Michael McKenna
Annastacia Palaszczuk returns to face unrest, as LNP senator loses appeal to save his political career
G’day readers. Here’s this week’s edition of Feeding the Chooks, your peek behind the scenes of Queensland politics.
PALASZCZUK’S RETURN
A week is a long time in politics and Annastacia Palaszczuk has been away on her European sojourn for two.
The Premier arrives back into the country this weekend, ahead of what is expected to be the most fateful week of her political career.
This newspaper revealed that Palaszczuk had lost the confidence of key people across Queensland Labor and that some wanted her to quit for fear she will lead into opposition next year.
It was also pointed out that there was no coup planned, no numbers being counted and that the party rules makes it almost impossible to roll her the premier.
But it is fair to say that the unrest is wider than first reported.
And so, it will be a very interesting few days next week.
It will begin when the Premier has her Monday morning catch-up with deputy Steven Miles, followed by the usual cabinet meeting with her ministers and a caucus meeting with all Labor MPs later in the day.
Chooks can’t predict what will happen.
On Friday, Miles seemed to want everyone to know that he is up to the job after filling in for Palaszczuk for the past fortnight.
“I’ve sought to do my best in the two weeks as acting premier to serve Queenslanders, just as I do every day as the minister for state development, local government, planning, infrastructure and assisting the premier with Olympics and Paralympics infrastructure.”
“It’ll be great to see her back and great to get back to work.”
So far, there is no-one in caucus or the unions, with their oversized influence on Palaszczuk, who has the mettle to be frank with the boss.
Only Jackie Trad would stand up to her, but she’s gone (and dreaming of a senate return).
The ball, it seems, is now in Palaszczuk’s court.
SUCCESSION?
So who will replace Annastacia Palaszczuk in the safe Labor seat of Inala, should the Premier decide to pull the pin on her political career?
It‘s long been assumed that former ALP assistant state secretary and the Premier’s current deputy chief of staff Jon Persley will succeed his boss in the outer-Brisbane seat.
Persley is one of the Premier’s closest advisers, is a member of her Right faction and wants it bad.
But Labor‘s affirmative action rules could stymie his ambitions.
“He’s got two problems,” a Right source says. “One is AA. There’s already issues in Labor Forum (the Right faction’s formal name) without replacing a woman with a man.”
“Then think of Kristina Keneally in Fowler. Inala needs a female with ties to the Vietnamese or multicultural community.”
(Keneally was parachuted into the safe Labor western Sydney seat of Fowler at the May 2022 federal election, and was beaten by Independent Dai Le, an Australian who was born in Vietnam.)
Chooks hears there‘s a local contender with strong numbers in the Inala branches.
Right faction sources say Nayda Hernandez, who works for Labor‘s local councillor Charles Strunk, has grassroots’ support.
Hernandez is Strunk‘s ward officer, and she speaks fluent Spanish after migrating to Australia from Central America in the 1980s.
She‘s volunteered for Labor campaigns for years, including for federal MP Milton Dick.
COCK-UP OR CONSPIRACY?
Can Queensland’s Liberal National Party be trusted to run a chook raffle? On recent form, probably not.
The internal probe into the knife-edge senate preselection contest in July has concluded the party is guilty of a cock-up rather any conspiracy in the ballot that ousted sitting Queensland senator Gerard Rennick.
If you recall, state council delivered challenger and party treasurer Stuart Fraser 131 votes to Rennick’s 128 in the run-off round between the two for the third spot on the LNP ticket at the next federal election.
Rennick later appealed the result, alleging there was at least a handful of ineligible voters that he and his team saw casting ballots at the closed-door meeting.
Chooks has learned Rennick was unable to cough-up enough names of the suspect voters to convince the three member committee investigating his complaint that there is a need for a re-run of the preselection.
The probe did, however, find two people who were not eligible to vote managed to cast ballots in the various rounds that progressively weeded-out the field to just Rennick and Fraser.
(We are told one apparently voted for Rennick and the other says they didn’t vote in the deciding round.)
Then there is the question of Peter Dutton.
The federal Liberal leader wanted to cast his vote in support of Rennick but couldn’t actually make it to state council.
Normally, he would have directed a fellow parliamentarian to cast a vote on his behalf, but all the available ones were already voting.
Sometime in the weeks leading-up to the July 7 preselection, Dutton sought advice and was told by the LNP in writing that he couldn’t vote with a parliamentarian acting as his proxy.
But the day before the vote, Nationals leader David Littleproud, who was in the same predicament as his federal Liberal counterpart, was given new advice from the LNP that he could delegate a staffer to vote on his behalf.
Both Littleproud and Brisbane Liberal mayor Adrian Schrinner (who also couldn’t make it) then threw their support behind Fraser.
But nobody told Dutton.
Chooks has been told it was an honest oversight.
On the day of the vote, there was no roll call read-out which veteran LNP members tell us has been the norm in recent years.
Just before the vote began, all candidates (who had been progressively furnished with a list of those voting) were each asked if they were satisfied with the cohort of electors.
The committee, which took independent legal advice, concluded that because Rennick didn’t object (and would have seen that Dutton wasn’t on the list) before the ballot, he now has no basis to appeal about the absence of his federal leader’s support.
In relation to the other two ineligible voters, it is argued that they wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the final ballot.
Maybe, but it could have brought closer by two if they both supported Fraser (we can’t trust what they say they actually did with their votes) and those votes were then ruled invalid.
Then, if Dutton hadn't been thwarted and he was able to deliver his promised vote to Rennick, it would have made the final ballot a tie.
The report was given to Rennick a week or so ago and the senator, who hasn’t responded to repeated approaches from Chooks, is taking legal advice.
LNP HQ won’t comment.
Chooks can’t help but think this is an issue headed for the courts.
I CAN BUY MYSELF FLOWERS
The cost of living crisis gripping Australia has made its way to the highest echelons of Queensland society.
While everyday Aussies are cutting back on food and medicines to cope financially, Queensland Governor Jeanette Young has pared-down floral arrangements at her castle-like official residence in Paddington
Taxpayers will spend $56,000 on “floristry services” for the Governor in the next two years.
While exorbitant to many, who only splurge on a bunch of flowers for Mother’s Day or for their Valentine, Young’s office says the cost of flowers has “significantly decreased” since she was appointed to the role.
Asked by how much, her office could not say.
“Not sure sorry, just noting we have decreased the number of displays in the House and spend in recent years,’’ the office said when asked by Chooks.
Government House has sprawling gardens (evident by the $20,536 spent on a new mower in October) but arrangements worth about $540-a-week will continue to arrive from boutique florist Maison Fleur.
A spokeswoman for the governor said: “Their services over the two-year period will provide floral arrangements for the public-facing areas of Government House where they will be enjoyed by guests attending official events and State Dinners, along with wreaths for the Governor to lay on behalf of the people of Queensland at ceremonial and commemorative occasions.”.
In defence of former governor Paul de Jersey, he did seem to use a few stems from his backyard. In a 2016 post on the governor’s official Instagram page, de Jersey boasted about a bunch of natives picked from the Government House estate.
SILLY SEASON
Nothing gets the blood pumping for Queensland’s political class quite like preselection season.
The next state election might still be 414 sleeps away but the Liberal National Party is wasting no time lining up its field of candidates.
Come Monday night, the LNP will have closed nominations or preselected candidates in 15 seats including Ferny Grove, Mansfield, Hervey Bay, Barron River, Mundingburra, Redlands, Thuringowa, Cairns, Noosa, Redcliffe, Keppel, Maryborough, Caloundra. Nicklin and Oodgeroo.
Three MPs have already announced they will be quitting next year; Oodgeroo’s Mark Robinson, Burleigh’s Michael Hart and Ipswich West’s Jim Madden.
PARTY CLASH
There’ll be an informal test of the numbers for LNP preselection in the Brisbane bayside seat of Oodgeroo on September 30, in the form of an intriguing calendar clash.
As loyal Chooks readers know, Oodgeroo is being vacated by retiring MP Mark Robinson, and three nominees want the candidacy: former LNP Senator Amanda Stoker, former LNP federal MP Andrew Laming, and ordained Anglican priest turned spinner Daniel Hobbs.
Stoker and the LNP’s candidate for the neighbouring seat of Redlands, Rebecca Young, are the guest speakers at a regional women’s branch meeting at the home of Right factional powerbrokers Belinda Goodwin and her husband David on the 30th.
But on the same day, at the same time, Laming is hosting a party for his birthday at his home, at which he’s sure to do a spot of campaigning.
“Turnout to both will be interesting,” an Oodgeroo observer tells Chooks.
While Laming’s camp is still insisting he’s got the support of 75 of the 120ish preselectors, Hobbs is the dark horse of the competition.
GABBA REVEAL
A business case for the $2.7bn Gabba rebuild will be handed to Steven Miles today, more than two years after Annastacia Palaszczuk guesstimated the cost for the Olympic stadium would be $1bn.
The “project validation report”, which includes reference designs, will go to cabinet and Miles says he will make public “ as we possibly can” before the end of the year.
“I know people have questions about this project, about the cost of this project about whether it‘s value for money,” he said.
And it is not just the taxpayers with questions.
The blowout of the Gabba redevelopment was key to the funding deal between the federal and Queensland governments being reworked to make that project a wholly state responsibility.
SPOTTED
Queensland’s Director of Public Prosecutions Carl Heaton KC has been appointed as a new District Court judge.
Heaton, who managed 500 staff at the DPP, starts the new gig on Monday.
FEED THE CHOOKS
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