LNP factional warlord Santo Santo plots political return
G’day readers and welcome to this week’s edition of Feeding the Chooks, your regular peek behind the curtain of Queensland politics.
Santo’s back?
Former Howard government minister, one-time factional warlord, and registered lobbyist Santo Santoro is plotting a return to an official role in the Liberal National Party in Queensland – but is it legal?
Chooks can reveal Santoro is vying for a spot on the LNP’s all-powerful state executive, nominating for the position of Metro North region chair.
If Santoro – who quit the Howard cabinet in 2007 over undisclosed shareholdings – is successful at the vote next week, it’ll be his first time in an official party position since he was forced to resign as the Libs’ federal VP in 2014.
After winning the 2013 election, then-PM Tony Abbott changed the federal Lobbying Code of Conduct and declared lobbyists couldn’t be on the federal executive.
Santoro is still an active lobbyist in Queensland, with 17 clients at last count, including casino giant Star Entertainment, Italian rail construction company Salcef S.p. A, and the property developer Bellevue Queensland (which Santoro Consulting took on as a client only this month).
But under Queensland laws which came into effect last week, “dual-hatting” – lobbyists moonlighting as political campaigners – is now banned. The law change came about after The Australian revealed Labor lobbyists Evan Moorhead and Cameron Milner were secretly running Annastacia Palaszczuk’s 2020 campaign.
Integrity Commissioner Linda Waugh wrote to all registered lobbyists on April 19 warning of the ban, which prevents registered lobbyists from performing “a substantial role in the election campaign of a political party”. It also disqualifies “a previously registered lobbyist, who performed a substantial role in an election campaign for a political party that has won the election, from operating as a registered lobbyist in that term of government”.
Given the LNP’s constitution says the state exec has the power to “manage all the affairs of the party,” endorse and disendorse candidates, and “exercise full control over all members and party units, receive financial statements, and reports from party units and hear and determine disputes,” it sounds pretty substantial.
Santoro is a divisive figure in the party, and it was no surprise that almost as soon as he nominated, the news spread like wildfire across the ranks of the LNP and into the Chooks’ coop.
What about me?
The Ipswich RSL secretary has opened fire on federal Labor MP and one time opposition Veterans spokesman Shayne Neumann after he blew up over the local mayor getting to lay a wreath at the Anzac Day Dawn Service, when there wasn’t a wreath for him.
In a letter to Neumann and Anthony Albanese, branch secretary Debbie Wadwell complained about Neumann’s “confronting and offensive” behaviour in February when told that under statewide RSL rules Ipswich mayor Teresa Harding would lay a wreath but not other politicians, including him.
Wadwell, who served in the army for 15 years, detailed the exchange about the protocols and a range of other grievances the MP apparently has with the vets’ group.
In the April 16 letter, leaked to Chooks and later confirmed by Wadwell, the RSL branch boss said Neumann told her he wouldn’t be attending the Ipswich RSL sub-branch Anzac Day service after she explained that she was just following the usual ceremonial protocols of the group.
Under the statewide RSL rules, only three wreaths are laid: first by the RSL branch president, then by the local mayor and then by the senior Australian Defence Force officer in attendance.
Neumann is obviously not the biggest fan of the Ipswich mayor, who contested his seat of Blair for the Liberal National Party at the 2016 federal election, and who was convincingly re-elected to lead the city in March.
In the letter, Wadwell also said that during the spray, Neumann accused the Ipswich RSL of not thanking him for a $131,000 federally-funded “memorial grant” and reminded her that Albanese wouldn’t have attended a Vietnam Veterans’ Day service in Ipswich last year “if it hadn’t been for him”.
“You also told me that you hope that Ipswich RSL treat either you or the next federal member a hell of a lot better than we treat you Shayne,’’ she wrote.
“Again I was bewildered, I found this exchange confronting and completely unnecessary.”
“What also surprised me, is that you later approached me again, pointed and shook your finger at me and spoke abruptly to me.
“This was noticed by many in attendance. I found your tone offensive and your raised voice to be disrespectful.”
In his reply letter, also obtained by Chooks, Neumann opened by saying “this is not the first occasion I have taken up an issue or issues with the sub-branch”.
“I did so after discussions with RSL Queensland as to the manner with which I was being treated by the then sub-branch President,’’ he wrote.
Neumann said he would have a representative at the Ipswich RSL Dawn Service but would be attending a separate Dawn Service “where I will be reading a Bible verse and saying the Lord’s Prayer”.
“When I spoke with you in Rosewood, I raised why the Mayor of Ipswich alone of all elected representatives was laying a wreath at the Ipswich Dawn Service.
“The men and women of our armed forces fought in the name of Australia. It matters not who is the Mayor.”
He said Wadwell had made a number of allegations that he denied.
Neumann, who didn’t return a call from Chooks, is already under mounting pressure from some in Labor to retire ahead of the next federal election.
Under the QLD ALP’s strict affirmative action gender quota rules, confirmed at a February meeting of the party’s admin committee, four of Labor’s six held seats (Neumann’s Blair, Anika Wells’ Lilley, Graham Perrett’s Moreton, Milton Dick’s Oxley, Jim Chalmers’ Rankin, and Nita Green’s Senate spot) need to be contested by women.
As Chooks has reported ad nauseam, that means Perrett and Neumann will be forced out and replaced by women – a move Neumann is strongly resisting.
The MP and his supporters are hoping the PM will intervene and override the state rules.
Choppers for votes
Steven Miles took pork barrelling to new heights this week, promising police helicopters, boosted officer numbers and station upgrades in marginal seats along the east coast.
His whirlwind regional tour – taking in Townsville, Cairns, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg and Mackay – was part of a bid to convince voters Labor was doing something (anything) after taxpayer funded polling, released in February, revealed only 16 per cent of voters were satisfied with the government’s performance on crime.
The state’s fleet of police helicopters – which include an infra-red camera system with tracking capabilities – will be expanded into Cairns, the Sunshine Coast and Wide Bay where vulnerable Labor MPs launched faux campaigns last week. A trial of the “eyes in the sky” in Townsville will also be made permanent.
The new choppers will service Nicklin (held by Rob Skelton on a 0.1 per cent margin), Hervey Bay (won by Adrian Tantari on a 2 per cent margin), Caloundra (Jason Hunt on 2.5 per cent), Barron River (Craig Crawford on 3.1 per cent), Townsville (Scott Stewart on 3.1 per cent), Thuringowa (Aaron Harper on 3.2 per cent), Mundingburra (Les Walker on 3.9 per cent) and Cairns (Michael Healy on 5.6 per cent).
In an obviously orchestrated campaign Skelton, Hunt and Tantari launched petitions last week calling on Miles to give their communities a chopper.
Three days ago Miles said he was “considering” the request (when in reality the press releases were likely already drafted).
“No matter where you live in Queensland, we’re backing our frontline police to keep the community safe,” he tweeted.
Laurie unloads
Long-serving parliamentary clerk Neil Laurie dropped a scathing submission this week calling out the “poor political culture” festering inside Queensland’s unicameral parliament.
Laurie made the submission to former chief justice Catherine Holmes’ review of the Crime and Corruption Commission’s reporting powers (AKA the review into whether a bombshell report into Jackie Trad should be made public).
Queensland is the only state without an upper house and, as the veteran clerk notes, this has led to the state parliament nearly always being dominated by the government of the day.
“This has consequential effects,” he wrote.
“For example, the parliamentary committee system which in theory assists the parliament in the function of accountability over government is dominated by government Chairs and government members.
“At the end of the day, what a parliamentary committee investigates and how it investigates will be subject to the will of the majority and sometimes those decisions are confidential to committee members.”
Anyone who has tuned into a parliamentary committee hearing – or annual budget estimates – would be well accustomed to the political tactics government chairs employ to protect their ministers and avoid scrutiny.
The submissions were released after a dismal parliamentary sitting week, in which the government rushed through six important bills in just 12 hours, gagging opposition speeches and debate.
You’ve got mail
Federal LNP MPs recently got an unexpected email from Australia Post that sparked immediate fury in the ranks.
“We are seeking approval from your office for the LNP to use (the MP’s) unaddressed mail lodgements and addressed mail outs for the Queensland state election held on October 2024, and any future elections, including the federal election,” the AusPost missive read.
As one MP tells Chooks, the idea that LNP HQ would ask federal MPs to hand over their taxpayer-funded communication allowances for state campaigning would be unfair, crazy, and probably illegal.
(Under the federal Parliamentary Business Resources Act, MPs can only claim public resources to communicate with constituents when “it is for the dominant purpose of conducting your parliamentary business”. In other words, not for the benefit of someone else’s re-election hopes.)
“My response was ‘hell no’,” a federal MP says. “We have to be extremely cautious about use of taxpayers’ money, that’s why you always maintain control over your own expenditure.”
When Chooks asked the LNP to please explain, party HQ insisted it was all Australia Post’s fault and the party would never try such an appalling manouever.
Just a couple of hours after Chooks’ inquiry, Australia Post hurriedly sent a follow-up email to MPs, asking them to “please disregard” the previous message, explaining “the unprompted email was sent in error” due to a misunderstanding.
Even after the mea culpa, another federal MP was still less than impressed with how the whole snafu reflected on LNP HQ, telling Chooks “it’s a cluster f**k in there”.
Steer clear
Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce popped up at an Anzac Day event on the Gold Coast, delivering a speech urging the crowd at the Cenotaph outside the old Surfers Paradise RSL to “go to the beach, go to the pub, play two-up, have lunch with your family, live life and live it to the full … just stay away from planter boxes”.
Lest we forget Joyce’s fateful walk home in Canberra in February, during which he fell off a planter box, lay on the ground talking to his wife Vikki Campion, rolled around, and apparently referred to himself as a “dead f***ing c**t”. Joyce later blamed the “big mistake” on mixing prescription meds with alcohol, and took a week off parliament.
Chooks’ spies at Surfers on Thursday say the crowd loved Joyce’s speech and “lined up for photos after”.
Spotted
Still on the Gold Coast, as regular Chooks readers know retiring former Morrison government Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews couldn’t convince another woman to vie for her job as LNP candidate for the blue-ribbon Gold Coast seat of McPherson.
At the weekend, the local branch picked lawyer and former Julie Bishop staffer Leon Rebello to run at the next federal election. The King & Wood Mallesons solicitor beat three other blokes (Andrews’ former staffer Ben Naday, Coles public affairs chief and former Barnaby Joyce and Warren Truss staffer Adam Fitzgibbons, and former John Howard senior adviser and author David Stevens) “comfortably” at the preselection.
Our spies on the ground say Rebello netted 105 votes, followed by Naday on 43, Stevens on 14 and Fitzgibbons with nine. Freshly elected Young LNP president Alex Sinenko (whose new role was cemented at the YLNP’s annual convention, also at the weekend) was quick to congratulate Rebello “as a friend of our movement” and Rebello – who is in his late 20s – confirmed he’s still a Young LNP member.
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