George Street Beat: Labor backbenchers battling to seize big payrise
Labor backbenchers are battling to seize a big payrise with the winners to be decided by one man. This is George Street Beat.
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A superstitious Premier Steven Miles won’t be haunted by the ghost of Annastacia Palaszczuk when parliament returns on Tuesday – choosing to leave her old office vacant.
George Street Beat can reveal Miles won’t make the move into the sprawling – at least by parliamentary standards – level-five office occupied for eight years by Palaszczuk because he doesn’t want to “jinx it”.
Instead, he’ll stay in the downstairs office reserved for the deputy premier.
If all goes to plan, however, Miles says he’ll make the move after the October 26 state election.
Palaszczuk’s vacant digs are slated to be split into meeting rooms and an office, which is much-needed with the addition of a 19th minister to Miles’s Cabinet.
GSB last week revealed Tourism Minister Michael Healy rocketed to level 39 of One William St to share an office with the treasurer, so will he also get the Premier’s office?
Base yourself in the office you want, not the one you have.
The usually quiet parliament precinct has been a hive of activity as five new ministers find their offices and others shuffle around for better views.
FIGHT FOR A PAYRISE
Labor backbenchers are battling to seize a big payrise through one of the three committee chair positions left vacant by December’s cabinet reshuffle.
Most prized is chair of the Ethics Committee, vacated by Jennifer Howard’s appointment as assistant minister for treasury.
GSB hears ex-tourism minister Stirling Hinchliffe has put the feelers out for the chair of the powerful committee, which rules on the behaviour of MPs and has the power – as Greens MP Amy MacMahon found in November – to temporarily boot a member from parliament.
The elevation of Corrine McMillan and Shane King to the assistant ministry leaves the Community Support and Services and Transport and Public Works committees vacant.
Ex-transport minister Mark Bailey has sounded out colleagues for the chair of the transport committee – but he declined to comment when we asked.
Predictably, he then took to his favourite form of social media, X, to denounce our reporting.
New Leader of the House Mick de Brenni will decide who gets the $69,616 payrise to become a committee chairperson.
First-term Hervey Bay MP Adrian Tantari is also understood to be in the mix for a committee chair job – most likely Community Support and Services – having missed out to right colleague Jimmy Sullivan for the final assistant ministry role by the thinnest margin.
SMILE MILES
The Premier’s first major policy speech at the Queensland Media Club lunch on Tuesday went down well, but a copy of the speech dropped on the table of journalists appeared to be an early version.
It inadvertently reminded Mr Miles to “(SMILE)” at the end of a line about his time in university being “another story for another speech”.
For the man dubbed ‘giggles’ by rivals, we’re not sure he needed reminding.
More notable, however, was the removal of a date the premier aims to have “offered shelter to every single Queenslander sleeping rough”.
In an early version handed to journalists the speech read: “By XXXX my goal is to have offered shelter to every single Queenslander sleeping rough”.
Odd, considering how staunchly the government promoted its “ambitious” new housing plan.
Mr Miles also revealed his rags to riches story, from paying mortgage insurance for his first house in Alderley to using his parents as guarantors.
“Now Kim and I own our place at Mango Hill – on a 400sq m block – and like where I grew up – close to the school and train station,” he said.
“It’s not a fancy mansion, but it’s our family home.”
What the premier didn’t mention was his fairly-sizeable portfolio of three investment properties – including a house in Alderley (700 sqm block, according to his register of interests), plus units in West End and Yeronga.
(NO) NIGHTS IN PARIS
A once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Paris Olympics may have been circled on the calendar of former Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, but it seems to be a different story with a new boss in charge of the government.
The Premier is all but certain to skip the party given the late-July start date is uncomfortably close to the October election, and the most logical next choice to represent the government seemed to be State Development Minister Grace Grace.
But we can now reveal she too will give the bright lights of the ’24 Games a miss.
With her inner-city electorate of McConnel firmly in the sights of the Greens, the Minister will instead be expending all her efforts in holding on for dear life ahead of the election.
It could mean that no one from the government goes at all – although Brisbane 2032 Games president Andrew Liveris and chief executive Cindy Hook will be there, plus the city’s Lord Mayor (which of course is also up for grabs March 16).
PARTY PARTY
And speaking of having a new boss, the Labor caucus got a bit more face-time with their new leader at a two-day “retreat” over Thursday and Friday.
Clearly not wanting to be snapped sunning it up on the coast or enjoying a red somewhere in the Glasshouse mountains, the MPs instead opted for a couple of days at the Eatons Hill Hotel.
We hear there has been plenty of strategy talk on how to handle the ever-present issue of youth crime, plus war-gaming for the ever encroaching election.
FRONT LINE
Premier Steven Miles’s team isn’t only announcing policies, they’re personally delivering on them too.
Spare a thought for Miles’s spinner Courtney Thompson, whose mobile phone number inadvertently appeared on the bottom of a media release announcing $50 vouchers to boost tourism on the Gold Coast after the Christmas Day storms.
Dozens of Queenslanders have ignored the website address and instead inundated Thompson with texts and calls about how they can claim one of the 50,000 vouchers.
“It never ends,” she told GSB.
Always one to go the extra mile, we’re told she’s pointing people in the right direction.
LAMING’S PRIORITIES
Former federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming is attempting to return to politics with a run to become mayor of Redlands – and while he has an ambitious agenda he might be confused at the government he’s running for.
Laming’s yellow and blue corflutes list four priorities; street crime, congestion, our hospital and cost of living – which we’d argue sits firmly within the realm of the state.
Having been a LNP MP for 12 years we understand his fondness for slogans, but we’re unsure what Redland City Council can do about “our hospital”.
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