Feeding the Chooks: Albo spins into Queensland where the lobbying business is booming

Anthony Albanese is heading to Queensland this weekend.

But the big question is whether he will go on the record at the campaign launch for one of Labor’s target seats.

Talk among the Labor branches all week was that Albanese, or rather his DJ Albo alter ego, would be heading to Brisbane to spin the disks at the campaign launch for Madonna Jarrett at a nightclub in Fortitude Valley.

A flyer sent out to party members on Tuesday teased “an exclusive performance from one of Australia’s best underground DJs”.

“You won’t want to miss this,” the flyer said.

One veteran branchie said the word was that the DJ is none other than the Labor leader himself.

“If it isn’t Albanese, I’ll be demanding my $10 bucks back,” the branch member said.

On Friday morning, another flyer confirmed that the mystery guest was in fact Albanese, but still no confirmation that he was the DJ.

“Ticket sales must have been slow,” the branchie said.

Brisbane, held by Liberal MP Trevor Evans since 2016, has become a target seat for Labor with the party increasingly believing it can ride a swing of at least 5 per cent across the state to flip the seat.

Labor sources say the swings in inner-city seats are likely to be even bigger.

Evans holds Brisbane with a 4.9 per cent margin but inroads by the Greens favoured Labor and he had a 1.1 per cent swing against him in 2019.

The Coalition has set up its federal campaign headquarters in Brisbane to sandbag its city seats.

LNP sources said the talk among Canberra MPs is that the election will be called on Thursday for a May 14 election.

Booming business

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s mate Evan Moorhead – who, along with fellow lobbyist Cameron Milner ran her 2020 re-election campaign – might be a little miffed at the premier’s comments in parliament this week.

Palaszczuk was asked about revelations that CleanCo and the Queensland Building and Construction Commission – both state government organisations – paid Moorhead’s firm big bucks to help it engage with its own government.

A defensive premier said there was “no need for anyone to engage with anybody because we have an open door policy”.

Tell that to the corporates, charities and, yes, even government entities that feel the need to line the pockets of the booming lobbying sector in Queensland.

By our count, Queensland now has three lobbyists for every politician elected in the state parliament. Figures from the official register show there are now 295 registered lobbyists (with disproportionate being Labor linked) working at 129 firms employed by 1139 corporate clients.

And that’s just the ones that are open about what they are up to. Crime and Corruption Commission head Bruce Barbour recently told a committee hearing he was concerned about businesses employing people to lobby under the guise of other roles.

“An entity that wishes to avoid lobbying restrictions may simply engage a lobbyist in what may be categorised as a sham employment arrangement in order to circumvent lobbying laws,’’ he said.

Email trail release fail

Has the mood changed since Queensland’s Public Service Commissioner Rob Setter said he would be “happy” to release an email exchange last year between himself and Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov?

More than two weeks later, the emails are nowhere to be seen and there is only silence on their release from the premier’s office and the PSC.

It became an issue earlier this month when Stepanov told a parliamentary committee hearing that Setter had called her a “bitch on a witch hunt” during a 2018 phone call.

The email exchange is purported to be a discussion between the pair over Stepanov’s then request for mediation, which didn’t happen.

Parli

Instead, the PSC later seized a laptop from Stepanov’s office and wiped its content in a worrying move that is now at the centre of an investigation by the Crime and Corruption Commission.

The PSC has said it needed Stepanov’s agreement to release the emails and since March 15 she has consistently and publicly stated it was a matter for Setter.

We are waiting.

Funny money

Last week Chooks wrote about the continued loyalty of the LNP to twice-convicted fraudster and donor Eddy Andrews.

Despite being convicted of fraud in Victoria and Queensland and, more recently, running a charity stripped of its registration by regulators, the LNP has accepted close to a $100,000 from Andrews in the past two years.

On Tuesday, party insiders tell us that Andrews secured a seat on the top table at an LNP fundraiser in Canberra on budget night.

Sitting beside LNP president Lawrence Springborg, he is understood to have committed a further $20,000 to the party for the upcoming federal election campaign.

Interestingly, the donor declarations on the Electoral Commission of Queensland’s website shows Andrews’ consultancy – the Illira Group – might suspect a Labor win at the federal election.

Just last week, the company donated $5000 to the ALP. But the website also shows Labor returned the money the following day.

Out for Callide, in for Flynn

Colin Boyce certainly made a theatrical exit from state parliament this week to embark on his quest to win the federal seat of Flynn.

The constitution prevents state MPs from nominating as members of the federal house of representatives, and so, with a dramatic flair, Mr Boyce announced on Tuesday morning that he’d be resigning.

“Every journey starts with the first step and this morning my first steps on this new political journey that I am taking will be to walk the floor of this chamber and present to you my resignation, effective immediately,” Boyce said.

And with that, Boyce handed Speaker Curtis Pitt a piece of paper, turned on his heel, and marched out of the chamber while raising a closed fist and exclaiming “Colin Boyce for Flynn” to the jeers of Government MPs.

A few hours later Treasurer Cameron Dick remarked on the “extraordinary spectacle” and Boyce’s lack of acknowledgement of LNP leader David Crisafulli.

Callide MP Colin Boyce leaves parliament. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

“It was obvious, completely obvious, that the Leader of the Opposition and the leadership team knew absolutely nothing about it,” Dick said.

Also taken by surprise were the Katter’s Australian Party MPs who had been counting on Boyce’s promise to cross the floor and vote against his colleagues in favour of the KAP’s reef regulations bill.

Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto later said he suspected the LNP hierarchy had a hand in forcing Boyce out early.

Robbie Katter had similar concerns.

“Disappointing to have Colin Boyce resign from Qld parliament and not Thursday so he could vote in favour of KAP’s reef regs reversal bill tonight. Wonder if the phones might have been running hot from Canberra over the last few days?,” Katter tweeted.

Who is the mystery staffer?

A rogue political staffer in Shannon Fentiman’s office has kept her job after apparently going behind the Attorney-General’s back to seek advice on what power the government had to sack the head of the corruption watchdog.

Crime and Corruption Commission chief Alan MacSporran bowed to pressure in January and resigned months after a damning parliamentary report into the organisation.

But before the report was finalised and while Palaszczuk was still publicly backing MacSporran, a mystery female staffer in Fentiman’s office sought legal advice on the “general powers” government had over him.

Fentiman insists she did not ask for the advice, which was requested by a senior Adviser in her office.

“Who, to be fair to her, was trying to be helpful,” she said.

“Usually any request for legal advice is approved by me.”

LNP backbencher Laura Gerber asked: “Does she still have a job?”

Fentiman confirmed she did.

Newman hopes to ‘do a Bradbury’

Former Premier Campbell Newman will add some star power to his race for Queensland’s final spot in the federal senate, recruiting Australia’s best-known Winter Olympian, Steven Bradbury, to speak at his Liberal Democrats campaign fundraiser next weekend.

Of Queensland’s six Senate seats up for grabs, insiders predict Labor’s Anthony Chisolm and Murray Watt will be safely re-elected along with Liberal James McGrath and National Matt Canavan.

Pauline Hanson is tipped to pick up the fifth seat, leaving a battle to the death for the final spot.

In the running is Newman, junior Coalition minister Amanda Stoker, billionaire Clive Palmer, and Green’s hopeful Penny Allman-Payne.

OLY M 1000m Short X Bradbury

Bradbury became a household name when he won Australia’s first winter gold medal in 2002 after all his opponents fell over before the finish.

Newman may be looking to harness Bradbury’s gold medal strategy.

Shadowy claims

Clive Palmer, Shadow Treasurer.

That’s the title the United Australia Party founder has given himself in the lead-up to the election.

It’s an odd usage of the term “shadow”, which is usually reserved for opposition MPs.

According to the official Parliamentary Education Office, “shadow ministers are members of the opposition, chosen by the Leader of the Opposition”.

The opposition is defined as “the largest party or coalition of parties who did not form government”.

It’s a stretch to call Palmer, who failed to win himself a senate seat in 2019 despite a $80m advertising blitz, the “shadow treasurer”.

Despite that, the UAP’s lead senate candidate for Queensland at this year’s election put forward his credentials for the role in a press release this week.

“Shadow Treasurer” Clive Palmer. Picture: Nigel Hallett

He was described humbly as “one of Australia’s wealthiest citizens with an outstanding business career”.

“He has been responsible for the delivery of tens of billions of export dollars to the Commonwealth, created over 60,000 jobs and was named the Mining Entrepreneur of the Decade in 2012 by Government Australia Magazine,” the press release said.

There was no mention of the 800-odd jobs lost at Palmer’s Queensland Nickel refinery when it collapsed in 2016, or his mothballed Sunshine Coast resort.