Andrew Laming toys with return at Queensland election

Andrew Laming could run at the 2024 Queensland state election.

G’day readers, and welcome to this week’s edition of Feeding the Chooks.

–

LAMING LINES-UP LNP MATE

For months, former federal MP Andrew Laming has been publicly toying about making a return to politics with a run at the next state election in 2024.

While coy on when he would make a decision and which seat he might target, the money was that he was gunning for Labor backbencher Kim Richards’ seat of Redlands.

LNP nominations close for the Redlands preselection on Friday, and Laming has confirmed he isn’t contesting.

But he also isn’t ruling-out “helping out the LNP in the campaign as a candidate or supporting a candidate” in one of the four seats down his way: the three Labor-held seats of Redland, Springwood and Capalaba or the LNP’s Oodgeroo.

Chooks called Laming after hearing talk among the upper echelons of the LNP membership that the former federal MP was considering an internal challenge against Oodgeroo’s Mark Robinson.

Mark Robinson MP. NCA NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

Laming wouldn’t comment specifically and Robinson didn’t answer his phone.

Robinson was first elected in 2009 and only briefly rose to the LNP opposition frontbench ahead of Campbell Newman’s win in 2012.

He didn’t make it into the ministry and was instead appointed deputy speaker.

IS LABOR GIVING UP ON BRISBANE?

Just over a year out from the next city council elections, and Labor insiders are telling Chooks there has been little interest from prospective candidates after nominations opened to challenge wards held by the Liberals under mayor Adrian Schrinner.

With Labor holding just five of the 26 wards and its leader Jared Cassidy seemingly fighting a losing battle for cut-through, there is a growing malaise among the ranks especially with The Greens’ popularity across the river city.

Councillor Peter Cumming leaves court last month after his appearance at Wynnum Magistrates Court, for one count of drink driving, Wynnum, Brisbane. Pic Lyndon Mechielsen

Chooks has been told that veteran Labor councillor, former leader Peter Cumming, has been given his marching orders by Left faction powerbrokers after being charged with drink driving on Christmas Eve.

But despite Cumming’s ward of Wynnum Manly safe for Labor, the prospect of wallowing in opposition has turned people off.

Chooks has been told Palaszczuk government staffer Laura Fraser Hardy, chief of staff to Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman, has surprised many by saying she won’t contest the ward.

It all feeds into the chatter that Labor will resurrect its plans for compulsory preferential voting at local government elections to help its prospects – and that of the Greens – after aborting a push a few years back.

PUBLIC SERVICE RE-SHUFFLE

The shake-up in the senior ranks of Queensland’s public service continues this week with the departure of under-treasurer Leon Allen.

Allen, a former Commonwealth Bank exec, was announced as the new CEO of Queensland Treasury Corporation on Friday afternoon.

His deputy, Maryanne Kelly, will hold Queensland’s purse strings as interim under-treasurer.

It will be a nice pay bump for Allen who raked in $685,000 as under-treasurer last year. The previous head of QTC, Philip Noble, made $1.3m last financial year.

Queensland Under Treasurer Leon Allen. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

The Treasury reshuffle comes as former Labor MP Mike Kaiser this week began temporarily “dual-hat” in the role of Coordinator-General as the government struggles to find a permanent replacement for the outgoing Toni Power.

Kaiser is also Director-General of deputy premier Steven Miles’ Department of State Development.

SPENDING SPREE

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s department splashed more than $7m on advertising last year.

Figures obtained by Chooks reveal the Premier’s department has been on quite the spending binge in the past few years.

Its annual advertising spend has grown by 270 per cent since Palaszczuk’s first year in office, from $1.98m in 2015-16 to $7.34m in 2021-22.

Wowza.

The department doesn’t have a breakdown of its spend but a spokesman says: “the vast majority of expenditure was Covid, economic recovery and public safety related”.

GREENS ON THE MARCH

Money can’t buy happiness, or guarantee seats in parliament (just ask Clive Palmer), but cash certainly goes a long way when running a political campaign.

The Queensland Greens raked in their biggest donation haul on record last year at $751,140, up from $370,927 in 2021 and $298,659 in 2020.

Greens MPs Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Max Chandler-Mather and Stephen Bates at Kangaroo Point. Picture Lachie Millard

Of course a federal election year always encourages donors to reach deeper into their pockets, but even in 2019 donations were not even half of what the Greens managed to squeeze out last year.

The minor party – which holds two seats in state parliament – ambushed a trio of Brisbane electorates at last year’s federal poll, winning all three in the largest swing of any party at 2.6 per cent.

Now boasting a 12.9 per cent primary vote in Queensland, the Greens’ success threatens Annastacia Palaszczuk’s re-election prospects in 2024, with a number of Brisbane seats in serious jeopardy, including Cooper, McConnell and Bulimba.

SRI’S SPRAY

Speaking of the Greens …

The defection of Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe caused quite the stir, nowhere more so than her own party.

In a lengthy social media post Jonathan Sri, the sole Greens rep in Brisbane City Council, praised Thorpe and hit out at the party for its “crappy” decision not to have meaningful consultation with grassroots members before declaring its position on the Voice.

“The current approach, whereby MPs consult selectively, then make a decision behind closed doors, basically leaves members – particularly First Nations members – with no structural power and no way to exert influence except by voting with their feet and quitting the party if they don’t like a decision they feel strongly about,” he wrote.

Jonathan Sri, Councillor for The Gabba Ward. Picture: Richard Walker

“If MPs are going to agree to something that doesn’t reflect party policy as decided by Greens members, or seems at odds with the views of a lot of First Nations people, they should at least be extracting concessions and positive improvements to secure support.”

As Sri’s points out in his spray, tensions within the party will continue to bubble up.

We will be watching.

NO-SHOWS

Queensland Governor Jeanette Young held a shindig Monday night at Government House to celebrate the 40th birthday of Volunteering Queensland.

But it seems there was no Palaszczuk Government minister or MP willing to volunteer their time to attend and congratulate the organisation that is always there when you need them.

Our Chooks spies report that the LNP’s state member for Warrego Ann Leahy and the Liberals councillor Vicki Howard were the only serving politicians in attendance.

The excuse is that community cabinet was being held in Maryborough that day, before the entire caucus travelled to K’gari Fraser Island.

SPOTTED

New Zealand’s new prime minister Chris Hipkins has hired lobbyist Andrew Kirton as his new chief of staff.

Kirton, who ran Jacinda Ardern’s 2017 election campaign, had been working at Labor-aligned lobbying firm Anacta for the past year.

Anacta’s co-owners Evan Moorhead and David Nelson were blacklisted by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk last year.