Pauline Hanson dumps One Nation’s Stephen Andrew ahead of Queensland election
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.
Andrew gets the flick
Pauline Hanson has dumped her only Queensland MP after he was discovered playing footsies with the Katters.
Two-term One Nation MP Stephen Andrew, who represents the Central Queensland seat of Mirani, received a letter from his party leader this week telling him he would not be endorsed to stand at the October 26 election.
It’s a big move for Senator Hanson to risk losing the seat by jettisoning Andrew so close to the election.
Particularly given he retained Mirani over Labor at the 2020 pandemic election with a 9 per cent margin and has built up a profile on the back of his seven year incumbency.
But the bad blood apparently runs deep between Hanson and the professional feral pest controller.
Hanson accused the MP of going missing in parliament, saying he had not introduced a Private Members Bill in seven years.
One Nation spies had also apparently informed party HQ that Andrew had been in talks to join another party or go independent and had debranded his social media accounts.
Chook hears Hanson also believed Andrew had been distracted by his side hustle of taking to the bush – armed to the teeth – to shoot feral pigs.
Apparently Hanson made reference in the letter, that Andrew had said he no longer needed the clout of One Nation because God had already told him he would win the seat for a third time.
It seems Andrew is not only relying on divine intervention from the king of kings, but has also been kneeling at the foot of the king in the north – Robbie Katter.
Andrew told Chooks he was still shell-shocked after receiving Hanson’s letter (given he hadn’t spoken to the party leader in 11 months or seen her in person in four years) and had not decided whether he would run as an independent or try to join the Katter boys.
He admitted he had spoken with other parties, but insisted there was “no real push to go anywhere”.
“I stayed on the horse I rode in on,” Andrew told Chooks.
“Do you look at every option and scenario? Everybody does at one stage I think, but that doesn’t mean to say that’s being disloyal.”
He also defended his work ethic, saying he delivered 27 speeches in parliament this year on 17 different bills and served on two committees.
One Nation is planning to run candidates in all 93 seats in October, with its best chance considered the central Queensland seat of Keppel, where Hanson’s longtime lieutenant James Ashby is running.
Chooks also spoke to the ever-coy Katter who said he always had a “good working relationship” with Andrew.
“For us, it would be deeply concerning if the seat of Mirani went to the two major parties, so we would be heavily invested in preventing that from happening,” he said.
If Andrew’s moved to the KAP before October, it would give the minor party four crossbench seats in the 93-electorate parliament.
And with a hung parliament a possibility after the election – numbers are everything.
Money, Money, Money
As Queensland hurtles towards the start of the election campaign in just two months’ time, both major parties are running themselves ragged selling access to frontbenchers in a bid to raise some much-needed cash.
Backbencher Jess Pugh roped in “special guest” Cameron Dick for her fundraiser in the wine cellar of Queensland Parliament on Thursday night. Tickets for dinner with the Mount Ommaney MP and Treasurer Dick went for $950-a-pop (which seems a bit cheap, but of course comes in just under the $1000 disclosure threshold).
Transport Minister Bart Mellish will hold his own soiree at Woolloongabba’s 1889 Enoteca next week at the cut-price of $800-a-head. Mellish faces a tough fight to retain his outer-Brisbane seat of Aspley which he holds on a 5.16 per cent margin.
Lobbying firm Anacta – whose clients include train builder Downer, shipping company Seaswift, and toll-road operator Queensland Motorways – has already bought a ticket for Mellish’s Italian feast.
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman – who took on Steven Miles for the Labor leadership in December – is fetching a much higher price at $2000-a-head for her upcoming fundraiser at Gerard’s Bistro on James Street in inner-Brisbane. It is the same price left faction boss Gary Bullock’s United Workers’ Union charged for dinner with Miles and backbencher Aaron Harper in June.
After struggling for a few years to raise cash, donors have been flocking back to line the pockets of the LNP after successive poll results suggest the Opposition is on track for an October victory.
David Crisafulli’s going appearance rate these days is $2500.
And a $295-per-person cocktail party to celebrate 100 days until the election – held in the CBD’s Boom Boom Room on July 18 – was “heaving”, Chooks hears.
After a few glasses of bubbles, a select few forked out another $3500 to duck upstairs for dinner at up-market Chinese restaurant Donna Chang with Crisafulli, treasury spokesman David Janetzki and environment spokesman Sam O’Connor.
The Donna Chang dinner was hosted by former federal defence minister Christopher Pyne – whonow heads his own lobby firm Pyne and Partners – and was filled with defence and renewable energy industry types.
The previous evening, Pyne hosted a $2000-a-head dinner at Establishment 203 in the Valley for LNP candidates Christien Duffey (McConnel) and Nelson Savanh (Ferny Grove) with energy spokeswoman Deb Frecklington starring as the guest speaker.
Pyne has been busy pushing into Queensland, after setting up his lobbying shop in Brisbane last year. He has 25 clients in Queensland, including billionaire Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s private investment vehicle, Tattarang, and RE-Alliance, an organisation that provides support and education for regional communities transitioning to green energy.
True believers’ crisis of confidence
Steven Miles reckons he can still win the October 26 election, but are even the true believers beginning to doubt him?
There’s only 85 days until the “only poll that matters” and Labor is still scrambling to find candidates in 21 of Queensland’s 93 electorates.
And while Miles insisted as recently as May he was “fighting to win the election” every day, analysis by Chooks shows Labor hasn’t been able to convince anyone to run in six seats held by the LNP on margins of less than six per cent: Clayfield (Tim Nicholls, 1.55 per cent), Glass House (Andrew Powell, 1.58 per cent), Everton (Tim Mander, 2.24 per cent), Whitsunday (Amanda Camm, 3.26 per cent), Oodgeroo (candidate Amanda Stoker to replace sitting MP Mark Robinson, 4.48 per cent) and Buderim (Brent Mickelberg, 5.29 per cent). They’re electorates that even Labor HQ classifies as supposedly “winnable” – and four of them have had a history of electing Labor MPs – so why is no one putting up their hand to run? Have the true believers lost faith that Miles can win in October?
The LNP is still looking for candidates in 18 of the 93 electorates, but eight of those are uber-safe Labor seats held by government MPs on margins of more than 16 per cent (such as Health Minister Shannon Fentiman’s Waterford (16.02 per cent), Deputy Premier Cameron Dick’s Woodridge (26.25 per cent), Water Minister Glenn Butcher’s Gladstone (23.49 per cent) and Employment Minister Lance McCallum’s Bundamba (20.68 per cent).
Nominations for LNP candidates for Capalaba, Logan, Stretton and Waterford closed on Sunday, while Ipswich and Bundamba were expected to close as Chooks is published.
One keen LNP donor, Delong Hao, didn’t let the lack of a candidate in Waterford stop them from donating $2000 to the LNP’s campaign in the seat on July 18, in the form of an event ticket.
Up in far north Queensland, the LNP is understood to be close to endorsing high-profile sitting councillor Brett Moller to take on Labor Speaker Curtis Pitt in his electorate of Mulgrave (12.24 per cent). It’s a tough margin to overcome, but Moller is a fourth-generation local, a solicitor, the former chair of Ports North and the former president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland.
Interestingly, there are only two seats where neither major party has endorsed contestants: the Katter’s Australian Party seats of Traeger (held by the scion of the north-west Queensland Katter political dynasty Robbie Katter on a margin of 24.72 per cent) and Hinchinbrook, by second-term KAP crossbencher Nick Dametto (14.76 per cent).
Filling Warren’s shoes
Who is lining up for the LNP to replace Warren Entsch in the retiring MP’s enormous far north Queensland federal electorate of Leichhardt?
Chooks has confirmed there are five hopefuls being scrutinised by LNP headquarters: Entsch is backing local aviation identity Alana McKenna, this year named Cairns Woman of the Year, while far north Queensland conservative establishment figures Deirdre and Colin Ford have thrown their weight behind geologist Sam Brayshaw.
Darcy Sanders, the secretary of the Barron River and Cairns LNP Women’s branches, is expected to have strong grassroots support, while former councillor Jeremy Neal and self-styled “financial goddess” Margaret Milutinovic have also put up their hands for the candidate’s position.
One federal LNP MP tells Chooks party headquarters had “dropped the ball” on Leichhardt, which was at risk of falling to Labor’s new high-profile candidate, Matt Smith.
“This should have been done a year ago,” the MP says.
Former Douglas shire mayor Michael Kerr tells Chooks he’s not one of the nominees, despite years of Entsch trying to woo him as his replacement.
“Two weeks in Canberra a month is not what I call an idyllic lifestyle,” the Port Douglas resident tells Chooks with a chuckle.
Kerr was recently defeated by former Newman government MP David Kempton at an LNP preselection to decide the party’s candidate for the state seat of Cook, currently held by Labor’s Cynthia Lui.
Anthony Albanese was up in Cairns to announce former Cairns Taipans professional basketballer Smith as Labor’s Leichhardt hopeful last month. It’s a major target for Albanese at the next federal election in Queensland, where Labor holds a miserly five of 30 electorates. Whoever the LNP chooses to contest Leichhardt, it’s unlikely they’ll measure up to Smith in the height department: the unionist is 2.1 metres tall.
All Aboard
Jarrod Bleijie has learned from the mistakes of Jackie Trad – at least when it comes to declaring a home on a proposed train line.
The Kawana MP is set to become deputy premier if the LNP wins the next election, the same job Trad had when she got herself into hot water for failing to declare an investment property along the Cross River Rail route.
Unlike Trad, Bleijie has done the right thing and noted his Aroona home is “adjacent to Crown land” designated for the Sunshine Coast Direct Line.
His disclosure comes as the LNP pushes for the Sunshine Coast line to go further than the Labor government is willing to fund.
Eventually, the plan is for the $12bn project to stretch 38km from Beerwah to Maroochydore.
But so far the state and federal Labor governments have only pledged funding to build the train line to Caloundra in time for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics.
Under the funded “stage one” plan, the line won’t reach Bleijie’s neck of the woods.
Bleijie did not want to talk to Chooks about his house other than to say he had disclosed it on the register of members’ interest, in parliament and had sought advice from the integrity commissioner.
Jetsetters
The cost of using two taxpayer-funded private jets to fly Steven Miles and Police Minister Mark Ryan on a crime tour of marginal Labor-held seats earlier this year was finally revealed at budget estimates – a whopping $167,000.
Nine Labor seats, held on margins ranging between 0.01 per cent and 5.6 per cent, benefited from the crime announcements which were made on the week-long trip, taken with police commissioner Steve Gollschewski.
Ironically the taxpayer-funded private jets were loaned out just week after the government passed laws to enshrine its target to cut 75 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions on 2005 levels by 2035.
At an estimates hearing on Tuesday, the LNP’s Sam O’Connor asked Energy Minister Mick de Brenni whether he had “conducted any training with the premier or his office on the importance of considering their carbon emissions when booking their travel arrangements?”.
Cheeky.
Unsurprisingly, De Brenni was unimpressed and told O’Connor the government took emission reductions “incredibly seriously”.
Spotted
The staff reunion for Peter Beattie’s Labor government (1998 to 2007) was held last month in a private room at the Mount Gravatt Hotel, a rather more informal venue than Annastacia Palaszczuk’s farewell dinner at Woolloongabba’s 1889 Enoteca earlier this year, as well as a much more inclusive guest list.
According to Chooks’ spies, Beattie and his wife Heather shouted the finger food while the ex-staffers forked out for their own drinks.
Chooks spotted Paul Cronin (now head of Aurizon corporate affairs), Steve Keating, Steve Bishop, Dennis Molloy (now Queensland’s Deputy Under Treasurer), Brett Murphy (now ANZ’s government relations and policy principal), Belinda Taylor (now executive director of communications for Children’s Health Queensland) and Stephen Beckett (now Virgin Australia’s general manager of government and industry affairs) among those traipsing down memory lane.
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