Feeding the Chooks: Morrison banks on Queensland miracle as fundraising plummets
How good is Queensland? We’re about to find out, with the Libs deciding to run the campaign from the state credited with delivering victory in 2019.
Welcome to the first edition of the Feeding the Chooks column for the year. The online column was published last year during sitting weeks of the Queensland parliament, but in 2022 it will appear each Thursday.
PM praying for a Queensland miracle
How good is Queensland?
It appears we’re about to find out, with Liberal federal director Andrew Hirst again deciding to run Scott Morrison’s election campaign from the state he credited with delivering him the keys to the Lodge in 2019.
LNP headquarters was set up in an office on Milton’s Coronation Drive a few weeks ago in the electorate of Brisbane.
The presence will be welcomed by Brisbane MP Trevor Evans and his electoral neighbour Julian Simmonds in the once blue-ribbon seat of Ryan. The pair hold the only two Queensland seats that had reduced margins in the “miracle” 2019 election.
An LNP source said the party was genuinely concerned the inner-west electorate of Ryan, held by Simmonds on a 6 per cent margin, could fall to either the Greens or Labor.
Evans holds his seat on a 4.9 per cent margin, but fears are growing that the debate over climate change and government inaction could return the seat to Labor with the help of Greens preferences.
Then there is the money problem. It might be the richest (at least asset-rich) Liberal division in Australia but the LNP is struggling to squeeze moolah from its supporters through its legendary fundraising club QForum.
An insider said the latest fundraiser had just 23 attendees, compared with the usual 80.
In an earlier column, Chooks revealed federal Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrew held an event late last year that apparently managed to attract only four paying attendees.
Turning the party’s (lack of) fortunes around will be a job for state director Lincoln Folo, who was permanently appointed to the role this week.
Described by a party member as “a job nobody really wants”, Folo has been acting as state director since October, previously working as Queensland campaign director.
While he has run two failed state campaigns in 2017 and 2020, Folo oversaw successful federal offences in Queensland at the 2016 and 2019 elections as well as a decade of dominance for the LNP in city hall.
The state executive, led by Lawrence Springborg, signed off on his one year contract at its first in-person meeting of the year on Monday.
Grumblings from the backbench
A state Labor backbencher is in hot water with her own party after speaking out about the closure of abortion clinics in regional Queensland.
Keppel MP Brittany Lauga has been protesting against her own government over Queensland Health’s failure to step in and provide surgical termination services in her city following the closure of private abortion clinics in Townsville, Rockhampton and Southport last year.
Remember, this is the government that beats its chest about decriminalising abortion in the state.
“I wish I didn’t have to, but I feel like I have a duty to my community,” said Lauga, a member of Labor’s dominant Left faction.
“It is such an important service for women and girls in my community, (and) since the clinic closed more than six months ago they have had to travel all the way to Brisbane.
“I fear for those who do not have the capacity to travel and will end up having unwanted and unplanned pregnancies or using other unsafe means to terminate.”
Lauga tried to secure a meeting with Health Minister Yvette D’Ath – a senior member of the Right faction – during parliament sittings last month but Chooks understands she was fobbed off.
D’Ath’s office were not happy with her decision to protest against Queensland Health outside the closed abortion clinic last month.
Lauga may have more luck getting a meeting next week.
Abbott’s international praise
Tony Abbott was in Toowoomba this week receiving praise from Syrian refugees brought to Australia by his government when he was given even more extraordinary plaudits from the battlefields of Ukraine.
The former prime minister was given a shout-out by former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko for his hard-line stance regarding the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over part of pro-Russian separatist-controlled Ukraine in 2014.
“Tony, if you see me, I just want to thank you for your firm position in 2014 and we are waiting for the same firm position that Australia should demonstrate the leadership in supporting Ukraine in 2022,” Poroshenko told Seven’s Chris Reason.
As the segment went to air on Wednesday night, Abbott, who once promised to “shirt-front” Vladimir Putin over the MH17 tragedy, was at a private fundraiser in Toowoomba for LNP senator Amanda Stoker and Groom MP Garth Hamilton.
The following morning, Abbott received a glowing reception at a local bowls club from two dozen Syrian and Iraqi refugees living in Toowoomba who were given a lifeline in the dying days of the Abbott government.
The resettlement of 12,000 Syrian refugees won Abbott praise from the opposition and from the UN, but a week after announcing the intake, he was dethroned by Malcolm Turnbull.
However, the effect of Abbott’s last major act as prime minister has lingered in the mind of those Syrian refugees who escaped the violence and were given a new life in Toowoomba, considered a model community for assimilation.
Apparently they regard Abbott with reverence and were eager to thank him in person while he was in town.
The Chooks were told one of the refugees who met with Abbott still carries a clipping from a Syrian newspaper detailing the Australian government’s offer.
Emergency powers questioned
Freedom-loving civil libertarians have fired-up over the Palaszczuk government’s bid to again extend its “draconian” emergency powers to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath introduced a bill into parliament last month seeking to further extend the powers, which are due to expire on April 30 to October 31 “or the day the Minister for Health ends the declared public health emergency”.
The legislation is necessary to facilitate the chief health officer’s testing and quarantine requirements and other public health measures.
The supposed “permanent state of emergency” has concerned the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, which opposed the legislation in a submission to parliament, saying it was “inconsistent with the whole concept of a liberal political order”.
QCCL president Michael Cope accepted the necessity for the emergency powers at the start of the pandemic, but said D’Ath’s most recent attempt to justify their extension was inadequate.
“The government’s repeated failures to provide a set of criteria by which it will decide to end the emergency other than a criterion which must result in it continuing so long as the virus is circulating in the community, must lead one to conclude that the government will keep the emergency powers for as long as it likes,” Cope said.
“So far as we can tell, these are the most Draconian powers that have ever existed in Queensland, including in wartime.
“The longer they are in force the more people will become inured to them with the consequence that they will become normalised.
“This is entirely unacceptable because it represents a clear and present danger to our civil liberties.”
Driving ambition
He might be one of the youngest MPs in Queensland parliament but Sam O’Connor is eyeing off the biggest boots in town.
With the parliament’s riverside carpark wrecked by recent floods, the 30-year-old Gold Coast pollie was given Annastacia Palaszczuk’s prime spot to park his ute.
Opposition Leader David Crisafulli, who sits in front of O’Connor in parliament, better watch his back. With ambition like this who knows what could happen.
Power trip
The integrity crisis plaguing Palaszczuk and her government is set to be reignited when parliament returns next week.
After weeks of scathing criticism from former senior public servants and the heads of statutory bodies, Palaszczuk has enjoyed a slight reprieve from the integrity scandal while flood emergencies dominated the news cycle.
But the waters have receded in time for the Opposition to resume its grilling in the chamber.
Monday will be the government’s first test, with the parliament’s economics and governance committee due to discuss the release of secret documents detailing Palaszczuk’s decision to refer Queensland’s integrity watchdog to an oversight committee.
Last month, Labor backbenchers blocked the release of documents in a closed-door meeting and decided to seek external advice before taking a vote on whether they should be released.
One of Palaszczuk’s right faction allies, Linus Power, has the casting vote as committee chair.
The backbencher has gained a reputation in recent meetings and estimates hearings for cynically blocking opposition questions with frivolous points of order.
Palaszczuk referred Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov to the committee last April, over historic misconduct complaints centring on the use of a credit card and unspecified bullying.
She made the referral two weeks after Stepanov raised concerns of high-level interference in her role regulating lobbyists and advising MPs and public servants on conflicts of interest.
Stepanov is also due to give evidence to the committee at a public hearing on Monday morning about the “roles and functions” of her office.
The last time she appeared before a parliamentary committee, in early February, Labor backbenchers Tom Smith and Chris Whiting blocked all questions to Stepanov about the government’s ties to lobbyists and the seizure of a laptop from her office.
Wellcamp audit to test confidentiality
Details of the Palaszczuk government’s controversial Wellcamp quarantine facility will be scrutinised by the state’s chief auditor to determine whether taxpayers have been given value for money.
Auditor-General Brendan Worrall will also consider validity of the government’s well-worn excuse that “commercial in-confidence” provisions meant taxpayers could not be told how much of their money went to the project.
There was no tender process before the government sunk at least $48.8m to help construct the 1000-bed facility, which is privately owned by the Wagner Group. Lease costs are rumoured to be $190m a year.
There are also questions about the processes used to grant the services contract for the quarantine camp to Aspen Medical, a client of Labor-aligned lobbying firm Anacta Strategies.
Palaszczuk and her deputy, Steven Miles, have dodged questions and blamed the federal government over the past few months whenever they were asked about the awarding of the contracts and cost of the facility.
But they will find it harder to avoid Worrall, who has agreed to a request from the opposition to delve into the murky dealings.
“In response to your request, I have decided to obtain more information about this project from the relevant government departments,” Worrall wrote to LNP finance spokesman Jarrod Bleijie.
“This will include identifying the various costs, understanding the procurement process, and reviewing leases and other agreements including the use of confidentiality provisions.”
Cowboy Crisafulli dumps Broncos
You can take the (cow) boy out of Townsville but you can’t make him support the Broncos or Titans.He might be representing the Gold Coast and spending most of his time in Brisbane these days, but Crisafulli has no qualms about sticking to his Townsville roots when it comes to footy tipping.
The Opposition Leader controversially backed the South Sydney Rabbitohs over the Brisbane Broncos and Paramatta Eels over the Gold Coast Titans in his round one NRL tips, published to his social media channels.
Ingham-raised Crisafulli, a former Townsville councillor and Mundingburra MP, who now represents the Gold Coast’s Broadwater electorate couldn’t look past the North Queensland Cowboys and backed them to beat the Canterbury Bulldogs.
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David Crisafulli has recruited the bureaucrat who oversaw the highly politicised Wellcamp Covid quarantine facility to head his department, as Labor’s Right faction accepts a proxy vote from a suspended MP.
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