Annastacia Palaszczuk keeps CFMEU donations after ‘disgraceful’ protest
Annastacia Palaszczuk will not cut financial ties with the CFMEU after hundreds of unionists laid siege to a government building in August.
G’day readers, and welcome to another edition of Feeding the Chooks.
PALASZCZUK KEEPS CFMEU CASH
Annastacia Palaszczuk will not cut financial ties with the CFMEU after hundreds of unionists laid siege to a government building in August.
The Queensland Premier was waiting for the outcome of a police investigation before making a decision on whether to hand back $90,000 in donations from the construction union, but had described the conduct as “disgraceful”.
“I won’t be meeting with them,” she said. “They should apologise to the workers that felt unsafe and threatened.”
About 200 protesters allegedly knocked down a security guard when they stormed the Transport and Main Roads building on August 23 and subjected public servants to “upsetting and unacceptable behaviour”.
The police investigation wrapped up last week with one man copping a $431 fine for public nuisance.
Palaszczuk said workers’ safety was put at risk, but she would not ask Labor HQ to hand back the cash.
“It has been investigated by police and the matter is closed,” she said on Friday.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas instructed Labor to return a $125k donation from the CFMEU in August after cars belonging to staff from the Master Builders Association were allegedly vandalised.
LAMING’S RETURN?
Former federal LNP MP Andrew Laming is preparing to relaunch his political career, this time in the state arena.
Laming intends to run for preselection for the LNP in one of three Labor-held Queensland state seats at the October 2024 poll: Redlands (held by Kim Richards), Capalaba (held by Don Brown) or Springbrook (held by Mick de Brenni).
He told Chooks: “My intention is to run”.
Laming has previously blamed former PM Scott Morrison for cutting short his time in parliament, claiming he was not able to recontest his federal seat of Bowman because the PM “abandoned” him and tried to “convince me and others not to continue with my preselection application”.
In April 2021, the LNP’s applicant review committee recommended Laming “not proceed as a candidate” and reopened preselections for Bowman.
Laming has been furiously rehabilitating his image, securing a six-figure payout in his defamation win over the Nine Network after it falsely accused Laming of taking a lewd photograph of a woman in her Brisbane workplace.
His next battle is with the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, which wants him to pay back $10,000 for trips to Hobart and Melbourne in 2019, during which he attended a medical conference and a horticulture conference.
According to official correspondence seen by Chooks, Laming last month provided fresh information to IPEA, including text messages between himself and the medical conference organiser.
On the basis of the new evidence, “IPEA will initiate a further independent review of the ruling,” the watchdog told Laming.
But, as acting CEO Michael Frost notes snippily, this new evidence has only recently been made available to IPEA, despite “numerous opportunities” and requests.
“I take this opportunity to remind you of the importance of providing all material evidence to IPEA and the obligation to act in good faith when accounting for the use of public resources,” Frost writes.
EMBED WITH THE LNP
It’s a case of do as I say, not as I do, for the Liberal National Party and lobbyists, it appears.
The LNP has been particularly – and correctly – exorcised about Premier Palaszczuk’s 2020 re-election campaign being run by two Labor lobbyists: Evan Moorhead (of Anacta Strategies) and Cameron Milner (of the now defunct Next Level Strategic Services).
Both have been banished from lobbying in Queensland, along with Moorhead’s business partner David Nelson, after a damning review of the public service conducted by academic Peter Coaldrake warned of the corruption risks of lobbyist-campaigner “dual-hatters”.
For LNP leader David Crisafulli, the individual blacklistings weren’t enough; he wanted their entire firms banned from lobbying in the state.
But during the recent federal campaign, the LNP had a lobbyist embedded in its own campaign headquarters.
And now Chooks can reveal the extent of that access, after obtaining former Nationals premier Rob Borbidge’s “review of the LNP’s 2022 federal election campaign” report, a truly gripping nine-page thriller of a document.
Borbidge is a registered lobbyist in Queensland, working for Govstrat, founded by Damian Power, a former government adviser and ex-treasurer of the QLD ALP.
The firm currently has a roster of 11 clients, including mining giants Rio Tinto and New Hope Group, corporate bookmaker Entain, and the Retail Guild.
Mega-developer Springfield Land Corporation and health consultants Vanguard Health were Govstrat clients until last month, according to the QLD lobbyist register.
Lobbyist and party elder Borbidge was personally recruited by LNP president Lawrence Springborg to “attend, as an observer, meetings of the state campaign committee for the federal election, which were held by telephone each morning”.
“This allowed a real time assessment of our performance,” Borbidge notes in his report, circulated to party members.
“These meetings normally followed the daily calls for the federal campaign and when necessary, the Nationals campaign.”
He was “embedded” into the high-powered LNP campaign committee, which included: then-senior Cabinet ministers Peter Dutton, David Littleproud, and Karen Andrews, LNP Senators James McGrath and Susan McDonald, state representative and LNP deputy leader Jarrod Bleijie, Mr Springborg, state director Lincoln Folo, Brisbane City Council representative Fiona Cunningham and other party officials.
Quite the who’s who for a lobbyist – even a former QLD premier – to be on the blower with daily.
When Chooks chatted to Borbidge in July, he insisted he was an observer, not a member, of the campaign committee and had no voting rights. Borbidge said he would not be involved in running the 2024 state campaign, but would go to events as a former premier.
IN THE DARK
So what did Borbidge’s access-all-areas pass reveal about the way the LNP campaign was run in QLD?
He noted that even though the Central Campaign Committee (who ran the national campaign for the LNP) was based just across Brisbane at Milton, there was “limited” information provided from the CCC to the State Campaign Committee.
“Considering the limited scope of the state committee, it played a key role in minimising our losses at the poll but desirably, would have benefited on occasions a greater deal of autonomy in regards to the conduct of the federal campaign in QLD,” Borbidge recommended.
He also put MPs on notice that they’ll be expected to rake in more cash for the party coffers, starting immediately.
“As a preselection key performance indicator, incumbent MPs (should) be required to agree to a campaign funding target with the obligation fundraising commence early after re-election,” he said.
The LNP won 21 of QLD’s 30 federal seats; 18 sitting MPs were returned, three new MPs were elected, and two incumbent MPs were defeated. It returned two Senators, and lost one Senate position.
JANETZKI’S TIME WARP
A week is a long time in politics, as the old adage goes.
As the Labor government approaches the halfway point of its fixed four-year term, Annastacia Palaszczuk’s third as premier, it certainly feels like an eternity until the next state election, which will be held on October 26, 2024.
By then, Palaszczuk will have served nine years and eight months in the top job, a few months shy of Labor’s longest serving premier William Forgan Smith.
But a decade of Palaszczuk power does not seem enough for LNP treasury spokesman David Janetzki who is seemingly already preparing for Labor’s fifth term.
“The Palaszczuk govt is asking Queenslanders to trust them to build homes they should have been building in their 2nd and 3rd terms (instead of) in their 4th and 5th terms,” Janetzki wrote in a tweet criticising the state for dragging its heels on social housing builds.
More big numbers to be delivered decades away.
— David Janetzki MP (@DavidJanetzkiMP) October 20, 2022
The Palaszczuk govt is asking Queenslanders to trust them to build homes they should have been building in their 2nd and 3rd terms in their 4th and 5th terms.
It’s absurd. #qldpol
At Thursday’s housing crisis meeting, Palaszczuk promised an extra 5600 new dwellings by 2027, which would be finished toward the end of Labor’s hypothetical fourth term.
“He’s giving us five terms,” one Labor insider gleefully pointed out.
SPOTTED
Hailing from the nation’s most populated city, Sydney-based Tanya Plibersek may not be used to the village-like nature of Brisbane, where you are sure to bump into someone you know every time you leave the house.
The Environment Minister is in town for the traditional pre-budget sell, and popped down to the Rivergate Marina in Murarrie on Friday morning to spruik Labor’s Great Barrier Reef investments.
Plibersek, her state counterpart Meaghan Scanlon, and Labor senator Nita Green were at the marina inspecting a new reef patrol boat, and announcing extra funding.
In true Brisbane style, LNP state MP Tim Nicholls happened to be on the neighbouring boat visiting friends and wandered over for a sticky beak at the presser.
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