QLD Labor secretary search: blokes need not apply
Queensland Labor’s top blokes are against the rules
There’s trouble at the top of Queensland Labor after the party’s barnstorming federal election result, which doubled the ALP’s representation in the Sunshine State.
As revealed by Chooks in the news pages this week, victorious ALP state secretary Kate Flanders is riding off into the sunset in the wake of Anthony Albanese’s triumph, and her Left faction comrade Ben Driscoll has been long-destined to step into her shoes.
But the changing of the guard is not as smooth as it seems, thanks to the party’s own gender rules.
The Left’s dominance in the party means the state secretary position is theirs, and Driscoll – a campaign organiser at HQ and a former senior adviser for Labor leader Steven Miles as Premier – was the only candidate to put up his hand for the top job this week, ahead of Flanders’ official departure on June 30.
Here’s where it gets tricky. The Right’s assistant state secretary is Zac Beers, who has served in the job since 2019 and was elected for a four-year term at the state conference in 2022, meaning his term is not up until late 2026.
The party’s affirmative action rules effectively dictate that one of these two positions needs to be held by a woman (for the record, section J2.1.2.b).
So what happens? Does Driscoll hold his nerve and order the Right find a woman to replace Beers by November’s state conference?
Or does Beers stay on and insist it’s actually the state secretary job that needs to be filled by a woman, at least until his term is up next year?
Chooks hears a decision of the ALP national executive or state conference is needed to change the rules. Awkward talks will continue until Flanders’ exit at the end of next month to try and work out a way through.
Compared to the Coalition’s on-again-off-again reverse-ferret disaster in the past fortnight, Labor’s HQ leadership snafu looks positively orderly.
But it has prompted some to lament the lack of female talent in the organisational wing of the Right. Cameron Dick’s once powerful faction lost two state parliamentary members earlier this year with the defection of Jen Howard and Corrine McMillan to the Left, so it appears all is not well.
Whoever replaces Flanders has well-worn boots to fill. She’s known for rolling her sleeves up alongside the party’s grassroots members: weekend doorknocking, setting up election booths in the middle of the night, and installing and collecting corflutes at odd hours.
The good news for Labor’s blokes? There’s now so many women in the federal parliamentary wing that none of the sitting fellas have to worry about being rolled on the basis of affirmative action in the near future.
Breathe a sigh of relief, Anthony Chisholm and Shayne Neumann.
Duck and weave on jab
Queensland’s Covid vaccination rates are the lowest in years, and a contagious new strain is spreading.
The state government’s chief health officer Heidi Carroll – backed by AMA Queensland president Nick Yim – on Friday urged Queenslanders to get their free booster jabs, and fast.
But when David Crisafulli stood up in Mackay and was asked what he would say to Queenslanders who weren’t getting vaccinated against the flu and Covid, the Premier fell short of repeating the public health warning from his top medic.
“People should get advice from their healthcare professional, and that’s important,” he told reporters, before rattling off stock lines about ambulance ramping and waiting lists.
It is a stark contrast to the tone of pandemic press conferences held by then-premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and CHO-turned-Queensland governor Jeannette Young as the vaccine rolled out.
Given the way Crisafulli artfully navigated the summer of cyclones and floods that affected most of the state, the sidestep is hardly a surprise.
Then relatively fresh in the role, he was big on personal responsibility and letting Queenslanders make their own decisions.
But Chooks wonders whether the softly, softly approach for natural disasters still applies when the advice is doctor’s orders?
Dark Nats Rise
Queensland LNP Senator Matt Canavan may have been soundly beaten for the Nationals leadership by compatriot David Littleproud, but he still reckons it was the best time he’s had in ages.
“I had more fun in five days running for leader than I had in the five weeks of the most boring election campaign I can remember,” Canavan tells Chooks.
One of the unexpected highlights? The emergence of a mysterious band of online Matt CanaFans (Copyright Chooks 2025), calling themselves the Dark Nats.
Their latest AI-generated clip, shared by Canavan himself with the caption “I am keeping up the fight against this net zero madness”, is a 1.35-minute-long Japanese-anime-style fever dream.
Canavan appears as a buff hi-vis-wearing coal-loving superhero, there’s Barnaby Joyce (looking quite a bit like Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones), and almost inexplicably ex-federal MP George Christensen, all taking on a supervillain, in the form of Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum.
“Solar panels and puppet strings … Our nation needs a hero, to defeat the net zero,” the ear worm of a theme song wails.
There’s sugarcane fields, a whole lot of saluting to Australian flags, sinister-looking wind turbines, and of course, Canavan and Co speaking in very patriotic Japanese.
If you don’t spend a great deal of time in dark corners of the internet with members of the online right, it makes little sense, but Chooks can’t deny the tune is catchy.
When can we expect more of the Dark Nats’ unique take on Australian politics? The Senator reckons his Canafans appear to have temporarily run out of AI credit, but there’s more to come.
Hiring and firing at the EDQ
Eyebrows were raised when one-term LNP federal MP Julian Simmonds was given a plum state government gig by his party mates: chief executive officer of the state’s property development agency, Economic Development Queensland.
A matter of days before, Simmonds had been busy running the coal-funded Australians for Prosperity, which was vigorously campaigning against Labor and the Greens at the federal election and had enthusiastically shilled for an LNP’s victory at the October 26 state poll.
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie explained away Simmonds’ appointment, insisting it was a matter for the Labor-nominated board (which now includes Bleijie’s director-general John Sosso and Under-Treasurer Paul Williams) and that Simmonds was merely acting in the role.
The acting job was not advertised, but the EDQ reassured Chooks at the time it would launch a national recruitment process for a permanent chief executive.
It’s been a month, and Chooks can reveal the search has not started; Bleijie’s spokesman reckons the “permanent CEO recruitment process is currently under consideration by the independent EDQ board”.
At the same time, three senior EDQ executives have been shown the door, with the agency explaining the board had made “some adjustments to EDQ’s leadership structure to streamline its operations and focus on delivering more housing for Queenslanders”.
Curious. The agency has “nil jobs currently advertised”.
Spotted
Recently retired federal Labor MP for Moreton Graham Perrett is back on the tools, er chalk.
Perrett stepped away from politics at the May 3 federal election – handing the reins to former ALP state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell, who won the seat with a two-party preferred swing of seven per cent towards her – but has not stopped for a rest.
Before entering parliament in 2007, Perrett was a high school teacher, solicitor, union official, and government policy adviser. Last week he returned to the classroom as a supply teacher at Corinda State High with a “full day of history, technology and more,” according to the school.
Perrett – who also moonlights as an author – tells Chooks it was a “fun experience after a 28 year gap” but he’s already in a “very different sort of classroom”.
“At the moment I’m in Thailand taking some Myanmar MPs through some committee processes and techniques,” Perrett says. “It is an edifying opportunity to see a democracy that is currently under extreme threat.”
Feed the Chooks
Got a tip?
Frontrunner emerges in race to Queensland’s Government House
Premier David Crisafulli is on the hunt for the state’s next governor to replace pandemic-era chief health officer Jeannette Young, and Chooks hears a retired Lieutenant General is in his sights.
Senator calls for national commission into Libs’ loss
An LNP senator from Peter Dutton’s home state of Queensland has called for a national inquiry to the Liberal Party’s bloodbath election loss, declaring women and under-40s have stopped listening.
G’day readers and welcome to this week’s edition of Feeding the Chooks, your regular insight into the weird, wild, and very occasionally wonderful world of Queensland politics.