Former ALP minister Kate Jones backed for Senate spot by union boss Gary Bullock
Labor kingmaker Gary Bullock is plotting a return to politics for former Queensland Labor minister Kate Jones, just months after she helped knife Annastacia Palaszczuk.
G’day readers and welcome to this week’s edition of Feeding the Chooks, your essential guide to what’s really going on behind the scenes of Queensland politics. Strap yourselves in.
Powerbroker’s prize for Palaszczuk assassin, Jones
Labor puppetmaster Gary “Blocker” Bullock is plotting to slot Kate Jones into the party’s second Senate spot at the next federal election.
The move is already being interpreted in ALP circles as Jones’ reward for the enthusiastic role she played in the political assassination of Annastacia Palaszczuk that delivered Blocker’s protégé – Steven Miles – the keys to the premier’s office.
The scheme to snatch the winnable No. 2 spot from the Right and deliver it to the Left-aligned Old Guard would trigger major factional warfare ahead of October’s state election.
Chooks’ many spies on the inside say Blocker – the United Workers’ Union boss who sits on the ALP’s national executive – told a meeting of the Left executive on Tuesday night that he had spoken with Jones about running and she “had expressed interest”.
The top spot on Labor’s ticket will go to sitting Left senator Nita Green and the second position has traditionally been reserved for the Right-aligned Shoppies union (at least since the mid-1990s, when Shoppies’ branch president John Hogg was elected).
As the secretary of the biggest union in the Left – and the only union in Old Guard – installing Jones would see Blocker pull the strings of three of Labor’s four top Senate positions (Murray Watt, Green, and Jones – leaving just the Right’s Anthony Chisholm as the outsider).
Some Left members are furious at the prospect of Jones being parachuted in and Chooks can’t wait to see how the Right reacts.
“Blowing up a power-sharing arrangement this close to a state election could be the worst idea I have ever heard,” one Labor Left insider told Chooks.
So will he get away with it? Probably, given Bullock controls the powerful Left which has control of the parliamentary wing and conference floor.
A senior Labor Left source told Chooks that in order to gain more federal seats in Queensland – where it holds just five lower house electorates – the party had to “put forward quality candidates”.
“Kate fits the bill,” they said. “She has a proven track record as a minister and is a great campaigner”.
Jones was forced to quit her role at Akin Agency – a lobbying firm run by Canberra-based marketer Kate Lord – after revelations in The Australian’s news pages that she was organising meetings with her old ministerial colleagues for companies that later became paid-up clients of Akin.
The former Labor Minister – who is now an Australian Rugby League Commissioner and an executive director of the Tech Council of Australia – denied she was lobbying without being registered. Jones didn’t respond to Chooks’ calls and texts, and neither did Blocker.
The Santo Santoro Situation
The LNP is tearing itself apart just months out from a must-win state election – again.
Chooks can reveal that at an explosive branch meeting at the Eagle Farm Racecourse in Ascot on Thursday night, former Opposition leader Tim Nicholls moved an extraordinary motion condemning LNP headquarters and state director Ben Riley over their handling of The Santo Santoro Situation.
It was passed by a furious crowd.
So how did we get here?
Loyal Chooks readers would remember Santoro, a former Howard government minister turned lobbyist, has been plotting to nab a seat on the party’s powerful state executive, in one of the first tests of Queensland’s new integrity laws banning lobbyists from playing a “substantial” role in an election campaign.
Santoro – who is closely aligned with federal Opposition leader Peter Dutton, but is not backed by state Opposition leader David Crisafulli – was seen as a protest candidate against the current direction of LNP headquarters.
It all blew up on Thursday night.
Santoro was one of two candidates who nominated to be chair of the metro north branch, but was told at the eleventh hour by HQ that he was ineligible, because he was a lobbyist.
Backers of the former factional warlord say Santoro deregistered from both state and federal lobbyist registers on Thursday, hours before the vote, but the Commonwealth database was not updated immediately and still showed him active (he’s disappeared as of Friday morning).
It’s telling that Santoro was so desperate to become a regional chair of the party that he was willing to kill off his long-running businesses in the attempt.
Another live issue is that he was still a registered and active lobbyist on April 22, when nominations closed, days after the dual-hatting laws came into effect.
One senior Liberal said Santoro had told them earlier on Thursday that he intended to continue lobbying, and his intention was to manage the conflict of interest by leaving and re-entering the exec room whenever the campaign was discussed.
Riley and honorary legal officer George Brandis were absent from the meeting, so vice-president Doug Hawkes was left to marshall the proceedings.
Hawkes told the meeting that there was only one eligible candidate – Tony Gleeson – and the state director had ordered he be elected chair.
Chaos swiftly ensued.
Chooks’ spies say that along with Nicholls (who has long been backed by Santoro), veteran former LNP secretariat staffer Michael Leighton was one of the most outspoken, telling the meeting he had “never seen political interference like this”.
Motions critical of HQ and Riley flew thick and fast, and eventually, votes were held. Santo’s ticket won the spots of VP and secretary, while a Gleeson-aligned candidate was elected treasurer.
Federal MP Luke Howarth was Santoro’s scrutineer and Young Liberals president Darcy Creighton was the Gleeson camp’s scrutineer.
Crucially, the 302 registered LNP members were able to vote on the chair, but Hawkes ruled the ballots not be counted, be sealed in a box, and taken back to HQ for safekeeping.
At that point, Nicholls exploded, moving a motion of either dissent, or disappointment, in Riley’s handling of the situation, and condemning the role of headquarters in the saga.
An LNP state source said “all the state team are in lockstep with Crisafulli and Ben Riley on this, except Tim Nicholls”.
LNP HQ is seeking advice about what to do now. Expect lawyers at ten paces.
Peter’s Party Picks a Pack of Palaszczuk’s Peeps
One of the greatest joys of the week is the hour that follows the publishing of Chooks, when our inboxes and voicemails are filled with juicy little quips and fresh tips.
And last Friday was no different after Chooks revealed that sitting state MPs and some loyal staffers had been left off the invitation list for Annastacia Palaszczuk’s farewell dinner at Woolloongabba’s 1889 Enoteca.
We were promptly informed by one of our spies that former premier Peter Beattie is hosting his own staff shindig in July.
“ALL former staff who worked for him from 1998-2007 have been contacted and asked if they would like to attend,” the informant told Chooks.
“This includes ALL the workers – the admin officers, drivers, receptionists. A venue is still being worked out but you can bet your bottom dollar it won’t be too fancy. Just goes to show the difference between leaders.”
A stinging gibe, given Palaszczuk would have this week surpassed Beattie as Queensland’s longest-serving Labor premier since World War II (that is, if she was not pressured into an early political retirement).
Coffey time
With the surprise ousting of Labor star Terri Butler at the last election, the hunt is on for a new ALP candidate to try and seize back Kevin Rudd’s old seat of Griffith from the Greens.
It’s a hard ask against one of the best campaign strategists in the game. Max Chandler-Mather was the brains behind the Greens’ march into Brisbane City Council, state parliament and the sweep of three inner-city seats (including his upset win in Griffith) at the 2022 election.
The tyro MP’s profile has risen across the country after he led the attack against the Albanese government over the nation’s rental crisis.
But Labor insiders say Renée Coffey is a frontrunner for Labor preselection and has the goods to give Chandler-Mather a run for his money.
A close childhood friend of Jessica Rudd, Coffey has run in Labor circles for years and has chalked up an impressive resume outside of political staffing.
After a decade at the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, Coffey is now CEO of Kookaburra Kids (a foundation that helps children whose parents have a mental illness).
A member of the once-powerful Old Guard faction of K.Rudd and Peter Beattie, Coffey sent a letter out to Griffith branchies a few weeks ago stating her intention to run for preselection.
J.Rudd was quietly appointed to the board of superannuation fund Hostplus last year alongside aforementioned Labor kingmaker and UWU boss Gary “Blocker” Bullock. Rudd may be able to have a quiet word with Blockler about locking down the numbers for Coffey.
Teal search
As reported in The Australian’s news pages, ACT independent David Pocock will officially launch the search for a “community backed” candidate in the Gold Coast seat of McPherson on Friday night.
After success at the 2022 election, wealthy climate change activist Simon Holmes a Court has his sights set on Coalition heartland seats in the Sunshine State.
Through his Climate 200 fund, Holmes a Court endorsed 23 independents at the 2022 election and plans to back at least 10 more at the next federal poll.
Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay tells Chooks the fund would likely support the 11 “community independent” incumbents, 10 who failed to win seats at the last election, plus another 10 electorates that have community groups “seriously engaging”.
That latter 10 includes the Queensland LNP-held seats of McPherson, Moncrieff, Fisher and Fairfax, WA’s Forrest and the ACT seat of Bean (held by Labor’s David Smith).
Spotted #1
A multi-billion dollar investment fund with nuclear interests has tipped cash into the LNP’s campaign to win back the Sunshine Coast seat of Nicklin.
Tribeca Investment Partners, which has a dedicated fund for to investing in “companies involved in the nuclear energy industry with a key focus on the uranium sector,” made a $3000 donation to the LNP’s Nicklin campaign on April 30.
At the 2020 pandemic election, Labor won Nicklin for the first time in more than 100 years, with Rob Skelton getting over the line by just 85 votes. Marty Hunt, who held the seat for the LNP from 2017 to 2020 will go up against Skelton again in October.
Nicklin overlaps with the federal seat of Fairfax – held by the Coalition’s energy spokesman and nuclear cheerleader Ted O’Brien.
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