Labor fails to find anyone to challenge Amanda Stoker for Oodgeroo seat
G’day readers and welcome to the latest edition of Feeding the Chooks, your peek behind the scenes of Queensland politics.
Stoker unchallenged
Labor has failed to find a candidate to put their hand up to challenge former Senator Amanda Stoker for the state seat of Oodgeroo, despite Steven Miles labelling her an “extreme right-wing, crazy, woman-hating lunatic”.
In fact, a little over four months out from the October 26 state election, the ALP is still struggling to find candidates in seven electorates it considers winnable – Everton, Clayfield, Glass House, Mermaid Beach, Oodgeroo, Theodore and Whitsunday – and another 18 electorates.
Labor has been trying and failing to attract volunteers for these seats since at least April, to avoid the indignity of being unable to field a full squad of 93 candidates at the election.
The lack of a strong Labor candidate to take on Stoker – who lost her Senate spot at the 2022 federal election, after replacing the retiring George Brandis in 2018 – is odd, given how seemingly outraged senior government ministers were at her preselection.
In just one parliamentary sitting week in October last year, then-Deputy Premier Miles aimed his “woman-hating lunatic” barb, and Health Minister Shannon Fentiman criticised Stoker’s support for men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt and recalled Stoker’s attack on former LNP leader Deb Frecklington for “playing the gender card” when she survived a failed coup launched by LNP HQ faceless men.
Treasurer Cameron Dick picked up on Stoker’s appetite to “wind back women’s right to termination of pregnancy in Queensland” and used it to ask when the LNP would “reveal its plan to repeal and wind back abortion laws in this state?”
But despite all this bluster, Stoker – who is tipped to rocket straight into David Crisafulli’s Cabinet should the LNP win government – remains unchallenged by a Labor opponent. The QLD ALP’s powerful admin committee meets on Monday night and Chooks understands there’s likely to be more candidate announcements in the offing – but not in Oodgeroo.
On the LNP side of the ledger, party HQ is so busy fending off legal challenges from its own members (see: LNP Senator Gerard Rennick and the Supreme Court) that it hasn’t even managed to endorse its sitting MPs.
141 days to go.
Fentiman under Ethics scrutiny
In late breaking news on Friday afternoon, Speaker Curtis Pitt has referred Health Minister Shannon Fentiman to parliament’s powerful Ethics Committee for allegedly publishing a misleading video about her LNP opponent Ros Bates on social media.
As Chooks has reported, in the last sitting week of parliament last month, Fentiman was questioned by the LNP about the closure of maternity services in public hospitals. The Minister said: “If I can get a word in, Mr Speaker, can I say that all of those mums —”
Health spokeswoman Bates interjected “Cross your legs,” a comment which was interpreted by non-political observers as a criticism of the government expecting pregnant mothers to delay labour because of the closed maternity wards.
Fentiman did not see it that way, and posted a very short video on her social media channels subtitling Bates’ comments as “close your legs”. It went viral, and despite eventually being reposted with the correct quote, but still without wider context of the maternity debate, resulted in Bates being trolled with vicious online abuse.
Bates complained to Labor Speaker Pitt, who on Friday afternoon ruled that “there is an arguable case that the published shortened extract of the proceedings, in the absence of the full context of the question asked, could have been potentially misleading”.
Smiles turn upside down in new poll
The union-funded uComms poll reported last week by Chooks – showing Labor was making a comeback – was soon forgotten with the publication of the Redbridge poll this week.
The Victorian-based pollster has earned a reputation for getting it right – notably with the Voice referendum and Tasmanian election – and its latest testing of the waters in Queensland will have dampened the hopes of Labor supporters buoyed last week.
Redbridge’s results show Labor’s primary vote has sunk to 28 per cent with the LNP’s rising to 47 per cent, and a two party preferred split of 57 per cent to the opposition and 43 per cent to the government.
That’s a wipe-out for the third term government, with its primary vote just a little above the 26.6 per cent Labor received in 2012 when it was reduced to just seven MPs in the then 89-seat parliament.
Redbridge’s poll was taken between February and May, and some Labor insiders are hoping against hope that it just failed to pick up the bounce from the government’s cost of living freebies in recent weeks.
But what should really worry them is that the primary vote in the “inner and middle suburbs” of Brisbane is at 27 per cent, worse than the statewide result.
Remember, Labor has held onto power for 30 of the past 35 years largely because of support in what the party calls their “fortress Brisbane” where they hold an overwhelming majority of the seats.
This latest result got Chooks thinking about whether the LNP is getting to ready to measure the curtains in the ministerial offices or, at the very least, ramp up its preparation for government.
The LNP is desperate to say there is no formal transition to government committee, for fear of being accused of hubris, but Chooks knows there has been serious planning going on since last year. One of Chooks’ snitches says there are carpet-baggers already circling eyeing off plum, top-paid postings in a Crisafulli administration.
Frontbenchers have been asked to submit their plans on how they intend to implement policies in their portfolios if they win office.
There has also been talk about who could staff ministerial offices and later this month a reunion of Newman Government staffers has been organised.
We are sure some will bring their updated CVs.
Oopsie-daisy
David Crisafulli put his foot in it this week.
Desperate to distance himself from the cuts agenda of former LNP premier Campbell Newman and the repeated Labor attacks that he would axe jobs and services if elected, Crisafulli promised to adopt Labor’s budget without reading it.
It was an unusual commitment so Chooks asked a follow-up question to be sure we heard it right.
Chooks: “Just to clarify on that, so anything that’s put in the budget over the forward estimates, capital projects, social services, you won’t touch that if you win government?”
Crisafulli: “Yup, And that is how it should be and that’s the way that you give stability”.
He tried to walk back the comments the next day by saying projects had to be “underway” to get his support.
But the toothpaste was already out of the tube. And you can be sure Labor will be relentless.
Fact check
Cameron Dick is in denial.
The treasurer hiked up coal mining royalty rates in his 2022 budget after repeatedly promising no new or increased taxes during the 2020 state election campaign.
Instead of owning the U-turn, Dick has tried to airbrush history, claiming his pledge never extended to businesses.
And he was at it again this week.
“That wasn’t the promise. The promise we made was no new or increased taxes on Queenslanders and that’s the promise that we’ve kept.”
Well, as always, Chooks has the receipts.
At a press conference on day three of the election campaign on October 9, 2020, at the Skyrail cableway in Cairns, Seven reporter Marlina Whop asked Dick: “On taxes, are you ruling out new or increased business taxes?”
Dick: “There won’t be any increased taxes. We’ve said that very clearly from the start. No new taxes from the Labor government if we’re re-elected.”
C’mon treasurer, just own it.
Don’t take our word for it, you can watch it for yourself below (time code is 21:54).
Playing the long game for Longman
Talk about counting your chickens before they’re hatched. Chooks has been keeping a close eye on Rebecca Fanning, the Labor candidate who was defeated by the LNP’s Terry Young in the federal seat of Longman at the 2022 election.
Why our interest, you ask? Well, Fanning has been keeping her candidate social media pages running since then (with the tagline “I didn’t get elected, but I’ll still keep fighting for our community”), and has even been paying for “Rebecca Fanning for Longman” social media ads since late January (traversing subjects such as the federal LNP’s male-dominated party-room, the Albanese government’s tax cuts, and the anniversary of the opening of a local health care centre).
According to Meta, the 17 ads cost about $900 and were seen up to 62,000 times by Queenslanders, so perhaps that’s good value for money, but Fanning isn’t even the endorsed candidate for Longman for the next federal election.
Labor has opened expressions of interest for its federal seats, but no one has been selected.
Fanning – who politely declined to comment – quit her job as Mines Minister Scott Stewart’s chief of staff last month and appears to be gearing up for another run at the outer-suburban Brisbane seat.
She’ll be hoping state MPs who lose their jobs at the October poll don’t eye off Longman as a Plan B.
A little fact not widely known is that Premier Steven Miles, ahead of the 2022 federal election, considered running for Longman.
But affirmative action rules killed off his ambitions.
Interesting interests
Darren Zanow pulled off a remarkable feat at the March 16 by-elections, winning the formerly safe Labor seat of Ipswich West (from whence ‘Call Me Sir’ MP Jim Madden suddenly resigned earlier this year) with an enormous 18.4 per cent primary vote swing.
But what do we know about the newly minted pollie? A squiz through the MPs’ register of interests reveals an extensive corporate and property portfolio, including shareholdings and directorships in dozens of companies (mostly family entities relating to earthmoving), interests in seven properties (including a 4000 acre farming property in Avoca Vale), water allocations, and memberships of the Ipswich Show Society (where he served as president), Rotary, and Mid Brisbane River Irrigators.
The same register shows Margie Nightingale, the Labor MP who succeeded Annastacia Palaszczuk in Inala at the March by-election, has much more modest holdings, some savings accounts, ownership (with a mortgage) of a home at Forest Lake, and membership of the AWU and QTU unions.
Pegg’s posthumous pen
A literary treasure fell into the Chooks’ pen this week, in the form of a slim volume published posthumously by the late, great Labor MP Duncan Pegg, who died just before his 41st birthday in 2021 after a valiant fight with cancer.
Called The Nine Golden Rules of Getting Elected to Parliament, the Rockhampton-raised lawyer and politics tragic – who won the seat of Stretton at three elections, increasing his margin each time – started writing in hospital, in the “haze” after his shock diagnosis in 2019.
“What I really wanted to do was share what I had learned – first through student politics, later as part of the union movement, and finally as an MP … in short, it’s the kind of book I would have devoured as an eager 17-year-old who had just joined the Labor party,” Pegg wrote.
Unlike far too many political books, this one is sharp, funny, a tiny bit profane, and practical. Pegg opines that most politicians (he estimates between 50 and 70 per cent) are not psychopaths but narcissists, advises that if you’ve lost the same seat twice it’s time to give up, recommends joining a major political party early on and throwing yourself into its youth wing, and if you are offered the opportunity to be preselected in a winnable seat, take it – even if you don’t feel ready.
Pegg also reckons there’s five main types of politicians: Destined for Greatness (those literally born into politics, like Annastacia Palaszczuk and Kim Beazley), Desperate for Success (outsiders who have to fight for everything they get), Hack or Party Loyalist in the Right Place at the Right Time (party functionaries who owe their success to factional bosses), OMFG, I Can’t Believe I’m Here (MPs who are not natural politicians and who win by luck) and Retired into Parliament (oldies who enter parliament after a successful career elsewhere).
The book was published with proceeds from Pegg’s estate, which also paid for a cake-fuelled launch at Parliament House last month, and a first run of books circulated at the event. A limited second run will see the tome end up in local libraries, particularly in Pegg’s electorate, which has the state’s highest proportion of people born overseas.
As Cameron Pegg, one of Duncan’s four brothers and a writer who coedited the book, tells Chooks: “Duncan did not intend for the book to be sold; he wanted it to be freely available to those with an interest in politics, particularly younger people”.
Spotted
LNP leader David Crisafulli was spotted at the Queensland Cricketer’s Club at the Gabba on State of Origin night on Wednesday with lobbying firm SAS Group co-owner, MP and chair of the pro-nuclear lobby group Coalition for Conservation (C4C) Larry Anthony and C4C’s chief executive officer Cristina Talacko. Former rugby league ref and LNP frontbencher Tim Mander, Brisbane Airport Hotels Group chief operating officer Alex Penklis, and LNP HQ corporate relations headDenise Bradley were also there for the shindig.
Chooks asked SAS Group’s director of media and communications Malcolm Cole whether the lobbying firm hosted the event, if it was a political fundraiser, and whether any lobbying took place.
Cole says: “It was a fun event for people to watch the State of Origin. There was no lobbying. People were far more interested in the footy. We always comply with our legislative requirements and will do so in this case”.
It turns out the event was an LNP fundraiser. An eagle-eyed Chooks correspondent spotted two donation disclosures - $1500 from not-for-profit organisation for young people at risk, Safe Places Pty Ltd, and $990 from management consultancy GWI Pty Ltd - for tickets to the footy event with Crisafulli and Mander.
QUEENSLANDER!
Feed the Chooks
Got a tip?
elkss@theaustralian.com.au
lynchl@theaustralian.com.au
mckennam@theaustralian.com.au
Top Labor bureaucrat prepares for LNP government
Mike Kaiser orders the Queensland public service to plan for a Crisafulli LNP government, and an ALP MP turns green as he tries to fend off an advance by the minor party.
Moving and shaking in the Tower of Power
Is David Crisafulli readying to break his first election promise if, as expected, he wins the October 26 election?