Prime Minister Anthony Albanese dashes from Canberra for Billy Bragg’s Brisbane show
Did Anthony Albanese commandeer the prime ministerial jet to catch working class troubadour Billy Bragg in Brisbane on Thursday night?
G’day readers, and welcome to the latest edition of Feeding the Chooks, your weekly peek behind the scenes of Queensland politics and business.
ALBO’S NOT-SO-HUMBLE BRAGG
Did Anthony Albanese commandeer the prime ministerial jet to catch his mate, working class troubadour Billy Bragg in Brisbane on Thursday night?
The British singer-songwriter was playing at the Tivoli, in inner Brisbane, for the second of three concerts in the River City.
The gig was a Who’s Who of Queensland Labor, with deputy premier Steven Miles, Transport minister Mark Bailey, Federal MP Graham Perrett and a bunch of union officials among the throng.
But it was the arrival of the Prime Minister fresh from the day’s parliamentary sitting in Canberra, just before Bragg took the stage at 8pm, that had the true believers buzzing.
Was great to catch up with @billybragg in Sydney this week to chat about politics, penalty rates and @RSDAustraliapic.twitter.com/YyLvvdoawk
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) April 13, 2017
Now, even with the advantage of daylight saving in the ACT, it was quite a feat for the PM to make “The Tiv” before Bragg began his concert covering “albums 1,2,3’’.
His office has yet to respond to questions about how Albanese got there in time.
Perrett, who will be going along again tonight, said he managed to make the concert thanks to Qantas but he didn’t know how the PM flew.
Spies says a Commonwealth plane touched down at Brisbane airport around 5pm on Thursday afternoon and left at 9am this morning.
Albanese did a press conference in Brisbane on Friday morning at Trevor St Baker’s Tritium, one of the world’s largest electric vehicle fast-charging companies. It was a return visit for Albanese who has been there at least twice before, in 2021 and 2022.
MINERS POLLING STATE
Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick may be raking in billions in extra cash from coal royalty hikes, but the mining industry is banking on it delivering a political cost to Queensland Labor at next year’s state election.
The Queensland Resources Council has been spending big on its TV advertising campaign – which looks like one of those government public awareness ads that helps put you to sleep – and a letterbox drop across Labor’s regional seats.
Chooks has been told by several Labor and industry insiders that the QRC has also engaged pollster JWS Research to gauge public reaction to the super-profit royalty hikes and the campaign being waged against them.
Polling had been conducted across the state before the campaign began and, in the past couple of weeks, across seats in and around Mackay, Rockhampton and Townsville to see if the miners are getting any cut-through.
The QRC won’t share the results but several industry insiders say there is “growing awareness to the hikes and a shift in sentiment” that could spell trouble for Labor MPs.
Of course, without having seen the polling itself that could be spin and recent history shows polls can be wrong.
Dick has been a disaster in selling the hikes, estimated to reap around $3bn this year from the introduction of three new royalty rates on current record coal prices – 20 per cent for prices above $175 a tonne, 30 per cent for above $225 a tonne and 40 per cent for above $300 a tonne.
But with the campaign only in its “first phase,” Labor could be facing problems with the miners already blaming closures and the abandonment of projects on the royalties.
And worryingly for Labor, our sources tells us that JWS Research is also conducting “general political polling” that could give the LNP – which, by the way, supported legislation for the hikes – an insight into the government’s weak spots.
RENNICK’S REPLACEMENT?
Another name has emerged in the contest for LNP Senator Gerard Rennick’s third spot on the Senate ticket: current LNP treasurer Stuart Fraser.
As Chooks has reported, there’s expected to be an almighty bunfight to unseat sitting senator Rennick - a controversial figure whose anti-vax views are seen as appealing to voters flirting with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation - when the party’s state council votes on preselection on July 7.
Party insiders reckon there’ll be a Melbourne Cup field of contenders for Rennick’s spot, with Lib staffer-turned-lobbyist Nelson Savanh, Toowoomba councillor Rebecca Vonhoff, and LNP women’s committee head Melina Morgan’s names all being circulated.
Chooks has heard from a number of sources that Fraser, who temporarily quit as Treasurer during the 2020 snafu over former leader Deb Frecklington, is sounding out support for a run at Rennick’s role.
The man himself told Chooks that the LNP constitution did not allow members to comment on preselection matters.
Watch this space.
LABOR ON A BUDGET?
When Annastacia Palaszczuk banned her ministers from going to cash-for-access Labor fundraisers last year, and legislated to introduce strict donation caps, the Premier boasted she was taking “big money out of the Queensland political process”.
As Chooks reported last week, that hasn’t quite happened, with the LNP launching its new “Solutions Queensland” cash-for-access corporate schmoozing program.
And it seems federal Labor’s Queensland MPs also have no such qualms about being used as pawns to top up the party’s coffers.
On federal budget night, for instance, the Federal Labor Business Forum (FLBF) is selling big-money donors the opportunity to attend one of two dinners. The top tier event - for the low, low price of $5000/person - is the federal budget dinner with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his ministry, hosted by Senator Penny Wong and with the vote of thanks being delivered by Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles. It’ll be an “intimate event” with the guest-list to be smaller than previous years, and will start with drinks and canapes, followed by a screening of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ budget speech, and then a sit-down dinner with the ministry.
Perhaps the shortened guest list for the main event is why the FLBF is also spruiking a second-tier “Standing Networking Dinner Reception” at the same time on the same night for the bargain basement price of $1500/pop.
At that event, the promoters promise donors they’ll get to rub shoulders with “all of our Labor MPs.” The MC is Industry Minister Ed Husic, and Albanese and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher will speak in person.
Chooks wonders whether Palaszczuk will be urging her federal Labor colleagues to take the “big money” out of politics, as she purports to have done in Queensland?
We think not.
KAISER CRACKS IT
Mike Kaiser has had enough.
The man most likely to become Queensland’s most powerful public servant has hit back at the LNP for dragging his chequered history through parliament this week.
Kaiser resigned as Labor MP for Woodridge in the Beattie government in 2001 when he admitted to the Shepherdson Inquiry that in 1986, as a 22-year-old, he signed an electoral enrolment form for an address in Brisbane’s Coorparoo, even though he never lived there.
The inquiry did not recommend that charges be laid.
Since then Kaiser has rebuilt his career, and is now the director-general of Deputy Premier Steven Miles’ State Development department and is the temporary Coordinator-General.
During Question Time this week, the LNP’s integrity spokeswoman Fiona Simpson asked Annastacia Palaszczuk about Kaiser, describing him as a “self-confessed electoral rorter and former Labor MP” who the Palaszczuk government “has welcomed and repeatedly promoted”.
“Can the Premier confirm media reports concerning the appointment of Mike Kaiser as the director-general of her department?”
Kaiser, who also served as ALP state secretary, chief of staff to Labor Premiers Anna Bligh and Morris Iemma, and was a partner at KPMG, blew up on LinkedIn on Friday morning.
“Folks, I refuse to be cowered (sic) by my history,” Kaiser said.
“I did a stupid thing when I was 22. At the time it was punishable by a $50 fine. But 15 years later in 2000 I took accountability and lost my career because of it. I worked hard to rebuild, working for myself, as an advisor to two premiers and in the private sector. Now, 38 years later, I am privileged to serve the people of Queensland in a role I won on merit. Some will clearly never let it go. But my career has been richer for it.”
“And I know I grow in strength by owning it every time it comes up, as it did again in parliament this week.”
RUSSO READS
After the drama of Question Time dies down, Queensland parliament can become a pretty boring place.
Labor backbencher Peter Russo, MP for the southern Brisbane seat of Toohey, appears to agree. Chooks spotted Russo nose-deep in a book during his rostered time in the parliamentary chamber this week.
His novel of choice, Honeybee, is by Australian author Craig Silvey and its narrator and protagonist is transgender.
Russo may be able to claim reading falls under his official duties, as the Legal Affairs committee he chairs recently examined proposed laws to make it easier for people to change sex on their birth certificates.
According to one review, Honeybee is “a heartbreaking, life-affirming novel that throws us headlong into a world of petty thefts, extortion plots, botched bank robberies, daring dog rescues and one spectacular drag show”.
Sounds pretty similar to Queensland politics.
Chooks asked Russo for a book review, and wondered whether he had any other literary recommendations.
“It’s a great book, very insightful into a difficult social issue,” Russo says.
“Well written and inspiring. Sad in some parts, uplifting in others. I encourage anyone wanting to understand the issue (to read it).
“I’m currently trying to make my way through Hemingway’s writings which is heavy going. I love Trent Dalton novels which are also inspiring.”
LEGAL MOVES
Land Court president Fleur Kingham has been appointed as the new head of the state’s Law Reform Commission.
She replaces Justice Peter Applegarth, who drafted the state’s landmark voluntary assisted dying laws in 2021.
Kingham sparked controversy when she handed down a decision late last year blocking Clive Palmer from building a massive Galilee Basin mine because the burning of its coal internationally would worsen global climate change and limit the human rights of Indigenous people and Queensland children.
It was the first time a Queensland judge has recommended rejecting a mine based on the climate impacts of overseas-burnt coal, a precedent conservationists have said will make it “almost impossible” for any new thermal coal mines to be built in the state.
Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman says the highly regarded Kingham is currently a part-time member of the law reform commission, has had a “distinguished career in the judiciary” and the “breadth and depth of experience make her an ideal candidate for chair”.
Kingham also happens to be the wife ofDavid Barbagallo, who was Annastacia Palaszczuk’s chief of staff and had served as Wayne Goss’s principal private secretary.
SPOTTED
Name recognition is everything in politics but that is a lesson Coomera MP Michael Crandon is yet to learn.
Crandon’s car was spotted in the parliamentary parking lot this week with a pretty obvious spelling mistake splashed across the driver’s side.
On first mention he managed to spell his name correctly but the link to his Facebook page reads “Micheal”.
FEED THE CHOOKS
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