Gina Rinehart’s right-hand woman Teena McQueen out the door at Hancock

Just last year, colourful Liberal Party identity Teena McQueen was at Mar-a-Lago celebrating Donald Trump’s electoral triumph alongside her boss, Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart and Nigel “Mr Brexit” Farage, the betting markets’ pick for next British prime minister.

Former Liberal Party vice president Teena McQueen (left) with Gina Rinehart and Nigel Farage at Trump’s election watch party.

McQueen, a regular talking head on Sky News’ after-dark programming, joined the Hancock Prospecting payroll in 2022 as a group principal policy adviser to the executive team, and has since acted as a kind of Robin to Rinehart’s Batman, travelling with the boss to Florida last year and hanging out at Trump’s estate for the long victory celebrations.

But no more. CBD hears McQueen is out of her role at the Hancock Prospecting family. Rinehart’s normally helpful team issued a swift “no comment” in response to our queries.

But McQueen told us she would be taking some time off for family issues.

“She’s still a very good friend and wonderful person,” she said of her billionaire pal.

McQueen, a former federal Liberal vice president, was at the time of her hiring by Rinehart subject to a gag order by the party following a train wreck appearance on Q+A.

McQueen has managed to outlive the ABC program which was euthanised a few months ago, and has recently made a name for herself through some fairly full-blooded interventions in WhatsApp groups. When broadcaster Alan Jones was charged with indecent assault offences last year (which he denies and is contesting), McQueen sprung to action, telling a Liberal group chat the whole thing was “absolute bullshit”.

More recently, she told another group chat a petition calling for gender quotas in the Liberal Party was “disgraceful”. Although as this column reported, someone calling themselves “Teena McQueen” – in jest – did sign that very same petition.

Now that she has been freed from the admittedly loose and gilded shackles of Hancock Prospecting, we can’t wait to see what Teena says next.

Thirsty work

It’s not every day the term “thirst trap” is bandied about the corridors of NSW parliament.

It’s not every day the term is uttered by a 72-year-old Liberal frontbencher. But on Wednesday, those very words left the lips of shadow treasurer Damien Tudehope.

To our older readers more out of the loop than a Liberal Party veteran, a thirst trap is a social media post designed to winkingly pique the viewer’s sexual interest.

So what was the racy content in question? That would be a series of news ads put together by the Minns government to spruik its new Housing Pattern Book, a set of designs for homes available for just $1 as part of the state’s plans to build more much-needed housing.

Those designs were accompanied by an ad campaign featuring possibly AI-generated images of a man and a woman in just a towel, which admittedly did not make us think of affordable housing.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Tudehope accused the government’s plan of being “governed a bit by glossy brochures”.

“This glossy brochure is almost like a thirst trap,” he thundered.

“We have scantily clad people as part of the brochure to try and get people to click on the opportunity for a particular plan, really is that something that the government should be embracing?”

Who knew the Liberals could be such prudes?

But Planning Minister Paul Scully hit back with a jibe of his own.

“It seems the marketing campaign is working, if Damien is one of the 55,000 visits we got on the new Pattern Book website today,” he told CBD.

Solidarity supper

Avengers, assemble! A crack squad of political operatives were spotted at Miznon restaurant in Melbourne on Tuesday night.

The bipartisan gang consisted of ex-prime minister Tony Abbott, former Labor MP Michael Danby, Sky News host Peta Credlin, her husband, ex-Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane and former Victorian Liberal president and man about Melbourne Michael Kroger. The diners were seated upstairs at a big table near the balcony, which is pretty much top deck.

The Israeli restaurant in Melbourne’s Hardware Lane is part-owned by Shahar Segal, who until recently was spokesman for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israel and US-backed aid distributor, which was widely criticised for its role in Gaza food distribution sites where dozens of Palestinians have been shot and killed as they scrambled for food.

The restaurant was stormed by activists on the night of July 4. But since then, booking have swelled.

“The restaurant was buzzing, it’s full,” one source told us.

Danby organised the shindig as a show of solidarity with the restaurant.

At one point he proposed a toast, while the conversation ranged from Israel, the Middle East … and the Orange One.

The gang was overheard declaiming when they realised CBD was on to them. Kids, our spies are everywhere!

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