Looming Left takeover of ALP national executive; leafy Brisbane getting Greener
G’day readers, and welcome to the latest instalment of Feeding the Chooks, your weekly peek behind-the-scenes of political shenanigans and factional machinations in Queensland. Reported this week by Sarah Elks, Lydia Lynch, and Michael McKenna.
LEFT TO LEAD ALP BODY
Is the “socialist” Left about to take majority control of the most powerful body in the Australian Labor Party?
True believers are speculating that the ALP’s federal governing body, the National Executive, will soon lose its near perfect Left-Right factional balance of voting members at the party’s 49th national conference in Brisbane in August.
The all-powerful executive runs the party — implementing policy decisions of national conference, dictating the shape and direction of campaigns and able to intervene in preselections.
At the moment, the voting members are made up of 10 from the Left faction, 10 from the Right faction and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (Left), along with seven non-voting office holders, including ALP national president Wayne Swan and his deputies.
The make-up of the executive is determined by union and branch delegates in a vote at national conference, which is held every three years and which is in Queensland for the first time in 50 years.
Labor insiders tells Chooks that the loss of majority control in Victorian Labor by the Right, after a series of scandals led to last year’s federal intervention, and the continued decline of the Queensland Right will shift the numbers to the Left in the national executive vote.
In the next few weeks, Queensland branch members will be voting on their 36 conference delegates and the Right could lose one or two or, maybe, pick up one.
Either way, the Left already have a clear majority in Queensland, along with Victoria, and the NSW Right are still dominant there.
The speculation is that the Left could take an 11 to nine, or even a 12 to eight, majority of voting members on the national executive.
Some “branchies” concede they are worried what it could mean for the party and, particularly, the federal government.
“So, are we going to be run by socialist lefties, when we have been voted into the federal government by a majority of the population who are centrists,’’ one asked.
But a senior Labor parliamentarian, and a few Canberra-based pundits, say that even if the executive leans to the Left in its numbers, Albanese won’t allow them to dictate.
“The PM, with his vote, already gives the Left [a] majority on executive but he doesn’t use it, and these numbers won’t change things … it won’t be a takeover,’’ the Labor parliamentarian said.
“It’s not his form.’’
LABOR FEELING GREEN OVER BRISBANE CHANCES
Queensland Labor is struggling to recruit candidates for the next Brisbane City Council elections, less than a year away, and the situation is so dire, there’s a fear the Greens could become the official opposition.
Brisbane is the biggest local government in Australia, and the ALP hold just five of the 26 council wards. The LNP has 19, as well as Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, and there’s one Greens councillor and one independent.
Labor’s City Hall fortunes have been floundering for nearly two decades; the ALP has not picked up a ward in Brisbane since before the LNP’s Campbell Newman won back the mayoralty from Labor in 2004.
Before the 2004 poll, Labor held 18 of the 26 wards, and the ALP’s Tim Quinn was the Lord Mayor. Since then, it’s been a slow but precipitous decline.
Labor sources say state secretary Kate Flanders is under serious pressure to finalise preselections soon for the lord mayoral candidate for the March 16 poll, but there are slim pickings.
“People are getting annoyed,” one ALP source says.
Chooks hears Daniel Bevis, the son of former federal Labor MP for Brisbane Arch Bevis and a one-time council candidate, is a possible contender. Other Labor sources are still hopeful one-time Labor superstar Kate Jones, who retired from Queensland parliament at the 2020 state election, might put up her hand to run for the job.
But why would Jones jump on this sinking ship?
Another Labor source said: “They are struggling to recruit candidates. There’s a genuine fear that Labor isn’t going to do well and the Greens will become the official opposition if they pick up their targeted seats”.
The Greens currently have just one ward, held by new councillor Trina Massey, who recently replaced retiring renegade councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan who won the Gabba ward in 2016.
But the progressive minor party has been gaining ground in Brisbane, and in southeast Queensland more broadly.
Announcing his retirement in March, Sriranganathan said based on last year’s federal election results, the Greens had a doable “stretch goal” of winning as many as 10 wards on the Brisbane City Council.
At the last Brisbane City Council election in 2020, Sriranganathan had a massive 18 per cent swing to him, and the Greens finished second ahead of Labor in four LNP-won wards: Central, Coorparoo, Paddington and Walter Taylor.
In Paddington, LNP councillor Peter Matic (retiring at next year’s poll) won the ward by just 311 votes over the Greens, once Labor’s preferences were distributed.
LNP sources say the party will be vulnerable to the Greens in 2024 in Paddington, Central and Walter Taylor.
WEDGE VS WEDGE
Let’s get ready to rumble!
Queensland parliament heads to Cairns next week for a special regional sitting where the two major parties will go head-to-head in a showdown of political wedging.
In the red corner, we have Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk who is desperately trying to convince sceptical regional Queenslanders she is tough on crime.
In the blue corner is Opposition Leader David Crisafulli who is loathe to take a stance on the Indigenous voice to parliament … or really any issue that does not revolve around ambulance ramping or the need for extra cops.
Round one will kick off with an all-out LNP assault on the government over its perceived failings on youth crime.
Juvenile justice resurfaced as a major political issue for the government over summer after a series of high-profile murders allegedly by teenagers. It has long been a problem in the state’s north with recidivist youths stealing cars and breaking into homes in Cairns, Townsville and Mount Isa.
And this week, a 13-year-old boy was charged over the deaths of three women in Maryborough, after he allegedly stole a Mercedes-Benz and caused a fatal car crash. He was in state-funded youth justice accommodation at the time.
The government went as far as to override its own human rights laws in March with new legislation to keep more young people locked up for longer.
But it is not doing much to assuage fears. A local crime action group is planning to protest outside Cairns Convention Centre (where parliament is sitting) on Wednesday morning.
In round two, the Labor government will ramp up pressure on the LNP MPs to declare how they intend to vote at the voice referendum later this year.
Queensland pursued treaty laws parallel to the national debate on a voice to parliament. The state laws, which could lead to many treaties with individual Indigenous groups across Queensland, are due to pass in Cairns on Wednesday. That vote will carry with bipartisan support.
But as Chooks reported last week, most of the state opposition haven’t decided or declared how they will vote at the voice referndum (or they have, but are being coy and are not talking about it publicly).
Of the 34 LNP MPs, only Sam O’Connor – the MP for the Gold Coast seat of Bonney – has definitively said he’s voting yes. Seven have said they’ll vote no.
The LNP shadow cabinet will meet in Yarrabah next week to “listen to residents, small business owners, community leaders and victims of crime”.
Crisafulli said: “I encourage all locals across the Far North to speak up and share their experiences with youth crime, hospitals, schools and soaring cost-of-living pressures”.
RIVALS FOR RENNICK
Nominations for the Liberal National Party Senate preselection closed on Friday, and all eyes are on the third spot, currently occupied by Gerard Rennick.
Chooks hears Rennick has rivals galore, including registered lobbyist Nelson Savanh, current Queensland LNP party treasurer and former Tattersall’s Club prez Stuart Fraser, serial candidate Fiona Ward (who has run for state and federal lower house seats before) and former Coalition adviser Sophie Li.
The party’s strict rules prevent candidates from speaking publicly until after they’ve been vetted, but Ward’s regularly updated Facebook page states she is a Senate candidate for the LNP.
And in a letter to LNP state councillors, Li – describing herself as a technology entrepreneur, former banker and immigrant millennial woman – warned the LNP was losing millennial voters to Labor and the Greens and said the federal Coalition only held four of 48 millennial-dominated seats across the country.
“My experience proves that the right messages delivered by a relatable millennial will attract a significant number of millennial voters to the LNP,” Li wrote.
LNP council members – of which there are about 400 – will vote on the ticket at a closed-door meeting during the party’s state conference in Brisbane on July 7.
The main contest is expected to be between Rennick and Savanh. While Rennick is thought to appeal to the party’s alt-right conservative wing, Savanh’s backers believe he will offer the LNP a more moderate, fresh face.
Savanh is also said to have the backing of party powerbroker Senator James McGrath, but taking on a sitting senator – especially one as outspoken as Rennick – is always an uphill battle.
When Rennick confirmed in January that he planned to run again, he was preparing for competition.
“I don’t expect the party to protect me. I have always thought every sitting member should be scrutinised and if people want to run against me, they should,” Rennick said at the time.
AND WHAT ABOUT LABOR SENATE PRESELECTIONS?
Chooks understands the party will be holding off on any decisions just in case Queensland gains a seat in the next electoral redistribution.
The redrawing of electoral boundaries is based on population and the Australian Bureau of Statistics is due to release fresh data in mid-June which will influence the decision.
It is pretty unlikely Queensland will pick up another seat (based on 2021 data) but the surge of southerners into the state during Covid may tip the scales.
ADVICE WANTED
Less than a week out from the federal budget and Treasurer Jim Chalmers is searching for a senior adviser, specialising in strategic communications and media.
Advertising on LinkedIn, the Queensland MP says he’s inviting applications for the senior role, and is keen for someone who could be responsible “for providing expert communications and media advice … and leading a whole-of-government approach to economic communications”.
“The senior adviser will be responsible for managing a small team of advisers and leading the development of speeches, strategic messaging and parliamentary strategy in the Treasurer’s office,” the ad reads.
The successful applicant would receive a salary of between $165,460-$179,009, an additional allowance of up to $33,604 for extra work, and a vehicle allowance of up to $25,082, plus 15.4 per cent superannuation.
Applications close on May 14, six days after the budget. Chooks presumes the successful applicant will be required to hit the ground running.
COMEBACK FOR CORRESPONDENT CRISAFULLI?
To mark Anzac Day, Opposition leader David Crisafulli interviewed Victoria Cross recipient Dan Keighran, a notoriously circumspect veteran of the Afghanistan conflict. The Opposition Leader told the war hero it was an “honour … to be doing this on behalf of Queensland”, before asking Keighran about the events of August 24, 2010.
On that day in Uruzgan Province in Afghanistan, Keighran drew enemy fire away from one of his wounded comrades. In their interview, he told Crisafulli: “I absolutely should be dead for my actions.”
The chat, broadcast on Crisafulli’s Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn profiles, and available in full on YouTube, got Chooks thinking.
Could Crisafulli be looking to revive his career in journalism, if this politics thing doesn’t work out, and could Keighran be eyeing off a career in politics?
The Broadwater MP’s Wikipedia page boasts that he was a correspondent for The Australian and the Sunday Mail back in the early 2000s (Wikipedia borrowed the description from the politician’s personal website, which has since been updated). But, as Chooks has reported in the past, Crisafulli wrote just 19 articles for the Sunday Mail and the Oz between October 2001 and June 2003, most of which were basketball or rugby league match reports from Townsville.
An LNP insider told Chooks Keighran was not being courted as a candidate, and according to the Opposition Leader’s office, Crisafulli is not flirting with a return to the media.
“Just like when he was a journo, David loves listening to the stories of Queenslanders no matter where they come from.”
MILTON TAKES MACE TO MASSES
Federal Speaker Milton Dick spent the week in regional Queensland with a few of his parliamentary colleagues – Kennedy MP Bob Katter, LNP MP for Leichhardt Warren Entsch, and LNP MP for Capricornia Michelle Landry – spreading the democratic good word to school kids.
The students eyed off the House of Representatives’ mace (made of silver gilt and weighing 7.8kg) and got to lob questions at Labor MP Dick and his fellow pollies, Question Time-style.
So what curly questions did the kids have for the visiting Speaker?
“Hot topics,” Dick told Chooks.
“How tall am I? (exactly 2 metres); Do I ever get nervous as Speaker? ((all the time); is everyone nice to each other all the time in parliament? (depends … on the day); What’s your favourite song when you are driving on the highway? (Born to Run by Springsteen).”
Dick reported that last answer was “met by crickets from the kids’’, which has Chooks wondering, what are they teaching our children?
BREAKING THE PALASZCZUK LINE
It was somewhat ironic seeing a grinning Palaszczuk government Resources Minister Scott Stewart at the New Acland coal mine this week for the official opening on its expansion.
Lining up behind Stewart as he stood alongside New Hope dignitaries and, literally, cut the ribbon to mark the start of the project was a stack of big, yellow dump trucks.
Now those dump trucks are ready to do their job as the mine re-enters production.
But it wasn’t that long ago that the neatly parked row of trucks went by another name: The Palaszczuk Line.
Given the moniker after the mine ran out of coal and laid off its workforce while the government sat back and allowed the project to go through the wringer in the courts, the nickname was even officially marked with a ridgy-didge street sign.
Unfortunately Chooks were unable to find a photo of the sign, but our sources assure us it did exist.
SPOTTED
Speaking of veteran renegade north Queensland federal MP Bob Katter, the Katter’s Australian Party founder has an interesting take on fashion, and political messaging. Take this vest he personally designed as a stinging indictment of what he calls the “anti-coal brigade”.
On one side, is a picture of a tree with the words “NO CO2 NO TREE” and, on the other, a picture of a koala wearing a miner’s helmet alongside the words “NO TREE NO ME”.
No comment on the logic, and it’s a bit rich for Chooks to moonlight as fashion critics (we’re in newspapers for a reason), but it’s safe to say Katter is no Karl Lagerfeld.
GO ON, FEED THE CHOOKS
Got any gossip? Drop Chooks a line.
elkss@theaustralian.com.au
lynchl@theaustralian.com.au
mckennam@theaustralian.com.au
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