Anthony Albanese sheepish on lobby ban
Anthony Albanese doesn’t seem to be in any rush to ban lobbyists who worked on his election campaign from dealing with his government.
G’day readers and welcome to the latest edition of Feeding the Chooks, your regular look behind the scenes of Queensland politics.
NEVER HEARD OF ’EM
Anthony Albanese doesn’t seem to be in any rush to ban lobbyists who worked on his election campaign from dealing with his government, despite public service reformer Peter Coaldrake warning the “suspicious” practice should cease.
A long-running investigation by The Australian uncovered the existence of campaigner-lobbyists, political players who work to get governments elected and then profit from those governments as lobbyists or owners of lobbying firms.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was forced to blacklist three lobbyists who held senior roles in her re-election campaign, after a scathing report from Coaldrake.
Asked by Chooks at the Queensland ALP state conference on the Sunshine Coast why he hasn’t introduced similar rules, the PM said: “My government has in place very strict and diligent integrity measures.
“I stand by the integrity measures that my government has in place.”
Anacta, the firm of two now-blacklisted Labor lobbyists – Evan Moorhead and David Nelson – was paid more than $100,000 for 18 months to work on Albanese’s federal campaign in Queensland.
Nelson did media buying and research for the campaign, but Moorhead said he had no role outside of handing out how-to-vote cards on election day.
When the PM asked Chooks for examples of lobbyists who worked on his campaign, Chooks cited Moorhead and Nelson’s firm Anacta Strategies.
The PM retorted: “I’ve never even heard of it. I’ve never heard of the group”.
Ouch.
Financial records show the Queensland Labor branch paid $79,200 in 2021 to Anacta, with party officials confirming the payments continued until June this year.
Anacta set up shop in Canberra days after Albanese’s win, and Moorhead along with Palaszczuk’s former deputy chief of staff Denise Spinks are registered lobbyists.
The firm has 16 clients, listed on the federal register, including coal giant Glencore Australia, Children by Choice and Queensland Energy Resources.
As for Albanese’s former spinner Alex Cramb, who registered as a federal lobbyist on September 8 as a partner at Crisis & Comms Co, the PM said Cramb was “raising goats in a farm down in regional Victoria”.
“Alex Cramb is a very decent, honourable human being who left my office some time ago. He chose not to continue to work for government,” Albanese said.
Chooks spoke to Cramb, who was busy herding cattle on his south Gippsland farm. He says he is mostly retired but does a “little bit of consulting,” mostly in crisis communication.
“I am all about complying fully with law, and any work I do is transparent,” he said.
Since the federal election, 153 new lobbyists have joined the federal register, which has grown to 662.
New lobbyists since the May election include two new additions to Anacta: Lidija Ivanovski, former COS to Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, and Mark Reed, who was strategic advisor for WA premier Mark McGowan.
UNDER THE HAMMER
If you’d like to own a very obscure part of recent Queensland political history, here’s your chance.
The abandoned suburban Brisbane home that failed LNP candidate for Lilley, Vivian Lobo, claimed he lived in is now on the market.
Chooks readers would know the AFP is still investigating Lobo for allegedly providing a false address to the Australian Electoral Commission.
Now, that Everton Park house is on the market, and its real estate agents are kindly describing it as in “need of a face lift” rather than dilapidated and abandoned.
During the campaign, Chooks’ colleagues discovered Lobo actually lived in the neighbouring suburb of Wilston, in the electorate of Brisbane, in quite a lovely Queenslander.
When the story broke, Lobo said he was moving into the Everton Park property that night, despite it being empty and in a state of disrepair.
“I enrolled in the electorate as I had signed a lease in Everton Park with the intention to move in straight away …(but) I was delayed moving in,” he said.
BE DAMMED
The redirecting of federal funds from a new dam near Townsville to controversial water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin has enraged Queensland farmers.
Funding for the $5.4bn Hells Gate dam was outlined in the Morrison government’s budget in March, and then was axed in the Albanese government’s first budget last month.
But who was responsible for the decision? A leaked budget night letter from federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek points the finger at her Queensland counterpart, Glenn Butcher.
“The government will not be proceeding with the Hells Gates dam project based on your advice regarding the project’s deliverability and the outcomes of the detailed business case,” she wrote.
But in parliament this week, Butcher was having none of it and said he wanted to “correct the record” about his Labor ally’s correspondence.
“She asked me what I thought of that project and I said ‘well, the business case that was being developed, at an interim-term, said at this stage that the Hells Gate dam project wasn’t ready for significant funding at this point in time’,” Butcher told state parliament.
“That is exactly what I said to her.
“Her letter that came to me was incorrect in the statement that she made in that letter.”
Plibersek’s office later backtracked saying: “The decision not to proceed with the Hells Gates dam project was made by the federal government based on the advice from scientists and independent reports”.
TRAD: UNMENTIONABLE NO MORE
She may have exited the political stage two years ago, but Jackie Trad’s presence still looms large over Queensland politics.
The former Treasurer and deputy premier, who sensationally lost her South Brisbane seat at the 2020 election, drove a number of the government’s social reforms during her six years as Palaszczuk’s deputy.
Decriminalising abortion, legalising voluntary assisted dying, and moves to Treaties with First Nations people were all instigated and championed through the party room and parliament by Trad.
But it was her work on a 2018 betting tax that earnt her praise from Left factional ally Don Brown this week.
“The former member for South Brisbane had the foresight to bring in a tax that not only drove the racing industry to do better but also ensured that the more they grew the industry, the more money went back into it,” he told parliament.
“I congratulate her for her fine and visionary work.”
Brown’s shout-out is of interest as Chooks has been told some of Trad’s former colleagues were ordered earlier this year to delete from their speeches any mention of her.
SUPER TROOPER
Speaker of Queensland parliament (and self-declared uber nerd) Curtis Pitt ventured to the dark side last weekend, donning the black uniform and blaster pistol of one of Darth Vader’s imperial officers for a trip to the Supernova comic and pop culture expo.
Pitt is a well-known Marvel comics tragic and it seems his love for superheroes and sci-fi extends to the Star Wars universe as well. Pitt took his son Tristan (dressed in a frankly excellent Back to the Future Marty McFly get-up) along. The Speaker couldn’t resist an outfit change, also becoming Boba Fett, one of most feared bounty hunters in the galaxy.
Chooks suspects Pitt wishes he could wear Fett’s armour into the parliamentary chamber for particularly bruising bouts of Question Time.
LEST WE FORGET
On this Remembrance Day, allow Chooks to remind our readers of this spectacular piece of musical magic.
Long-standing LNP MP Fiona Simpson, a former Speaker of Queensland parliament and now the Opposition’s integrity spokeswoman, wrote the catchy ditty ‘Lest We Forget’ with Tanya Maree McFadyen-Bandera in 2020.
Simpson was responsible for the lyrics, and McFadyen-Bandera composed the music, and both appeared in this unforgettable video clip, which was released last year in time for Anzac Day.
And if you thought that was a lyrical triumph, let us not overlook Governor-General David Hurley’s wife Linda’s musical ode to the Invasive Species Solutions Trust (yes, really), performed with great gusto at Government House on December 1 last year.
Chooks was delighted to discover that Her Excellency Mrs Hurley is a believer “in the power of singing to bring people together, stay connected and bring joy into the world”.
“She often writes songs to thank volunteers of the organisations that she and the Governor-General meet and encourages guests at Government House to sing together,” the GG’s official YouTube channel says.
OLD DOG
The LNP’s racing-mad Surfers Paradise MP John-Paul Langbroek has divested his 10 per cent share in a greyhound.
Langbroek, who dropped his shadow racing portfolio after the last election, tells Chooks he will “get into another one in the future”.
Chooks hopes Langbroek’s ex-dishlicker will be retiring to a nice farm.
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