Queensland election 2017: Labor preferences bikie Mick Kosenko ahead of LNP in Pine Rivers

LABOR will scrap how-to-vote cards distributed by one of their MPs after The Courier-Mail revealed she was preferencing a bikie third.

Bikie Mick Kosenko who is being preferences by Labor. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

LABOR will scrap how-to-vote cards distributed by Pine Rivers MP Nikki Boyd after The Courier-Mail revealed she was preferencing a bikie third.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk today said she had spoken to Labor State Secretary Evan Moorhead and asked for Rebels bikie Mick Kosenko second-last, above One Nation.

Ms Boyd had preferenced him third.

“I have spoken to the State Secretary and I have said to the State Secretary very clearly that he will go just above One Nation,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“The reason I am saying that is that I made a commitment to the people of Queensland that I would put One Nation last.”

Member for Pine Rivers Nikki Boyd had preferenced the bikie third. Picture: David Alexander

Mr Kosenko claimed to have been instrumental in Labor’s 2015 election win, ahead of the LNP.

Voters in the ALP-held seat of Pine Rivers had been asked on the original how-to-vote cards to place the Rebels life member and former bikie boss third, behind the Greens.

In turn, Mr Kosenko had recommended his voters place ALP incumbent Nikki Boyd third, behind another independent.

He said he owed Ms Boyd a lot for helping him reclaim the tattoo shop licence stripped from him by the LNP Government and has previously claimed the bikie community got Labor elected through a concerted campaign against Campbell Newman.

“Nikki Boyd’s done a lot for me,” he said yesterday, before Ms Palaszczuk stepped in.

“The (LNP’s) VLAD laws, they shut me down, and then the Labor Party took away some of the legislation that made me a criminal just because the LNP said I was.

“I’ve been back at work for about six months now.”

Candidates began handing out their how-to-vote cards yesterday as pre-polling began across the state.

Despite ruling out a preference deal with the right-wing outfit, the LNP placed One Nation before Labor in 49 seats and second in about 35.

However, it has placed LNP turncoat and now One Nation leader Steve Dickson lower than Labor in Buderim, which it hopes to reclaim.

It also favoured Labor in other crucial seats of Hervey Bay, Mudgeeraba, Nicklin, Stretton, Toohey and Thuringowa.

In an unusual quirk, its voting cards outline how to place One Nation before Labor or Labor before One Nation in the seats of Coomera, Lockyer, Scenic Rim and Theodore.

The LNP placed Greens last in all seats.

Mr Dickson said One Nation was preferencing sitting MPs last in each of the 61 seats it was contesting.

Labor preferenced One Nation last in every seat and favoured the Greens above the LNP in all.

But the ALP has put the Greens third in South Brisbane, behind independent candidate Karel Boele, where polling puts the Greens in prime position to defeat incumbent and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad.

Originally published as Queensland election 2017: Labor preferences bikie Mick Kosenko ahead of LNP in Pine Rivers