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom from June 29 to July 7.
He was focused on strengthening ties with other Commonwealth jurisdictions and identifying trade and collaboration opportunities for the state.
NOT SO SWEET FOR LABOR IN THE SUGAR CITY
Mackay MP Julieanne Gilbert finally proved the rumour mill true after announcing her retirement this week amid months of speculation.
We could say it threw Labor for six but that would be overstating it.
Within 24 hours of the announcement Premier Steven Miles was in the Sugar City stamping his support for Deputy Mayor Belinda Hassan to be Labor’s candidate.
It’s all just very neat. Labor must run a woman in the seat under its affirmative action rules, and would also seek to find someone also from the baseball team-sized Old Guard faction. Ms Hassan happens to be both those things.
But what are Labor’s chances in the seat? Political diehards might remember Mackay was one of the seven electorates Labor held on to in the 2012 Newman drubbing.
Highly-popular MP at the time, the late Tim “Mr Mackay” Mulherin, lost a staggering 22 per cent from his first preference vote but managed to hold on with a wafer thin 0.53 per cent margin.
Ms Hassan will vie for the seat in an election where Labor is expected, per YouGov polling, to suffer a 10 per cent swing. Ms Gilbert sits on a margin of 6.7 per cent.
Add the significant challenge of going against the LNP’s Nigel Dalton, a well-respected recently retired police officer who was effectively the face of community safety in Mackay for years.
All in all it doesn’t look so sweet for Labor in Mackay – a seat they’ve won at every election since 1915 (Yes, we are counting the two elections Ed Casey won as a Labor ‘independent’ in the 1970s)
NO SMILES FOR AI
Premier Steven Miles has found himself the star of a “deep fake” TikTok video this week.
The LNP conjured up the clip, using artificial intelligence to convert a still image of Miles into a TikTok dancing machine alongside a caption criticising the government’s cost of living policies, and Mr Miles’ love of sandwiches.
Needless to say, the Premier did not find this funny.
While Mr Miles said the video was “harmless enough” he accused the LNP of creating “a turning point for our democracy”.
“To be willing to use AI to make deep fake attack videos, it’s a pretty dangerous turning point and it means that Queenslanders between now and October will have to question everything that they see from the LNP and ask themselves, is this real? Or is this a deep fake?” he said.
He then pledged to never use AI during Labor’s election campaign, because the LNP video of him dancing to a Neyo song was “scary enough”.
BIZARRE BIDEN MOMENT
Just as US President Joe Biden stared agape into the void in a bid to string a sentence together, so did Premier Steven Miles do his best impression of a stunned mullet at a Rural Press Club lunch.
It was an awkward brain slide, some of which was barely comprehensible.
For context, fresh deforestation statistics released in mid-July revealed Queensland had cleared 320,000 hectares of land – or the equivalent of 43,000 Suncorp Stadiums – in a year.
There was thus outcry from several conservation groups, who pointed the finger at the beef industry for being the bad guy.
In front of a room of agriculture stakeholders and regional newshounds Mr Miles was asked what was wrong with the current system.
The former Environment Minister who makes no secret of his ambition to be the political equivalent of Captain Planet was torn between his love for smashing a tomahawk steak at Beef Week and his green track record.
Steering well clear of agreeing with the advocacy groups, Mr Miles staggered and stuttered his way through a response.
In between about eight “um’s” and “ah’s,” he managed to say he saw “more upside than downside in working with landholders, including beef producers” and heard “some fantastic stories” about how they were delivering sustainable meat.
It was a tough 40 seconds of listening, proving that sometimes, even Premiers have trouble choosing between a juicy steak and a green planet.
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