Steven Miles’s Labor MPs learn the cost of not showing up to work
The Absentee Eight
When eight Labor MPs didn’t show up for parliament the day after the Liberal National Party delivered their first budget in a decade, the ham-fisted political stunt took out a fair chunk of the Opposition frontbench.
While the ALP claimed the absence was because they had no faith in the government’s ability to be transparent about the document, the boycotting of the first Question Time after the budget appalled some observers.
After all, what else is a parliamentarian supposed to do but engage in parliamentary debate when the house is in session?
Instead, the Absentee Eight took off around the state to give press conferences attacking the government.
Screaming at the cameras, like they were in the middle of an election campaign, seemed like a better idea than parliament to these MPs, who know they can rely on the public purse and not their own pocket to pursue cheap politics.
Chooks couldn’t help but wonder: how much did the stunt cost taxpayers? We can reveal it was at least $4068.
Tourism spokesman Michael Healy ducked home to Cairns on Tuesday evening for a press conference on Wednesday morning at the cost of $1400 for return flights.
Bundaberg MP Tom Smith also slept in his own bed, forcing taxpayers to spent $217 for his round trip.
Ipswich-based energy spokesman Lance McCallum stayed the night in Mackay for $136, with return flights costing $535.
But his jaunt was cheaper than Greenslopes MP Joe Kelly’s Townsville trip, which carried a $1075 price tag for a return plane ticket to north Queensland, plus a $122 hotel stay.
Southeast Queensland Labor frontbenchers Leanne Linard, Bart Mellish and Meaghan Scanlon all made their own way to their respective media opportunities in Toowoomba, the Sunshine Coast, and the Gold Coast.
Opposition leader Steven Miles stood by the regional blitz, which was designed to capture the attention of local media before government ministers could be sent out on their own budget-spruiking missions.
In that sense, it worked, with the MPs’ appearances praised by the regional media outlets.
A Labor spokesman stressed to Chooks that all the funds came out of capped travel budgets.
But let’s not forget the incredible double standard of Labor being M.I. A, after calling out former Greens MP Amy MacMahon in the last term of parliament, for walking her dog instead of showing up to a late sitting.
In the words of Labor MP Nikki Boyd at the time: “Solid commitment from you”.
Crisafulli failed to disclose $200k insolvent trading settlement
David Crisafulli failed to disclose to the parliament a $200,000 legal settlement he made to liquidators to avoid being sued for insolvent trading, the powerful ethics committee has found.
In a long-awaited report, the bipartisan committee – chaired by Crisafulli’s LNP ally on the Gold Coast “Mermaid” Ray Stevens – found the Premier didn’t commit contempt but was “careless” in fulfilling his obligations as an MP.
While Crisafulli is declaring he’s been “cleared” and the matter is done and dusted, Labor’s Cameron Dick is using the same report to declare the Premier “cannot be trusted”.
This imbroglio has a lengthy history.
The potted version is that when Crisafulli lost his north Queensland seat of Mundingburra at the 2015 election, he found work in the private sector, becoming sole director and chief executive officer of an already financially troubled company called Southern Edge Training.
Crisafulli ran the company – which relied on millions of dollars in federal and state taxpayer-funded grants – for just four months before bailing out, shortly before it collapsed.
An unredacted liquidators’ report by PwC from late 2019 was released in April, and revealed Crisafulli agreed to pay $200,000 in compensation for alleged insolvent trading to avoid being taken to court by the liquidators.
The settlement was made “without admission of liability” by Crisafulli and the subsequent payments – $80,000 and two lots of $60,000 in 2020 and 2021 when he was an Opposition frontbencher – were never disclosed to the parliament.
On the eve of last year’s election, Labor referred the matter to the ethics committee, which finally reported on Friday morning.
“The committee … determined the Premier had a liability that required disclosure from September 2019 when the Deed of Settlement was signed until July 2021 when the last payment was made,” the report says.
And later, the committee says while there was not enough evidence to say Crisafulli “knowingly” did not disclose the liability, but: “The committee is of the view that the Premier was however, careless in the discharge of his obligations as a member by not including the liability on the register of interests”.
Chooks notes there’s a toweringly high bar to prove an MP is guilty of contempt for failing to declare. The precedents are both MPs who’ve been to jail: Labor’s Gordon Nuttall and the LNP’s Scott Driscoll (more on the latter, later).
The committee recommended that the parliament take no further action.
There are still unanswered questions. Where did Crisafulli find the $200,000 to pay the liquidators?
And if the company did not trade while insolvent while he was a director – as Crisafulli has always insisted – why did the liquidators issue him with an insolvent trading claim?
Just fine on forfeitures
When Treasurer David Janetzki delivered his first budget on Tuesday, it became a family affair for the Toowoomba MP.
Not only did his opera singer wife Melinda and their three children make the 130km trip along the Warrego Highway to parliament, so too did his parents, former dairy farmers Denis and Leone, who all watched on from the public gallery.
Chooks prodded Janetzki for some behind-the-scenes family snaps, and he shared a picture of him embracing his father after delivering his first budget speech.
“My folks laughed that budget day at parliament was a long way from milking 90 cows on a freezing Darling Downs morning,” Janetzki tells Chooks.
Earlier that day, the Treasurer’s rapid recall of the numbers in the fine print of the budget papers took some onlookers in the lockup by surprise – but not his closest advisers or Treasury policy wonks.
Responding to Nine reporter Tim Arvier’s question about why the amount of money raked into government coffers from fines and forfeitures stagnates from 2026-27 to 2028-29, Janetzki did not miss a beat, quoting an exact figure (from table 3.6, on page 69 of budget paper 2) from memory.
“Well, I think in (20) 25-26 fines is $850m,” Janetzki said – correctly.
Chooks hears Janetzki has a freakish memory for numbers and has spent weeks learning large swathes of the budget papers practically by heart.
For the record, the budget papers show that in 2023-24, the actual revenue from fines – for offences like speeding, seatbelts, mobile phones and red lights – was $763m, jumped up to $772m in 2024-25 and then is forecast to hit the Treasurer’s quoted $850m in 2025-26. But for the next three years, the needle barely moves ($959m in 2026-27, and then $960m in both 2027-28 and 2028-29), despite the increase in both the indexation of the fines and the state’s population).
When pressed again on whether he was underestimating how much the government could reap from speeding motorists, Janetzki shot back: “I hope I am fully estimating the lawful conduct of the Queensland people.”
Driscoll’s dubious return
One-time LNP MP and jailed fraudster Scott Driscoll (as aforementioned) has made a return to Queensland parliament.
Chooks’ spies directed us to a series of social media posts and selfies of the disgraced former Redcliffe MP and a paramour, seemingly equipped with an all-access pass that even had the pair posing on the floor of parliament. (He appears to have deleted the posts, but don’t worry, Chooks has screenshots).
Baffling, given Driscoll was found guilty of 42 counts of contempt of the parliament and fined $90,000.
The guy has always a lot of a front, although he appears to have slimmed down since doing 20 months of a six-year jail term after pleading guilty in 2016 to 15 charges of fraud, soliciting secret commissions, and falsifying records.
It partly related to him running a lobby group for retailers out of his electorate office.
But now it seems Driscoll has had an ache for his short-lived glory days as a state MP, and wanted to show off to his friend the halls of power in which he once walked.
Driscoll’s social media posts revealed him and his companion having dinner in the parliamentary dining room, which is open to the public, on non-sitting weeks. But the meal ticket doesn’t entitle regular patrons to go elsewhere in the building. The posts then showed the couple in the MP-only library and in the parliamentary chamber.
Chooks hears Driscoll does not have a former members’ pass and his access-all-areas tour will be probed by the parliament.
Spotted
Someone forgot to put their phone on silent in parliament this week.
A call interjected the final moments of the premier’s ministerial statement on Wednesday, and all eyes turned to the red-faced first-term LNP MP for Mulgrave, Terry James.
Awkward.
Maybe it was someone ringing to give the far north Queensland MP a belated birthday message? (He turned 69 on Monday.)
No, James tells Chooks. It was his electorate officer who saw he was active online and gave him a buzz. He thought he’d put his phone on silent, and when it rang – loudly – James panicked and threw it on the floor of the parliamentary chamber as he desperately tried to decline the call.
We’ve all been there.
It’s a rule in the LNP party room that if an MP misses a vote, they get slugged with a financial penalty.
But we couldn’t get to the bottom of what happens in the event of a rogue ringer. Perhaps a case of beer could smooth things over?
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G’day readers and welcome to this week’s Feeding the Chooks, your regular insight into the fascinating world of Queensland politics.