Feeding the Chooks: Annastacia Palaszczuk staying on
Less than 24 hours after her spokesman said she was still deciding whether to run again, premier says she’ll contest election.
G’day readers, and welcome to the triumphant return of the Feeding the Chooks column, taking a peek behind the scenes of Queensland politics. If The Chooks can get their eggs in a row, this column will be laid every week.
PALASZCZUK HOME TO ROOST
Annastacia Palaszczuk has decided she loves her job so much, she has committed to contesting the next election.
Less than 24 hours after the Premier’s spokesman told Chooks she was still tossing up whether to have another crack at the polls, she was on the blower to her team to let them know she was not going anywhere.
If Palaszczuk wins at the 2024 election, she will be cemented in as leader until 2028. She’s such a fan of the Olympics, which she helped deliver for Brisbane, that she might even try to go around again to welcome the 2032 Games.
Her Right faction deputy Cameron Dick, who has been waiting in the wings for more than a decade for his shot at the Labor leadership, was probably sobbing into his morning Weet-Bix at the news.
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER?
The powerful women of Labor’s Left faction gathered for an intimate dinner in the days before the June 21 state budget, to toast outgoing ALP state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell.
Jules won big kudos with party faithful for overseeing Annastacia Palaszczuk’s third election victory in 2020 and disdain from many others (including the corruption watchdog) for outsourcing the job to a pair of lobbyists.
After four years at the helm of Queensland Labor, she’s quit to join consultancy firm EY before making an expected run for federal politics.
And so there was plenty to celebrate at a special send-off dinner for Jules at a Brisbane hotel on the Friday before the state budget, attended by an exclusive selection of Palaszczuk government chiefs of staff of the Left.
Annastacia Palaszczuk’s deputy chief of staff Tam Van Alphen was there, along with Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman’s chief of staff Laura Fraser Hardy, and Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon’s top adviser Clare Manton.
But The Chooks have heard panic set in for a few guests when Palaszczuk’s former deputy chief of staff Denise Spinks rocked up.
Spinks is now “director of consulting” for the state’s busiest and most controversial Labor lobby firm – Anacta, headed by one of the aforementioned campaigner/lobbyists, Evan Moorhead – and has been in the headlines a few times in that new role.
The Chooks asked Palaszczuk’s office why the boozy dinner was not declared in the lobbyist register, after all Spinks would be considered a lobbyist under Professor Peter Coaldrake’s sweeping integrity reforms, announced this week.
Both Anacta and the Premier’s office say the shindig was a “private dinner” and no lobbying took place.
NOT FEATHERING THE NEST
Palaszczuk has written to the new Labor state secretary Kate Flanders, informing Flanders that none of Palaszczuk’s Cabinet would participate in the ALP’s cash-for-access business observers program at the party’s state conference in November.
New donation caps are in force as of today, and Palaszczuk’s decided that after nearly seven years of the questionable practice – which has been criticised by such luminaries as corruption-fighter Tony Fitzgerald – there’ll be no more.
“This will mean the end of the annual state conference “business observers” and all other events associated with (QLD Labor fundraiser) Queensland Business Partnership Network,” Palaszczuk says.
AS FOR THE LNP?
The Chooks are far too kind to suggest the QLD LNP couldn’t organise a chook raffle, but it turns out they’re not organising a corporate observers program either, at next weekend’s state convention for the party.
And it’s not for moral reasons that the LNP are forgoing their biggest fundraiser of the year, which usually feathers the party’s nest with about $300,000 from donors keen to pay to chat to the shadow frontbench.
The LNP’s state director Lincoln Folo says the party has “just been through a federal election” – where it held 21 seats of the 30 in Queensland, he points out – and will also be grappling with the QLD government’s new donation caps which came into effect overnight.
He politely disagrees with The Chooks’ suggestion that it’s too tricky for the party to run corporate observers at the convention, which begins in Brisbane on Friday, July 8. But he does acknowledge that the new donation rules are complicated. A corporate observers program will happen later in the year, Folo says.
And while we’re at it, it might be time for the QLD LNP to update its website, where it appears to be clinging to the past. In the land of lnp.org.au Scott Morrison is still Prime Minister and Barnaby Joyce is still Deputy Prime Minister.
WHERE IS DICK?
It was heralded by Premier Palaszczuk as her government’s best ever budget – debt is down and revenue is up – so why has Treasurer Dick vanished?
It is customary for Queensland treasurers to embark on a big post-budget roadshow around regional Queensland in the week after handing down the government’s financial plan, but today is the first time we’ve seen Dick pop up.
He’s in Hervey Bay today, spruiking a “major expansion” to the local hospital, after appearing on financial TV network Bloomberg on Thursday for an interview.
But according to Dick’s office, he’s not been snoozing with his head under his wing; the Treasurer’s been pecking around in southern hen houses.
“(He’s been on) an investment trip to Sydney and Melbourne. Monday until yesterday afternoon … he’s been non-stop,” Dick’s office says.
“(He’s been meeting with) potential corporate/industry investors to Queensland. Ratings agencies. Banking corps. Trying to attract more investment to Queensland and create more Queensland jobs.”
And apparently, the regional road trip will continue next week, and in the middle of the month the Treasurer will jet to North America to sell the budget.
In Dick’s absence on the public budget spruiking front, Police Minister Mark Ryan took to accosting students outside the Queensland University of Technology, armed with a budget highlights brochure.
“This is our budget for this year and it has got lots of money being spent, lots of money being spent on good things,” he tells a group of bewildered looking pedestrians.
CORRUPTION WATCHDOG CHIEF TO STAY
Bruce Barbour will stay on to lead Queensland’s very busy Crime and Corruption Commission, AG Fentiman announced on Friday.
But Opposition MPs on the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee got their feathers ruffled when the government MPs tried to push for a five-year term for Barbour, in line with the Coaldrake recommendations. They wanted three years.
“The committee was unable to obtain a bipartisan majority in support of the proposed five-year term of appointment, as this proposal was supported only by government members of the committee,” a letter from LNP MP and Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee chair Jon Krause to Fentiman said on Thursday.
Some are interpreting the move of the LNP backbenchers as flying in the face of LNP leader David Crisafulli’s promise to also adopt the Coaldrake recommendations “lock, stock and barrel”.
Crisafulli said this week: “the appointment of DGs must be above politics …(and) cannot be a political plaything”.
Fentiman says it’s an example of the LNP “saying one thing and doing something completely different,” and suspects the Opposition will want to appoint their own chair if they win government in 2024.
“Coaldrake said we need five year terms for directors-general, to ensure their independence, and I think of course the same should go for the chair of the CCC,” Fentiman says.
The government still needs to appoint a replacement for outgoing Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov, whose last day in the job is today.
Her successor will be running around like a headless chook, because that role is charged with regulating the booming and controversial lobbyist industry in the state.
Even Palaszczuk can’t say who’ll fill one of the state’s most vital positions.
“An acting person has already been signed-off, I just don’t have their name on me,” she told reporters.
WHY DID THE DEPUTY PM’S CHIEF OF STAFF CROSS THE ROAD?
Speaking of Anacta, the lobbying firm of the moment has snaffled a major talent, with Lidija Ivanovski joining the company’s new Canberra outpost as a director.
Ivanovski has resigned from new Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles’ office after serving as his chief of staff for three years in Opposition.
“Fair question to ask why you would resign after finally breaking the drought of opposition and having the opportunity to run the office of the deputy Prime Minister,” Ivanovski posted on LinkedIn.
“I’ve (mostly) loved every day I had the chance to work for Richard and the team, but for me, it was a decision about the next three years and my priorities, which include being at home more and supporting my wife as her career goes from strength to strength. As is often said political jobs are counted in dog years and I think that is amplified in opposition (especially that spell in border protection). But having the opportunity to write your own exit after winning a campaign is something I am grateful for.”
Ivanovski says she’s thrilled to join the “very clever, talented and decent team” led by Moorhead and David Nelson, and working with Spinks.
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