Michael McKenna
Peter Dutton’s LNP branch covers his fees
G’day readers, and welcome to this week’s edition of Feeding the Chooks, your unmissable peek behind-the-scenes of Queensland politics.
STINGY PETE
Opposition leader Peter Dutton is not short of a quid.
The former Queensland copper and his wife Kirilly have a healthy property portfolio (a couple of investment properties in Brisbane’s CBD and a farm at Dayboro in his electorate) and Dutton earns a tidy wage. In 2021, the Dickson MP sold his Gold Coast beachfront pad for $6 million after buying in 2014 for $2.325m.
As leader of the Opposition, he gets an 85 per cent loading on the base remuneration for federal MPs, meaning he pockets an annual pay packet north of $401,000 even before extra allowances are added. Not bad.
But Dutton’s bulging bank balance apparently didn't stop him from leaning on his faithful Liberal National Party local members for a little help paying a bill.
Branch minutes leaked to Chooks from the recent Dickson federal divisional council general meeting – held at Brendale’s My Oh My Cafe at 6.30pm on Monday July 31 – show they considered a motion “that part payment of the LNP Parliamentary Fee for year 2022/23 in the sum of $2865.90 for Mr Peter Dutton be approved”.
Happily for Dutton and his hip pocket, the good burghers of Dickson agreed to shell out their hard-fought fundraising money to cover his costs.
A spokeswoman for Dutton says: “It’s long standing practice that members pay the fee levied by the LNP through their FDC accounts”.
DICKSON’S VOICE
The Indigenous voice to parliament referendum was a hot topic of conversation at the aforementioned Dickson AGM, following a presentation by No campaign lobby group Fair Australia’s James-Moi Faitasia Seuao.
Until April, Seuao was the LNP’s members officer in the party’s Brisbane headquarters, and is now Fair Australia’s Queensland state co-ordinator.
The minutes note that branch member Bob Millar – a community bank director and longtime former Moreton Bay councillor – “mentioned there are questions around the truthfulness of the voice referendum material and we need to be honest, not bend the truth and get caught out”.
Another member “mentioned the importance of unifying the nation if the referendum fails” and a third “stated the referendum was raised at (LNP) State Council, the discussion was emotional, there is a fight coming and members of the party are passionate to stop it”.
D-DAY FOR RENNICK
LNP Senator Gerard Rennick will find out on Saturday whether the preselection vote at which he was kicked off the party’s ticket will be held again.
The party’s state executive will meet to discuss a recommendation from the disputes committee, which has been considering Rennick’s complaint about voting “irregularities” at the preselection since July 14.
LNP Treasurer Stuart Fraser beat Rennick by three votes on July 7.
IN THE PINK
American pop star Pink is finishing her blockbuster Australian “Summer Carnival” tour next year in an unlikely location: Townsville.
It’s the “Missundaztood” singer’s first time in the north Queensland city, and the only regional stop on her 17-date February and March jaunt Down Under.
So how did it come about? Local MP Aaron Harper would probably like Pink fans in his marginal electorate of Thuringowa to believe he made the difference; having launched a petition this year for the star to pay the town a visit. He even spruiked his push with paid ads on Facebook and Instagram.
When Townsville’s coup was announced, Harper boasted: “In April I started a petition to bring Pink to Townsville and had great support from the community so I’m delighted to see this hard work come to fruition,”.
But Chooks can reveal it was actually the deep pockets of the Queensland government’s Tourism and Events Queensland that sealed the deal. Talk about Pink barrelling.
A financial incentive was delivered as part of TEQ’s ‘It’s Live! in Queensland’ program. The amount paid will be kept secret. Chooks was told by in-the-know bureaucrats that the sweetener could be a seven figure sum.
Tourism and Sport Minister Tourism and Sport Stirling Hinchliffe tells Chooks that “we don’t publicise our involvement in securing major events to avoid giving other states a competitive advantage”.
“This is consistent practice with all Australian states and most other countries.”
Pink will be the first major international concert at Townsville’s Queensland Country Bank Stadium – which was fully funded by state, federal and local governments and cost $293.5m – since it opened in February 2020 with a Covid-eve performance by Elton John.
MCKENZIE HOOKS CINDY
Bridget McKenzie’s sports rorts saga was eclipsed by the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, and while it has become a memory for most, the Nationals Senator sure has not forgotten.
She lost her job as the Morrison Government’s sports minister as a result of the scandal, after the Gaetjens report found McKenzie broke ministerial rules when she awarded a $36,000 taxpayer-funded grant to a clay shooting club. The Senator did not disclose she was a member of the club.
Conflicts of interest were again top of mind for McKenzie – now the Nationals Senate leader – on Tuesday, when she quizzed Brisbane 2032 Olympics and Paralympics organising committee CEO Cindy Hook, at the first sitting of the Senate inquiry into Australia’s preparedness to host the Games.
You see, Hook was the Australian and later Asia Pacific CEO of Deloitte up until mid-2022. Just months before she left the international professional services firm, Deloitte announced a partnership with the International Olympic Committee.
“I am completely independent of Deloitte,” Hook said on Tuesday.
McKenzie was quick to clarify it wasn’t an accusation but a question of perception.
“There is the management of actual conflicts of interest and then there’s concern about perceived conflict of interest and I’m someone that has an exceptional personal experience of that myself, and the difference and the consequences,” she explained.
The exchange followed a rather tense moment between the two over how much Hook was being paid (which Chooks has condensed for sanity’s sake).
McKenzie: “I’m just wanting to know when you took up the position, and congratulations, and what your total remuneration package is?”
Hook: “How is that relevant to-”
McKenzie: “I’m the Senator. I get to ask the questions.”
Hook: “Look, we are having our financial statements audited and, as you know, I’ll be a key management personnel, and all of that will be in our financials.”
McKenzie: “There is no reason why you can’t answer the question.”
Hook: “Can I just ask, are you questioning my capability as a CEO?”
The question was tabled.
DELOITTE’S DELIGHT
Also in Deloitte-Olympics news, Chooks confirmed this week that former Bligh Labor government minister Rachel Nolan was on the Deloitte team responsible for recommending the QLD government ditch its independent Olympics infrastructure co-ordination body and take the planning in-house.
The government paid Deloitte $788,317 for the 10-month process, and the firm’s team included Pradeep Phillip (the Deloitte Access Economics Leader who wrote the report), Damian Garnham, Nolan (who served as Tourism and Sport Minister Finance, Natural Resources and the Arts before Anna Bligh was defeated by Campbell Newman in 2012), and Richard Hallahan.
“This work was won through a competitive tender process,” a Deloitte spokeswoman tells Chooks.
CAT GOT WATCHDOG’S TONGUE
In Queensland, the Crime and Corruption Commission exists to combat major crime and corruption, and keeps an eye on public sector transparency.
Unfortunately, it appears the watchdog doesn’t have the same commitment to transparency itself.
As dedicated readers would remember, in June Chooks revealed that long-time LNP federal MP Warren Entsch organised for his political donor and friend, billionaire Soviet-born property developer Alex Sekler, to jump the queue and receive his Pfizer Covid jab in the Torres Strait.
At the time of the jab in July 2021, Sekler wasn’t eligible to get Pfizer due to his age (65) and appealed for his mate’s help.
“He asked me where he could get it, and I said I heard it is readily available up there,” Entsch told Chooks in June this year. “I made a phone call (to Torres Strait health authorities) and asked them if it was possible if he went up there.”
The MP also instructed his taxpayer-funded electorate office staffer Tamara Srhoj to accompany Sekler on his privately chartered aircraft, to show him how to catch a bus and ferry from Horn Island to Thursday Island to get the jab.
Entsch has vehemently denied doing favours for his mate.
In the wake of revelation being published, on June 19 a Queensland Health spokesman told Chooks: “Queensland Health has referred the matter pertaining to the (Torres and Cape) Health Service to the CCC”.
It’s been two months, so this week, Chooks politely asked the watchdog for an update on the referral and whether the CCC was investigating.
A truly illuminating response was forthcoming 21 hours later.
“I’ve consulted colleagues and the statement below can be attributed to a CCC spokesperson. The CCC declines to comment,” the CCC’s director of corporate communications told Chooks.
NATS: NO TO TREATY
A group of federal Nationals MPs descended on state parliament this week to protest Annastacia Palaszczuk’s renewable energy targets.
But it was Nationals Leader David Littleproud’s comments about his state colleagues’ support of Indigenous treaty laws that caught Chooks attention.
State laws were passed in May to allow the government to negotiate treaty deals with First Nations groups. Most treaty deals will likely include financial settlements worth hundreds of millions of dollars apiece.
David Crisafulli’s decision to back Labor’s laws exposed deep divisions in the Queensland’s Liberal National Party and created uproar among grassroots members.
Asked about it outside state parliament on Tuesday this week, Littleproud said party members did not want treaty laws.
“They don’t support the voice so I hardly think they will support treaty,” he said.
“I can see under no circumstance under which the Nationals federally could get to a position of supporting treaty.
“We don’t believe in treaty.”
REDCLIFFE REDO
Will it be fifth time lucky for perennial LNP candidate Kerri-Anne Dooley?
Chooks hears Dooley will be confirmed as the party’s great hope to defeat Labor Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath at the 2024 October election, in the Brisbane coastal seat of Redcliffe.
In July at the party’s state convention, an Instagram post from Dooley, a nurse educator, reflected on the toll taken by politics.
“Being a part of a political party has been costly,” Dooley said.
“I’ve lost friendships and professional opportunities, political discrimination is sadly as strong as any other, even in our modern day Australia. Anything that is worthwhile costs us something.”
“Running four times as a candidate and failing has taught me what Nelson Mandela learnt, ‘the greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall’.”
D’Ath beat Dooley 56 per cent to 44 per cent after preferences were distributed in 2020, in 2017 it was 55 per cent to 45 per cent, in 2015 the result was 57 per cent to 42 per cent, and at the Redcliffe by-election in 2014, D’Ath won 57 per cent to 43 per cent.
FEED THE CHOOKS
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