Feeding the chooks: No podium finish for ‘surplus’ Treasurer; Rudd brother’s LNP donation
G’day readers and welcome to the third instalment of our new column covering the sitting days of the Queensland parliament.
Former premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen may be long gone, but some of you would remember his oft-repeated description of press conferences as “feeding the Chooks’’.
Since then, the phrase has lived-on as a challenge to Queensland’s political reporters to get behind the media releases and political spin and tell it like it really is.
This blog will give you an insight into the daily debate, legislation, party politics, gossip and goings-on in the corridors and backrooms of the 93-seat, unicameral parliament.
SINKING SURPLUS
Treasurer Cameron Dick’s chest-beating boast that Queensland will be the first eastern state in Australia to return to surplus after the pandemic is already in tatters.
In June, Dick stood before journos, business lunches, and his colleagues and kept a straight face when he promised the Palaszczuk government was heading for a paltry $153 million surplus in 2024-25.
“The four largest governments in Australia, the commonwealth government, the NSW government, the Victorian government and the Queensland government, all went into deficit to respond to Covid-19,” Dick said when releasing the budget.
“Today, only one of those four governments is returning to surplus — the Palaszczuk Labor government.”
But the fine print of the budget papers revealed the “surplus” came with a caveat, in the form of a number of “emerging fiscal pressures”.
The bean-counters qualified that the back in black pledge was at the mercy of more Covid-19 outbreaks, possible native title payouts, a go-ahead of the Wellcamp quarantine facility and if Brisbane won the right to host the 2032 Olympic Games.
Well, Brisbane now has the Games – requiring a tonne of money to even start-up the organising committee – and the state is going it alone with Wellcamp (costing the government, according to leaked docs, at least $100m in just the next 12 months).
That’s not to mention that the surplus, and the entire budget, was predicated on the hope there wouldn’t be another major Covid outbreak in Queensland.
“Heaven forbid there is (another outbreak),” Dick said on budget day.
Consistent with the federal budget, the state budget assumed interstate borders would remain open.
It’s now looking like a zero to hero budget boast.
SLACK VAX
Queensland lags most of the country with its vaccine rollout, and there are a few stragglers in Parliament House.
At least four state MPs have not received a single Covid-19 vaccination despite being prioritised ahead of regular Queenslanders.
Politicians were given the go-ahead to jump the Pfizer queue in late July.
But some are yet to cash in their golden ticket.
Independent MP Sandy Bolton, 57, and Katter’s Australian Party MP Shane Knuth, 54, are yet to roll up their sleeves, as is Labor newcomer Tom Smith, 31 and the LNP’s frontbencher Laura Gerber, 36.
One Nation MP Stephen Andrew did not respond to our questions about his vaccination status.
Bolton, Queensland’s only Independent, said she had been on the waiting list for Pfizer for five weeks and would not receive AstraZenca because of personal health issues.
“As I have said before I would not queue jump ahead of those in my community,” she told the Chooks.
Knuth had to cancel his jab “due to being unwell” but says he will book in again soon.
Smith is scheduled to have his first dose in late September, two months after he was given the go ahead to skip the queue.
Gerber has an appointment booked with her GP.
LAST DRINKS FOR MANGOCUBE
Annastacia Palaszczuk’s deputy chief of staff Denise Spinks – one of the political staffers caught up in the “Mangocube” scandal a few years back – had her last day with the government on Friday.
Speculation is she will soon follow the well-worn path of Labor staffers – including her predecessor in the premier’s office, Evan Moorhead – into lobbying.
The veteran staffer was COS for then Energy Minister Mark Bailey when he was stood aside during a corruption probe into secret discussions on his private “mangocube6@yahoo.co.uk” email account with union mates wanting, among other things, a new pay deal from the power companies he oversaw.
Both Bailey and Spinks were in separate contact with the Electrical Trades Union – of which the Minister had been a longtime member – while it was biffing with the state-owned power company executives and senior bureaucrats.
Emails obtained by The Australian showed the ETU later thanking Spinks for her help in securing a “life changing” agreement for its members.
The Crime and Corruption Commission launched an investigation when The Australian revealed Bailey deleted his mangocube email account after Spinks alerted him to our Right to Information request for access to the emails.
A ban was subsequently ordered into ministers and staffers using private emails – with the CCC warning of the corruption risk – but the watchdog didn’t ping Bailey for destruction of public records because he was able to reactivate the account for the probe.
In an email telling staffers of her resignation, Spinks recalled how on the night of Labor’s surprise 2015 election win, her “new real estate career” didn’t seem as exciting as the chance to join the incoming Palaszczuk government.
“I have very much enjoyed my time in the Prem’s office, getting to work across Government you all, and our great union comrades being part of a true Labor Government,” she wrote.
She will be replaced by Bailey’s COS Tam Van Alphen.
DONATIONS
The Electoral Commission of Queensland is investigating alleged LNP fundraising events where MPs and developers (banned from being donors in Qld) yukked it up in fancy mansions in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
But separate to that, a visit to the ECQ website shows that the LNP and its supporters are way, way behind on the paperwork for donations.
Under state rules, a donation has to be declared on the publicly available electronic disclosure system with both the donor and party each having to “reconcile” every cent over the $1000 threshold.
A perusal shows that more than $5.5 million in donations and gifts to the LNP – out of $24m received (since the system went live a few years back) – remains unreconciled by either the party or the donor.
Bad look, especially when you compare it to Labor’s $1.3m in unreconciled donations (out or $13.8m received).
The LNP wouldn’t comment, but one insider said that with the exodus of staff out of HQ in the past year the party has “little idea of what it is doing”.
RUDDY DONATIONS
Among the more recent donations to the LNP, according to the ECQ website, was from Kevin Rudd’s older brother Greg who handed-over $2000 at a fundraiser for Federal Liberal MP Michelle Landry in August.
The electronic disclosure system shows the former PM also declared a “gift in kind” – valued at $2721.60 - to the ALP a few weeks earlier.
WELCOME TO THE HOOD
Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has been given a special welcome into his new neighbourhood by the local MP.
The Chooks revealed on Wednesday that Crisafulli had sold his home within his Gold Coast electorate of Broadwater and bought a new pad in inner Brisbane.
It didn’t go unnoticed by McConnell MP Grace Grace, who welcomed the LNP leader to her patch during a Question Time discussion about the government’s relaxation of border restrictions for school boarders.
“Speaking of boarders, we have a new boarder in McConnell,” Grace said.
“I welcome the Opposition Leader to McConnell.”
MP ‘BADGERED’ BEFORE ‘ASSAULT’
Government MP Les Walker’s assault and public drunkenness charges are up for mention again in court on Friday, but a source who has seen CCTV footage of the incident says Walker was “badgered” before the scuffle.
The charges stemmed from an incident between Walker and an LNP supporter outside a Townsville pub in July.
It was the second time this year the former Townsville Deputy Mayor landed in trouble for drinking and scuffling.
He was knocked out by a much younger patron in Townsville’s infamous Mad Cow Tavern in January, prompting a rebuke from the Premier.
However, a source who watched footage of the July incident says Walker appeared to do his best to avoid the situation in which he is alleged to have assaulted Stephen Lane, a former independent state political candidate and the son of Jenny Lane, who served with Walker on the Townsville City Council.
According to the source, the footage shows Walker and his wife leaving a venue on the Palmer Street restaurant strip, where they had attended a going away function, and walking past a nearby pub.
Someone off camera calls out to Walker, grabbing his attention and sparking an exchange, before Lane, who had been at an LNP function, is seen running out from the pub with his phone aloft, appearing to film the MP in the argument.
The Chooks understand there wasn’t much social distancing from Lane who got right in Walker’s face, apparently eager to capture the Mundingburra MP “drunk” in the night-life district after the January altercation.
Walker continues walking down the footpath while Lane follows in-step at close range.
As the source described it, Walker bumped into Lane with his forearm, in similar fashion to a Covid elbow bump.
It’ll be up to a magistrate to decide if it constitutes assault.
LABOR BRANCHIE RAILROADED
A Labor branchie has teed off at the party after he was reprimanded for criticising local MP Peter Russo and the Palaszczuk government for failing to fix a railway overpass.
During the October campaign, Russo demanded ALP state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell “discharge” construction consultant Max Hooper from the party for “inciting members of the general community against both me and the Labor government”.
It all stemmed from Facebook posts Hooper made to the Coopers Plains Overpass Action Group.
Campbell this week wrote to Hooper this week with a finding that he had been “disloyal to the party”.
In the letter, Campbell said he was to “cease” his social media criticism of party members, “provide a written apology” to Russo and have “no further contact” with his local MP.
Hooper isn’t showing any signs of backing down, telling the Chooks it seems strange he is being told he can’t talk to his local MP.
“It’s a cop-out to put yourself in the place of a public figure but then expect that you can just hide away and not deal with things that are inconvenient or hard to deal with, or people you don’t like,’’ he said.
“It really makes me sad because I’ve always loved Labor and it’s values, I’d be really sad to leave but I’m at the end of my rope.”
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
Tyro LNP MP Amanda Camm is trying to make a name for herself in the big house.
But judging by the graphics on the parliamentary live feed, she has a way to go after the former Mackay deputy mayor was confused with former LNP leader Deb Frecklington.
Crisafulli’s night of the long knives looms for Labor luvvies
David Crisafulli is preparing to axe Labor luvvies from government boards, while Peter Dutton’s own MPs were kept in the dark on the federal Opposition Leader’s nuclear nuts and bolts.
Albo’s bloke faces battle for Blair
Will Anthony Albanese’s decision to save a Queensland MP from gender quotas come back to bite him, as the LNP prepare to preselect a woman to contest the federal seat? And who is state Labor’s new comrade in chief?