‘I pushed for it’: Matt Canavan revealed as mastermind behind Olympic rowing in Rocky
Up the Fitzroy without a paddle
It’s been a big week. We’ve had a federal budget, a federal budget reply, a federal election called, and the long-awaited announcement of the venues for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games.
So what’s been the biggest talking point? The decision to host the Olympic rowing on the croc-infested Fitzroy River in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton.
Chooks can reveal who came up with the idea that’s had the paddling fraternity up in arms: Rocky-based Nationals Senator Matt Canavan.
Canavan confirmed to Chooks that he first floated the idea back in January, after he’d taken his son to compete in an event at Rowing Australia’s preferred venue of Wyaralong Dam, about 80 minutes’ drive from Brisbane.
Canavan says he was stunned at the state of the venue, which is not connected to mains water or power, and set about getting in the ear of anyone who would listen in the Queensland LNP government.
“I pushed for it with all the contacts I’ve got, obviously, with the Queensland government, with the new Queensland MPs in central Queensland, and they fought very hard for it … I don’t know if they’d have had the idea otherwise,” he tells Chooks.
The Fitzroy hosts state rowing championships, including for school kids, and the Olympic team does train there. But rowing aficionados were blindsided by the decision, which they say very clearly breaks all the international rules about an Olympic venue.
Aside from the crocs, the river is tidal and has a current – or in rowing parlance, a stream – and that potentially gives boats in the middle lanes the fast-track compared to those competitors on the outside of the watercourse. It’s not a fair fight, according to rowers.
But Canavan reckon that’s much ado about nothing, and that it doesn’t rain in Rocky during winter, which reduces the risk of a stream
“The river is not tidal where the course is because of a barrage … the weirs are upstream and prevent flow coming down the river,” Canavan says.
Of course, the Crisafulli government’s independent panel’s 100-day review recommended the Games flatwater rowing events be held at the Sydney International Regatta Centre, where the 2000 Olympic Games were staged.
But Queensland is a parochial place, and crocs and currents in central Queensland were always going to outrank a New South Wales venue.
The red army assembles
Hundreds of union powerbrokers across the country have dialled into a town-hall hook-up to put the final touches on their “Don’t Risk Dutton” campaign in target marginal seats.
Anthony Albanese – who flew into Brisbane late on Friday – will be relying on the red army of union officials, their members, and their war-chests in what was described by a union heavyweight as a marshalling of the labour movement’s “boots on the ground” advantage over the opposition to keep their guy in power.
The ACTU-led virtual meeting of up to 500 comrades was called to gee-up the troops for the 36-day electoral battle and to hear the union peak body’s plans to spearhead a negative campaign against Opposition leader Peter Dutton, urging voters not to “risk” Dutton and the LNP.
State leaders of trade unions were also outlining their strategies for target seats.
In Queensland, Chooks’ spies say the list of seats the union movement is targeting includes the LNP-held seats of Leichhardt and Capricornia, the Greens-held electorates of Brisbane, Griffith and Ryan, and a sandbagging effort in Labor’s own Moreton and Blair.
Already, union-backed phone banks have been set up, where true believers are paid to bombard voters in key seats with calls spruiking Labor’s candidates.
Chooks can reveal the public service Together Union is strongly backing former professional basketballer and unionist Matt Smith in the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt, where veteran LNP MP Warren Entsch is retiring.
According to leaked data from Labor’s internal candidate leaderboard, 5179 calls were made to voters in Leichhardt and 1549 doors were knocked in the past week.
The leaderboard shows the next most active campaign in Queensland is Labor MP Shayne Neumann’s Blair, where the team made 4533 calls and knocked on 1400 doors in seven days.
Chooks hears union polling shows Blair – which Neumann holds on a margin of 5.23 per cent – is vulnerable and has been in real danger this year.
But the polling also indicates that the winds of fortune appeared to have inexplicably turned in Labor’s favour after ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred crossed the coast this month.
“The Prime Minister saving Neumann’s preselection (from affirmative action rules) looks like the right call, and if we didn’t have him, we’d lose the seat,” one senior Labor strategist tells Chooks.
“It’s about boots on the ground, doorknocking, phone calls and letterboxing.”
Labor candidate Madonna Jarrett’s campaign in Greens-held Brisbane – backed by a United Workers’ Union-organised call centre – ranked third, with 4483 calls and 1406 knocked-doors in a week.
The Queensland Council of Unions has been allocated Leichhardt, Moreton and Blair as its target seats, Labor’s candidate for Capricornia Emily Dawson is being supported by the Mining and Energy Union, the Rail Tram and Bus Union is on the ground in Griffith, while the AMWU is active in Moreton and Forde.
Leaked leaderboard figures show Labor’s candidate for Griffith – Renee Coffey – who is trying to unseat the Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather in the Brisbane seat, is ranked the most active individual ALP candidate in the entire country.
In the seven days to Friday afternoon, Coffey knocked on 691 doors and made 38 calls.
Election magic on May 3
The usual rule of politics is don’t hold an election on a holiday.
People don’t like their plans for the beach or camping to be interrupted with the pesky consideration of finding the nearest voting booth or getting to a pre-poll as they are tying up the loose ends before taking off.
So what does it say about Anthony Albanese and his choice of May 3, Queensland’s Labour Day long weekend?
Maybe he wants to avoid the likely appearance of the CFMEU – the diminished but still loud union in administration – at the annual Labour Day march through Brisbane’s streets on May 5.
But does the PM, who once proudly boasted of being an honorary Queenslander, really know the state when he schedules the election during one of the biggest sports weekends of the year?
One ALP insider contacted Chooks to express his bemusement at Albo wanting to pull voters away from their TVs or, worse, from Suncorp Stadium during the NRL Magic Round.
The annual rugby league fest draws people from NSW and across Queensland.
Our insider suggested that the PM give consideration to leaning on the Australian Electoral Commission to set up voting booths outside the Cauldron.
Cannoli diplomacy
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Queensland Premier David Crisafulli are on opposite sides of the political fence, but they’ve got at least one thing in common: a proud Italian heritage.
Crisafulli used that shared background in a devious (but delicious) bit of diplomacy, to negotiate a $2.8bn state-federal school funding deal that the pair announced in Canberra on Monday.
“There’s been some strong negotiation, two people of Italian descent, you’d expect that,” Crisafulli said in the nation’s capital. “But there’s nothing that can’t be solved over a bit of common sense and a cannoli.”
Albanese: “And I can confirm that the Premier has, on two occasions, given me cannolis and I haven’t declared them. So, I declare them now just in case I get into some trouble”.
Molto bene cannoli, evidently. Chooks dedicated a solid portion of the week to tracking down the origin of the Sicilian treat. The mystery was solved when the owner of Mickey’s Cafe – in the northern Brisbane suburb of Zillmere – posted a picture of the PM with a pair of the ricotta-filled pastries when Albanese visited Queensland last week.
It seems Mickey is pretty popular with pollies, with local state MP for Nudgee Leanne Linard and Brisbane City Council Labor Opposition leader Jared Cassidy each posing for selfies with the young business owner in the past.
When it rains, it pours
We’re sure there’s a metaphor in here somewhere, but the sky is falling in Queensland’s Parliament House.
Battle-scarred clerk of the Queensland parliament Neil Laurie – who has held the job since 2003 but has worked in the building since 1993 and knows its many quirks – has warned MPs and staff that the recent cyclone and subsequent rain is wreaking havoc on the democratic edifice.
A missive from Laurie says there’s “water intrusion” in the ceilings of Old Parliament House and there’s a risk that “plaster ceilings and cornices will fail”.
For health and safety reasons, the Hansard reporters are being shifted, Payroll is moving to an area improbably called “middle earth,” Leader of the House Christian Rowan is being relocated to the Hansard tea room and Finance Minister Ros Bates’s office is also out of action.
Laurie says the switcheroo is likely to last for six months.
Spotted
Is this duo becoming a regular double act?
Former Queensland premiers (and ex-adversaries) Annastacia Palaszczuk and Campbell Newman teamed up this week to chew the fat about state politics at a corporate event at Brisbane’s Customs House.
The erstwhile Labor and LNP leaders were on a panel hosted by political journalist Peter van Onselen at a gathering for financial services firm Wilsons Advisory. A few hundred people were there to witness the Palaszczuk-Newman reunion.
Sometimes, lightning really does strike twice. Eyebrows were raised in October last year when Palaszczuk and Newman joined forces for the Sky News broadcast on the night of the Queensland election.
But we do wonder whether this unlikely pairing is on track to become Queensland politics’ odd couple: our Kirk and Spock, Mulder and Scully or Abbott and Costello. Dear readers, you can decide who is who.
Spotted
Longman MP Terry Young was hastily beating a path back to his Brisbane electorate from Canberra on Friday morning, he told his Facebook and Instagram followers, to hit the “haskings” as soon as possible.
Chooks expects we’ll see Young on the haskings, and perhaps the hustings, ahead of polling day on May 3.
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G’day readers, and welcome to this edition of Feeding the Chooks, your essential guide to what’s really going on in Queensland politics.