Michael McKenna
Ex-Labor Minister Kate Jones rules out big Olympics gig
G’day readers and welcome to the latest edition of Feeding the Chooks, your insider’s guide into what’s really going on in Queensland politics.
Jones ‘will not be nominating’
Former Labor minister Kate Jones has denied she has been leaning on her old mate Steven Miles to appoint her to head the resurrected “independent” agency to deliver the 2032 Olympics infrastructure.
In his first major act in the top job in December, the Premier scrapped in-house co-ordination office established under Annastacia Palaszczuk to make way for a stand-alone authority first proposed when Brisbane secured the event two years ago.
It is just one of the major backflips from Miles over the government’s unpopular Olympic plans that might just win him a place on Australia’s dive or gymnastic teams going to the Brisbane Games.
Jones, who has been boasting all over town about her role in taking out Palaszczuk from the grassy knoll of political has-beens, was widely rumoured to be eyeing off the Olympics gig as her pay-off.
She didn’t get back to Chooks on Friday when we left her a message asking for comment.
After publishing the well placed speculation on Friday, Jones texted us on Saturday to say she had been too busy to notice we had called.
And she said she wanted to put to rest the rumours that her long-held ambitions were about to be realised under Miles.
“I have not approached the Premier or any member of Queensland cabinet regarding the proposed independent infrastructure body and will not be nominating to be on the board or employed in the agency.
“I hope this clarifies matters, best wishes Kate.”
Given the talk in political circles about her ambitions for the job, Chooks wonders whether it all just got too hot to handle.
Miles has already faced criticism over several “Labor mates” appointments since becoming premier in December.
Jones was on media-drafted short-lists for the Olympic Co-ordination Authority before it was dumped, but most close to Palaszczuk at the time dismissed the speculation knowing the deep rancour between the longtime cabinet colleagues.
No such problem between Miles and Jones.
The pair are close friends, with Jones helping to whip the votes of her Old Guard faction in support of Miles’ bid to become premier.
She even attended his swearing-in ceremony and the pair was seen in quiet conversation after he delivered his Queensland Media Club speech on Tuesday.
Jones was a former tourism minister and minister in charge of the hugely successful 2018 Commonwealth Games (but let’s be real, it’s not much more than an inter-school sports carnival) on the Gold Coast.
The body will be set up mid-year, but its boss is likely to be announced sooner.
Labor MPs are retreating
Who was running the state when the Premier, his cabinet and all of the government MPs took Thursday and Friday off for a Labor love-in at a suburban Brisbane pub?
Forget the outcry from Queenslanders about youth crime and how to pay the bills, it was all put on hold so that the ALP pollies could get together and work out how they can survive the October 26 state election.
Normally, these events are held on a weekend. Not so this year with Steven Miles as host, corralling his MPs into the Eatons Hill Hotel, about 30 minutes’ drive from Parliament House, for a two-day, one-night sleepover in the city’s northern suburbs.
To be clear, the MPs didn’t take leave to attend the event.
The Queensland ALP paid for rockstar former WA Labor Premier Mark McGowan – who studied at the University of Queensland with Annastacia Palaszczuk and Treasurer Cameron Dick – to be the guest speaker.
McGowan gave a “rallying” speech to gee up the caucus ahead of the October election, and spilled the beans on WA Labor MPs who did “dumb things” during his tenure as Premier.
Miles opened the talkfest with a stern warning to his troops: don’t leak. Happily, the message swiftly leaked to Chooks.
“He said we had to stick together and not to leak,” one MP whispered.
Reports from our snitches on the ground is that morale is high among the troops after a tumultuous end to last year. After nine years of Palaszczuk’s reign – where debate was stifled in caucus – pollies say there has been a noticeable culture shift and they feel emboldened to share their views. Let’s see how long that lasts.
Chooks was hoping to catch a glimpse of an inspired crime-fighting policy or two, but in the happy snaps from the sleepover, all that was on the Premier’s whiteboard was the hotel’s WiFi password.
Miles’ office has insisted that taxpayers are footing none of the cost of the love-in; MPs are paying for their own travel and accommodation and the ALP is picking up the rest of the tab.
Apart from the pollies, McGowan and Labor state secretary Kate Flanders were the only outsiders. There was no sign of union powerbrokerGary Bullock, or blacklisted Labor lobbyist Evan Moorhead, both of whom attended the caucus retreat at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat in the Gold Coast hinterland ahead of the 2020 election.
Suspended
Four Young LNP members have been suspended from the party for alleged misuse of a membership list of the youth branch ahead of an internal party vote on the Gold Coast in March last year.
At a marathon meeting of the LNP executive in Brisbane on Friday last week, the powerful body considered the results of an investigation into the alleged rule breach and voted to suspend the four.
The alleged offenders are understood to be aligned with the Christian Soldiers conservative faction, and were thought to be working against the perceived takeover of the Young LNP by moderates led by popular Queensland Senator James McGrath.
An Excel spreadsheet with a list of names of 80-something members of the Young LNP on the Gold Coast was the key piece of evidence; membership lists are closely guarded and are only allowed to be accessed by certain people under party rules.
If the suspended four keep their noses clean for the term of their banishment, they will be welcomed back into the LNP’s ranks.
Candidate splashes cash — to other side
The LNP’s by-election candidate for the safe ALP seat of Ipswich West, Darren Zanow, is a semi-regular political donor and campaigner … for Labor.
Public records show Zanow and his family company Zanow’s Concrete and Quarries tipped $5,590 into Labor coffers in five instalments between 2016 and February 2022, including for a seat at a Labor fundraising lunch for Shayne Neumann’sseat of Blair hosted by now-Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen.
There are no records on the ECQ’s online donations database showing Zanow has donated to the LNP in the past eight years, but LNP sources insist he has been a supporter.
He even campaigned alongside Labor ahead of the 2022 federal election, sandwiched between Neumann and Senator Murray Watt in official material spruiking a $4m ALP promise to upgrade the Ipswich Showgrounds. Zanow is president of the Ipswich Show Society.
Five days ago, when LNP leader David Crisafulli announced Zanow as the party’s candidate for Ipswich West, he said Zanow was running for the LNP “because he wants real change for the people of Ipswich”.
The seat’s been left vacant by the abrupt exit of Labor backbencher and ‘Call me Sir’ MP Jim Madden. Former Annastacia Palaszczuk staffer Wendy Bourne is running for the ALP in the seat.
Left right out
It’s been two months since Steven Miles’ elevation to the top job and his own faction is still tearing itself apart over how he got there.
Miles became premier in December thanks to a backroom deal stitched up by his union overlord Gary Bullock.
The secretive agreement between Bullock (of the Left) and Australian Workers Union boss Stacey Schinnerl (of the Right) saved Miles from going head-to-head with factional frenemy Shannon Fentiman in front of the Labor caucus.
Fentiman – whose backers still believe she had the numbers in caucus to beat Miles in a vote of MPs – promptly pulled out of the race after the union deal was done.
Now, a debate has erupted inside the powerful Left faction about how it chooses its leadership candidates – should it be the unions or MPs?
At a closed-door meeting of the Left executive, held inside the United Workers Union’s South Brisbane headquarters last weekend, concerns were raised that the running of two Left candidates (Miles and Fentiman) could have split the vote and inadvertently installed the Right’s Cameron Dick as premier.
Chooks spies say the Labor’s returning officer Terry Wood said the faction needed to sort out some clear rules for next time, suggesting the executive (made up of union leaders and a handful of branch members) should make the call.
No surprises that suggestion has not gone down so well with MPs.
No outcome was reached, but as one Labor insider told Chooks: “That will have to be resolved by the Left exec in the next few months because, to be honest, we will probably lose the election and we will be having another leadership contest soon”.
Pitt for Paul
Queensland’s Labor Speaker Curtis Pitt has officially endorsed Paul Taylor to become mayor of Cairns, following the former top cop’s resignation in mid-2022 after it emerged he’d referred to a gynaecologist friend as a “vagina whisperer” at a police leadership conference.
Taylor, who had a 45-year career in the Queensland Police Service and was deputy commissioner when he exited, at the time said he was devastated and deeply apologetic for the remarks, which he insisted were not meant to be offensive.
The comments became public during the commission of inquiry into police responses to domestic and family violence, which found a culture of misogyny, sexism and racism flourished in the force.
Pitt, the MP for the far north Queensland electorate of Mulgrave, took to Instagram to back independent candidate Taylor in the March 16 local government elections, saying he’d never before made such an endorsement.
“Paul is fiercely independent but also has a great social conscience and knows what the issues are that are hitting people in the Cairns area,” Pitt said.
“I hope you can support him because he will bring real leadership to Far North Queensland and won’t owe anybody any favours along the way.”
Taylor is up against sitting mayor Terry James (who replaced Bob Manning when he retired late last year) and current councillor Amy Eden. Apart from the Brisbane City Council, no other local government in Queensland is formally politically aligned.
Spotted
A life-sized cut-out of Liberal National Party deputy leader Jarrod Bleijie dressed as Elvis – resplendent in a bejewelled white jumpsuit – was auctioned off at last weekend’s Young Liberals federal convention in Brisbane.
So who was All Shook Up by the cardboard likeness and splashed their hard-earned for the prized piece of political memorabilia?
None other than Queensland conservative powerbroker and controversial former federal Senator and Howard government minister, Santo Santoro, who made the winning bid of $500.
Chooks can’t help but wonder where Santoro – who resigned as federal ageing minister in 2007 over his failure to disclose investments – is going to keep such a hunk of Burning Love.
We’re sure it was just an oversight that Santoro left the precious treasure behind when he left the gala ball, where the Young Libs promptly took him onto the dance floor and into the DJ booth.
Bleijie reckons he’s auctioned off more than 20 of the cut-outs, with the funds going to Liberal National Party coffers or charities.
The shy Sunshine Coast MP recently had his arm twisted to perform a five-song Elvis medley at a retirement village in his Kawana electorate, after which a resident strapped on her Blue Suede Shoes and sped over to snap up one of the large Bleijie-as-The-King pictures.
“The woman who bought it, she rang me a week later and said ‘I have slept with you every night since your show’,” a bemused Bleijie tells Chooks.
Spotted #2
The fun and frivolity at the Young Libs’ FedCon shindig was abruptly cut short on Saturday night when a pack of sweaty young conservatives got stuck in an elevator for 90 minutes.
Kick-ons for the convention’s ball were held at a rooftop bar in the CBD and the Young Libs were so desperate for their next glass of Veuve they squeezed 17 people into a 16-person lift. It was a hot and sticky day in Brisbane on Saturday (the mercury hit 32 degrees in the city and humidity peaked at a steamy 70 per cent).
Paramedics were called, but Chooks hears everyone was OK and most of the revellers returned to the festivities after a quick blood pressure check.
Flashback
Excavated from deep in the annals of the state archives, the recently released 1993 Queensland Cabinet minutes reveal the behind-the-scenes machinations of Wayne Goss’s ministry before the government became debt-free in that year.
In July 1993, Prime Minister Paul Keating told the nation’s premiers that state grants would be slashed to cut federal expenditure, leaving Queensland with a shortfall of $115m in Commonwealth grants.
A week after the premiers’ conference, state treasurer Keith De Lacy was briefing the Queensland cabinet on what needed to be done, and warning it would be “very sensitive politically”. Savings of $110m needed to be found in 1993-94.
De Lacy proposed closing small schools, shutting “uneconomic” regional rail lines, contracting out services such as school cleaning, creating new charges such as a National Parks entrance fee, and slashing the number of teachers.
He noted that trade unions had already been consulted with on contracting out the school cleaning services – affecting 5,400 public service employees – and they were “strongly opposed”.
Fast-forward 30 years and in the most recent budget update in December, Treasurer Cameron Dick said the state’s projected total debt for 2026-27 would be $149bn, including debt carried by state-owned corporations.
On the government’s preferred measure of net debt, borrowings are $47.34bn, up from $46.93bn in June, with Dick blaming the debt surge on borrowing to build more infrastructure.
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