Anthony Albanese’s bloke faces battle for Blair
Will Anthony Albanese’s decision to save a Queensland MP from gender quotas come back to bite him, as the LNP prepare to preselect a woman to contest the federal seat? And who is state Labor’s new comrade in chief?
G’day readers, and welcome to this week’s edition of the award-winning** Feeding the Chooks column, your unmissable guide to what’s really going on in Queensland politics.
Battle for Blair
Anthony Albanese’s blind eye to Labor’s gender quotas could come back to bite him.
As previously reported by Chooks, the PM swooped in to save Blair MP Shayne Neumann from forced retirement earlier this year, allowing the long-serving backbencher to override Labor’s affirmative action policy that required women to be preselected in at least half of the party’s held seats and Senate spots.
Albo’s anti-AA heroics killed off a potential preselection stoush between Neumann and state Labor MP for Ipswich, Jen Howard, with those close to Neumann insisting he alone could keep the seat, one of only five (of 30!) held by Labor in Queensland.
Now, we can reveal that the Liberal National Party is poised to preselect former Queensland senator Joanna Lindgren in Blair, setting the stage for a spicy showdown in the Ipswich-based electorate (which also extends north into the Esk Valley and Wide Bay) at the upcoming federal election.
Neumann won Blair from the Coalition in Kevin Rudd’s 2007 “Ruddslide” election and has defied nasty swings against Labor in Queensland ever since.
His supporters – including Albanese – believe he has the campaign nous to hold the seat for another term.
But our spies say the veteran MP has been busy with factional fights in Ipswich and LNP strategists are already licking their lips at the prospect of Lindgren’s preselection, hoping a “strong female candidate” will unseat Neumann.
Chooks called Lindgren – accidentally waking her up in Germany in the middle of the night – and she declined to comment on whether she had nominated as a candidate for the LNP’s Blair preselection.
Neumann tells Chooks: “Someone has to wear a shirt for the blue team, and it’s up to the voters to determine who gets elected”.
Lindgren served as a senator for a little over a year, after being selected to replace Brett Mason and being defeated at the general election in 2016. The former schoolteacher and Army reservist was the first Indigenous woman Senator from Queensland, and she is the great-niece of Neville Bonner, the first Aboriginal person to serve in federal parliament.
In her maiden speech, she spoke about the importance of addressing the gender imbalance in politics, telling the Senate: “It is my obligation to ensure that I encourage, cultivate and engage good women for politics. It is about neither social justice nor gender but about ensuring women have voices in political decisions”.
Lindgren joined Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives in 2018, and unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2019. It remains to be seen whether her flirtation with another party will deter the LNP from preselecting her Blair.
For more on the Battle for Blair, read The Weekend Australian newspaper.
New chief comrade
Fiona McNamara will become the next president of Queensland Labor after securing the crucial support of backroom powerbroker Gary Bullock.
A former education policy adviser to both Annastacia Palaszczuk and Steven Miles, Chooks can reveal McNamara will be formally endorsed as John Battams’ replacement at a meeting of Labor’s powerful admin committee on Monday night.
McNamara, who unsuccessfully ran against Peter Dutton in Dickson at the 2007 and 2010 federal elections and Teresa Gambaro in Brisbane in 2013, was glued to Palaszczuk’s side during the Covid-19 pandemic and became well-known around parliament for reminding people to socially distance.
Despite being a member of Labor’s smallest faction – the Old Guard – McNamara is expected to sail into the position unopposed on Monday night after Bullock, the Left convener and United Workers Union boss, told a recent meeting of his faction that they would be backing her in.
Our spies in the Right say the faction “probably won’t be putting anyone up”, with another source lamenting that any potential Right pick would be “more symbolic than anything”.
Expect a more vigorous contest by the Right in upcoming internal ballots, including the contest for the Young Labor presidency and for delegates at November’s state conference.
One Left source acknowledged the Right could “smell blood in the water” in the race for the Young Labor top job, currently held by the AMWU’s Angus Haigh (Left). The contenders are the Left-aligned Old Guard’s Fahima Ahmadi (Labor Brisbane City councillor Emily Kim’s ward officer) versus the Right’s Bryce Muir (the assistant electorate officer for state Labor MP Bart Mellish).
Hail to the chief
Nobody in David Crisafulli’s new cabinet is happier to be back in power than one John-Paul Honoré Langbroek.
The Dutch-born former Glitter Strip dentist to the stars has been skipping (well almost) around the halls of parliament since the LNP was returned to government at the October 26 state election and he reclaimed his title of Queensland Education Minister.
The long-serving larrikin MP truly outdid himself upon his triumphant return to the department’s headquarters at Education House on Mary Street last month.
Before entering a meeting to address public school supervisors and regional directors on November 21, Langbroek decided to whip out his phone and play Hail to the Chief, the personal anthem of the President of the United States of America.
First used in the US in 1815 to honour the late founding father George Washington, the Hail to the Chief lyrics pledge co-operation to “the one we selected as commander”.
Langbroek confirmed to Chooks that he played the refrain as a “light hearted gesture”.
It is not Langbroek’s first brush with popular culture; he was widely mocked for paying homage to the television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited by carrying a teddy bear around uni back in the 1980s.
Coming back to federal preselections …
Lilley
The LNP had a disastrous campaign at the last federal election for the Labor-held seat of Lilley, held by Sport Minister Anika Wells.
Its first candidate, former Army sniper and Afghanistan veteran Ryan Shaw, withdrew his candidacy three months out from the May 2022 poll citing impacts on his “mental health and PTSD”.
Then along came Vivian Lobo,who lied to the Australian Electoral Commission about where he lived (he pleaded guilty in May this year and was fined $1000).
A Lilley preselector tells Chooks there’s a lot of pressure on the party to get a good candidate this time, after a rash of terrible choices.
“The party and the preselectors have got to get it right. We’re sick of having bad candidates imposed on us.”
Chooks hears there are two contenders to nab LNP preselection: Kimberly Washington — a local businesswoman and former staffer to LNP senator-turned-independent Gerard Rennick — who ran as the LNP’s Deagon candidate at the 2020 council election, and Army veteran Dylan Conway, a finalist for the 2025 Young Australian of the Year who launched a bibliotherapy charity – Brothers and Books – that encourages people going through trauma to read.
Brisbane
While Labor’s Brisbane candidate Madonna Jarrett has been busy hitting the hustings since her preselection back in July, the LNP’s presumptive candidate Trevor Evans has been forced to wait on the sidelines until party headquarters gets its ducks in a row.
Nominations for LNP preselection have closed in the seat, which both major parties are desperate to snatch back from Greens MP Stephen Bates after an ultra-tight three way race at the 2022 election.
Chooks hears vetting is still underway for the Brisbane contestants with a formal preselection not expected until January. Word on the street is that serial LNP candidate Fiona Ward has put her hand-up to run, despite some party members trying to talk her out of nominating, and the strong consensus in Evans is a shoo-in.
Evans, the LNP MP for Brisbane between 2016 and 2019, has not publicly confirmed he wants the job back.
A quick scan of Jarrett’s social media account reveals that in the past week, she has been out doorknocking in the rain, attended a future leaders’ celebration at a local school, hung out in a boardroom with Treasurer Jim Chalmers and some CEOs and pressed the flesh at the Kelvin Grove Markets.
Tick tock Trevor.
Longman
She was preselected as Labor’s candidate in the winnable seat of Longman almost six months ago, but Rhiannyn Douglas is yet to be formally announced.
Apparently Labor HQ was hoping Anthony Albanese would squeeze in a visit to the electorate to announce Douglas before Christmas but are now not so sure he’ll make it north. Instead Chooks hears the ALP is planning to launch Douglas’s campaign with a community barbecue and a story in local paper The Courier-Mail this weekend.
Open for lobbying business
For a minute, Chooks thought new Liberal National Party Finance Minister Ros Bates was taking a principled stand on lobbyists.
After all, the 2022 Let the Sunshine report by Peter Coaldrake – oft-quoted by the then-Crisafulli Opposition to attack the Palaszczuk government – warned that the increasing influence of paid lobbyists was “troubling” and skewed government outcomes to benefit those with deep pockets who could afford to pay for an advocate rather than the “best result for the public benefit”.
The whole situation, Coaldrake mused, was a market failure: “the failure of government itself to be able to deal with business and community interests without the involvement of a paid intermediary”.
So when Bates’s office emailed a handful of paid shills last Friday and told them neither the Minister nor her staff would be meeting with lobbyists, those government relations professionals were taken aback but your poultry (paltry?) correspondents were quietly impressed.
Imagine our dismay when we heard Bates’s lobbying ban was temporary only, blamed on the need to get her office established first.
For the record, Chooks asked every Crisafulli government minister whether they would ban meetings from lobbyists. All responded with a pro-forma line: “Any lobbyist meetings with Ministers or their offices are disclosed in accordance with relevant legislation”. We’ll be watching.
McMurdo bows out
Former Court of Appeal president Margaret McMurdo AC, who led the state’s landmark Women’s Safety Taskforce and Victoria’s Lawyer X royal commission, has stepped down as chair of Legal Aid Queensland.
McMurdo – who has chaired the board since 2017 – informed former Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath that she would be resigning from her position during caretaker period ahead of the October 26 state election (but Chooks understands new AG Deb Frecklington was only told recently).
In a statement to Chooks, Legal Aid Queensland CEO Nicky Davies said: “We have been extremely fortunate to benefit from the services of such a widely-respected legal authority presiding over the board for more than seven years. I thank Margaret for her excellent leadership of the board during her tenure.”
McMurdo will remain in the role until February 14.
Mentoring mayors step in
Retired Redland City mayor Karen Williams and defeated Townsville mayor Jenny Hill are teaming up to offer a mentoring service to new councillors and local government leaders across Queensland.
Calling their nascent partnership Leadership by Experience, Hill and Williams says they’ll be offering their mentees a “warts and all” account of how to survive in council, including how to advocate for your local area, deal with social media trolls, and navigate the rules to avoid falling foul of the Crime and Corruption Commission and Office of the Independent Assessor.
Williams tells Chooks that the pair are “local government junkies who love serving our communities … we want to make their jobs better and enjoyable”.
Between them they have 40 years of local government experience – as councillor and mayor – and each have had public challenges. Williams decided not to contest this year’s council elections after pleading guilty to drink driving when she crashed her council car in June 2022.
Hill – who was beaten by the now-suspended Troy Thompson at the March elections – in 2021 was found not guilty of driving without due care and attention after being involved in a crash that killed a motorbike rider.
Devil in disguise spotted
Queenslanders, strap on your Blue Suede Shoes, it’s time for A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action. Introducing your new deputy premier … Jarrod Bleijie-Presley. Chooks hears an All Shook Up Bleijie stole the show from David Crisafulli at the Premier’s own Broadwater LNP branch Christmas party at the Heartbreak Hotel, ahem, Hope Island Mecca Bah, on the weekend.
The branchies couldn’t Help Falling in Love with the Minister for State Development, his bejewelled white jumpsuit and ferociously coiffured hair. Would Bleijie ever consider rolling his fearless leader? Only Suspicious Minds would think so.
Festive spotted
Christmas cards from Queensland Labor Senator Murray Watt, Anthony Albanese’s Industrial Relations Minister, lobbed into mailboxes around the country this week, spruiking some of the government’s achievements in his portfolio (increasing the minimum wage, legislating the right to disconnect, controversial “same job, same pay” laws) in a suitably jolly way.
But Chooks notes there was no “forcing the CFMEU into administration” bauble on Watt’s season’s greetings, and presumes Michael Ravbar (QLD’s ousted CFMEU boss), Darren Greenfield (the deposed NSW secretary who called the government “bastards” at a rally last month) and John Setka (the erstwhile Victorian CFMEU chief) are on the Senator’s naughty, rather than nice, list.
But we hear that among the 250 cards to colleagues, politicians, journalists and stakeholders, there were some deliveries across the aisle; Senate sparring partner James McGrath, Nationals senator Susan McDonald, renegade Independent senator Gerard Rennick, maverick north-Queensland MP Bob Katter, LNP Gold Coast MP Karen Andrews and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young all received cards from Watt in the spirit of bipartisanship.
Staff Spotted
Former television journalist turned public relations spinner Ben Murphy is returning to Australia to head Attorney-General Deb Frecklington’s office as chief of staff.
Murphy left his reporting gig at Brisbane 7 newsroom during Covid to run communications for a transport network in Vancouver, Canada.
Chooks reported last week that LNP spies believed Frecklington’s office was “adrift” after her chief of staff – Gold Coast-based former lobbyist Karly Abbott – handed in her resignation after just a few weeks into the job.
Meanwhile, former LNP MP Matt McEachan (one-term for Redlands, 2015 to 2017) will become Youth Justice Minister Laura Gerber’s chief of staff.
Heroic spotted
When a Tesla crashed into a power pole on Shaw Road at Wavell Heights on Saturday, the car’s electrical system shut down, locking the doors and windows and trapping the driver and his teenage passenger in the burning vehicle.
Bystanders leapt into action, using a metal pole and a Yeti cup to smash open the windows to free the occupants.
Chooks can reveal one of the quick-thinking rescuers was Ayden Rusev, a newly appointed adviser to Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie, the MP’s former Kawana electorate officer, and the Young LNP’s Sunshine Coast chair.
Apparently, a makeshift “hero of the year” certificate was hastily printed out on the 39th floor of the government building on 1 William Street to mark Rusev’s return to work this week.
**Thank you, from the Chooks
To all our spies and sleuths, conservatives and comrades, lurkers and leakers: we couldn’t have done it without you.
At last weekend’s Queensland Media Awards – the Clarions – the Feeding the Chooks team took home gongs for this column, and for breaking stories before and after the political exit of Annastacia Palaszczuk as Premier.
From all of us, thank you for reading, thank you for tipping, and please keep feeding the Chooks!
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