George Street Beat: Qld politics news and gossip

A bizarre late-night incident involving the Treasurer in the halls of Parliament has political circles atwitter.

JACKIE Trad is already haunting the halls of State Parliament, according to uncharitable types, who are convinced she’ll be a political ghost this time next year.

It’s all based around a rather controversial late-night incident on Thursday night last week involving the Treasurer and an ornate candle holder.

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According to the whispers George Street Beat has been hearing, Trad had a particularly joyful evening in the Stranger’s Dining Room before she commandeered a candle holder from the table.

Flummoxed parliamentary staff did not know what to do, and were loath to confront arguably Queensland’s most powerful person.

Apparently they watched on as Trad traipsed from the dining room with the lit candle holder, stalked along the Level 5 colonnade and then went up into the parliamentary annexe where MPs have bed sits.

Jackie Trad

A candle holder similar to the one in question

The candle holder was retrieved the following day in one of the residential areas, however where it had been remains a mystery, given the Member for South Brisbane doesn’t have a room of her own.

But a spokesman for Trad said she had asked to borrow the cande holder and made arrangements for its return.

The incident has caused a stir, as the old building is a furnace in waiting and the unofficial edict if a fire breaks out is to run for your life.

So serious is the idea of the Treasurer wandering around at night with a naked flame that an official report has been penned and put on Speaker Curtis Pitt’s desk.

Mr Pitt declined to comment, saying he does not provide public updates about the movements of members on the precinct.

Given it all comes hot on the heels of her integrity scandal, it seems to us that Trad is living her political life like a candle in the wind.

BOLD CLAIMS

THERE’S nothing quite like a good old-fashioned golf day to lubricate the wheels of corporate offices and public administration.

Clearly Maurice Blackburn top gun Rod Hodgson agrees, after his firm turned on a tee-off for the Labor Party last Friday.

The golf outing comes as Hodgson was leading the charge on behalf of the state’s litigation lawyers and clubbing the State Government over long-awaited laws to outlaw “claim farming”.

We hear Hodgson was in some 11th-hour meetings with Treasurer Jackie Trad’s office this week seeking changes to laws that have already been ticked off by a parliamentary committee.

While local litigation lawyers have tut-tutted about claim farming, they insist the insidious practice of paying third parties to provide potential claimants is only happening at the fringes.

Yet there’s scuttlebutt about some unions earning tidy sums from certain firms by providing information about injured members.

Now wouldn’t that be a persuasive argument among Labor Party members?

stuckey on sideline

ALL the best for a speedy recovery goes to retiring Member for Currumbin Jann Stuckey.

The long-serving LNP member had to hand in a sick note to Speaker Curtis Pitt before missing the past fortnight of State Parliament.

It has been a rough patch for Stuckey after her preferred replacement for the marginal Gold Coast seat was overlooked by the LNP.

Apparently, barrister Chris Crawford came unstuck in front of the LNP’s notorious candidate review committee.

He was also targeted by Kate Jones after a university paper he penned a decade ago supporting Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s penchant for stopping protests emerged.

Stuckey was apparently none too pleased with her party.

touch sore

THEY breed them tough out Wynnum way, as Glass House’s Andrew Powell discovered to his chagrin during this week’s annual City vs Country touch football match between MPs.

Powell’s fleet-footed days eluded him and he clashed heavily with Member for Lytton Joan Pease.

According to sources on the city team, which won for the first time in seven years, Pease was back in the fray pretty quickly after the knock while Powell never returned after being helped from the field.

heartbreak midge

RUMOURS abound about Screen Queensland wanting out of its long-term lease deal at Hemmant.

The screen body’s $12 million new studio was opened with much fanfare by Annastacia Palazszcuk just a few months back.

SQ staunchly insists it’s there for the long haul, and has no interest in shifting.

However between the midges that attack the actors there at night and the lack of airconditioning on the site, it is proving a struggle to convince anyone to use the location.

grin and swear it

AND a rare victory for common sense has prevailed in State Parliament.

Last week George Street revealed that the use of the term “swear emoji” had been inextricably outlawed by Acting Speaker Jessica Pugh.

Apparently a series of high-level meetings ensued, something akin to the World Economic Forum in Davos, and it was decided that Pugh’s decree might have been a tad heavy-handed.