Michael McKenna
Queensland Labor banks $157k from CFMEU before suspension
G’day readers, and welcome back to another edition of Feeding the Chooks, your weekly peek behind the curtain of the bruising and often baffling world of Queensland politics.
Mo money mo problems
Queensland Labor have an expensive conundrum – what to do with the $157,000 the CFMEU handed over to be affiliated with the party, just before the union got suspended from the ALP.
The ALP national executive on Thursday voted to extend the July suspension of the construction arm of the CFMEU in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania to the rest of Labor’s branches across Australia.
The price of cosying up to Labor was $157,000 – revealed in a declaration of the party’s accounts for the first half of the year to the Electoral Commission of Queensland, and publicly released this week.
It buys influence in the party, including with votes in preselections for state and federal candidates and delegates at ALP conferences.
Last month, Steven Miles declared Labor wouldn’t accept any donations from the union.
But now there is a big chunk of CFMEU cash sitting in Labor’s coffers that is ready to be used for Miles’ campaign running up to the October 26 election.
And with the Liberal National Party currently raking-in more donations than Labor, every cent is needed.
Both the construction and mining arms of the CFMEU collectively paid the affiliation fee despite splitting from each other awhile back.
After the nationwide suspension on Thursday, ALP National secretary Paul Erikson issued a statement saying the party would not accept any cash from the CFMEU.
“For the duration of the suspension, the construction division of the CFMEU will be excluded from all rights ordinarily afforded to an affiliated union under Labor’s National Constitution and the rules of the ALP state and territory branches,’’ he said.
“The Labor Party will not levy or accept any affiliation fees from any branches of the construction division of the CFMEU for the period of the suspension, including the division’s national office.
“No political donations from these branches or the construction division’s national office will be accepted by the ALP or any of its state and territory branches.”
Chooks contacted Michael Ravbar, the longtime head of the construction division in Queensland, to see if he will ask for a refund.
He didn’t respond.
Ravbar has already set up a fund to raise money for the CFMEU’s legal challenge to the federal legislation forcing the CFMEU into administration.
Labor state secretary Kate Flanders said she couldn’t comment on the affiliation fees, given the ink isn’t yet dry (our words) on the agreement to suspend the union.
Chooks will keep an eye on events.
Just for the record, union affiliation fees poured just over $1.5m into Labor’s coffers this year.
The biggest spender was the United Workers Union ($264,356), the Shop Distributive & Allied Employees Association ($217,867) and the public servant’s Together Union ($194,458).
Ravbar vs. Bullock
Michael Ravbar has never been one to hold his tongue.
The outspoken former boss of the CFMEU – sacked last week when the union was plunged into administration – savaged Steven Miles as a “try-hard” who can’t communicate with voters and Anthony Albanese as having “no strength, no vision” at a union rally on Tuesday.
Leaders of Labor’s Left-faction unions came out in force to join Ravbar protesting Labor’s decision to force the CFMEU’s construction division into administration.
AMWU’s Rohan Webb, the ETU’s Peter Ong and MUA’s Jason Miners all took to the stage in front of the 4000-strong crowd to blast the federal government.
But there was one notable absence from the chorus of angry Left union bosses – the faction’s leader and United Workers Union state secretary Gary Bullock.
Chooks asked Ravbar about Bullock’s absence at the rally, and the spray began.
“He’s not a trade unionist, he’s just drunk on personal benefit of political power,” Ravbar said.
“I hope that when Miles and that lose (the election) … people will just cast him (Bullock) aside and think, what an absolute joke.
“He’s done nothing for the trade union movement. He’s an embarrassing individual, and at the end of the day, let’s see what happens.”
Bullock has been Queensland’s top political powerbroker for the past decade, but as Chooks has previously reported, his powerbase will likely be eroded at the upcoming election with the safest Labor seats held by the Right’s AWU and other Left unions.
Let the battle begin
The Labor and LNP campaign machines are already on war-footing ahead of the unofficial kick off of the election campaign on September 16, three days after parliament rests for the term and a fortnight before the writs are issued.
Both sides have their pollsters, advertising gurus, and digital marketers at the ready, and poured millions into the firms’ coffers before the campaign spending cap period began in April.
Electoral commission disclosures reveal Labor has paid lobbying firm Anacta’s polling arm, Talbot Mills, $439,664.50 for focus groups on what voters are thinking in the first six months of this year.
While Anacta founders Evan Moorhead and David Nelson are banned from lobbying in Queensland during this term of government, and lobbyists are prohibited from playing a “substantial” role in running election campaigns, the lawful engagement of Talbot Mills to do Labor’s qualitative research again highlights a legal quirk.
The last time Chooks raised the issue, Greens MP Michael Berkman said it was a loophole that proved the state’s integrity laws had “more holes than Swiss cheese” and an Anacta spokeswoman insisted Talbot Mills did not do any lobbying.
In the same six month period, Labor spent nearly $100,000 on polling conducted by Campbell White’s Pyxis Polling; White also oversees Newspoll, published by The Australian.
Former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ preferred adman – Darren Moss and his Moss Group – has been paid $179,622.15 in the first half of the year by Labor, after long-time Labor advertising maven Dee Madigan and her Campaign Edge were dumped by the QLD ALP under former Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
Over at LNP headquarters, Freshwater Strategy – director Jonathon Flegg, the former lobbyist son of former Queensland Liberal leader Bruce Flegg – has raked in an enormous $656,133.10 between January and the end of June, for doing all of the party’s polling.
The LNP has spent $818,612.86 on The Campaign Team, which buys and places all of the party’s online ads, and directed nearly $80,000 to Curious Minds, for running small-donor campaigns and digital fundraising.
According to HQ, the LNP does most of its advertising design in-house.
Ali runs a Mile
Ali King may be one of Steven Miles’s most loyal servants, but even she is keeping her distance from the Labor brand as she enters the fight of her political life.
With the third-term government on the nose, King is part of a group of Labor MPs that are leaning on well-resourced unions to run guerrilla campaigns to help their re-election bids.
New campaign spending caps have put the brakes on political parties this election, and Labor and the LNP will be relying on registered third parties to shoulder the burden of funding political advertising and polls.
One of the biggest third-party campaigns is being run by Alex Scott’s Together Union under the banner of the “The Coalition of Working Families”.
Labor MPs have already begun using Scott’s platform for the old call and response tactic – when government MPs pretend to fight for something that has already been approved but yet to be announced.
In an advertising brochure letterboxed to constituents in her marginal seat of Pumicestone (held on 5.27 per cent margin), King calls for “more in 2024”.
“I know the population of Queensland is growing. Many people move here to share in this great lifestyle. But without planning, this growth will put many of the great things about Pumicestone at risk,” she writes.
“That is why the Coalition of Working Families are asking MPs to pledge their support to protect our lifestyles for the future.”
You’d be forgiven for thinking King was an independent MP, given the ad makes no mention of any political party and is devoid of usual Labor red branding.
In tiny print at the bottom of the all-purple brochure, it is declared that the ad has been authorised byScottfrom the “The Coalition of Working Families”.
In the past week the union has rolled out ads for Labor MPs in marginal seats including King, Barron River MP Craig Crawford, Aspley MP Bart Mellish, Cairns MP Michael Healy, Caloundra MP Jason Hunt, Redlands MP Kim Richards and Ipswich West candidate Wendy Bourne.
In identical scripts, the MPs spruik how people in their electorates spend time outdoors fishing, camping and playing sport in a park. Curiously, the footage used in every political ad shows the exact same fishing and camping spots – even though Barron River is a mere 19½-hour drive away from Ipswich down the Bruce Highway.
And who knew there was a surf beach in Ipswich West?
Workplace worries
Steven Miles’ Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Queensland Greens’ headquarters have both shelled out big bucks for consultants to secretly navigate workplace snafus.
Trawling through public records, Chooks discovered Miles’s department paid Big Four consultancy Ernst & Young $28,000 for professional services during the 2023-24 financial year, but when pressed for more details, government spinners would only say the contract was for a “workplace matter”.
Meanwhile, the Greens appear to have been wading through their own internal issues. Electoral commission documents reveal that during the first six months of this year, the Queensland Greens paid MJSP Management $9680 to conduct a “workplace investigation” and $2860 for legal advice to Sean Reidy, a Brisbane barrister who specialises in workplace investigations, terminations, disputes, mediations and discrimination claims.
A Greens spokesman suggests the investigation stemmed from a member complaint, and confirmed the probe did not relate to “any candidate or elected representative”.
“We have a best practice member complaints process, including mandatory reporting. That process requires us to take all complaints seriously and treat them with the utmost priority, including by commissioning confidential independent investigations,” he tells Chooks.
“Getting legal advice on party matters is a normal part of party operations. For example we are currently reviewing our EBA and have sought legal advice as part of that process.
“We also seek legal advice when considering constitutional reforms.”
As always, if you know more, feed the Chooks.
Trout in hot water
The LNP’s far north Queensland campaign has been thrown into disarray after the party’s regional chair was charged with assault and stalking over an alleged neighbourhood brawl.
Former one-term LNP MP for Barron River, Michael Trout, was charged on Wednesday with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm and one count of stalking, over the May altercation in his Holloways Beach neighbourhood.
At the time, the Cairns Post reported that a group of neighbours had gathered to challenge teenagers who were allegedly attempting to steal cars and break into homes in the area.
Trout told the newspaper he’d been hit in the face with a shovel during the incident, which prompted local police to warn residents not to take matters into their own hands.
At the time, the former MP – who has been running the campaigns of state LNP candidates Bree James in Barron River and Yolonde Entsch in Cairns – was quoted as complaining that “our suburb has been terrorised and you can’t do anything”.
The exit of Trout – who didn’t respond to Chooks’ questions – could overshadow Saturday afternoon’s LNP preselection to replace longtime federal MP Warren Entsch in his enormous FNQ seat of Leichhardt.
Party state director Ben Riley will be on hand to oversee proceedings at the Brothers Leagues Club in Cairns (tricky for some party members to make it, when the electorate stretches north to the very top of the Torres Strait).
Entsch is backing local aviation identity Alana McKenna, this year named Cairns Woman of the Year, who has also received endorsements from Deputy Leader of the Opposition Sussan Ley and Entsch staffer, Zac Webster.
The other contenders are engineer Sam Brayshaw, secretary of the Barron River and Cairns LNP Women’s branches Darcy Sanders, and former councillor Jeremy Neal.
Former professional basketballer Matt Smith – who played for the Cairns Taipans – is Labor’s candidate; Leichhardt is one of Anthony Albanese’s top targets at the upcoming federal poll.
Career pollies
Political leadership is all about the origin story.
At a recent press conference, David Crisafulli was at pains to differentiate himself from Steven Miles and the government frontbench who “have had sheltered jobs in the union and sheltered jobs working for the Labor Party”.
“In contrast, I have been a journalist, I have been a farmer, a small-business owner and I have learnt a few things along the way.”
Crisafulli can try all he likes to style himself as a man of the “real world”, but he is also a career politician and creature of the Liberal National Party machine.
After a brief stint as a regional television journalist, Crisafulli took a job as a political media adviser with Senator Ian MacDonald. He made his political debut as the Liberal candidate for Townsville City Council in 2004, aged 24, serving in local government for eight years before jumping to state politics in 2012.
Crisafulli rocketed straight into Campbell Newman’s cabinet after the 2012 election then lost his Townsville-based seat of Mundingburra after one term.
He spent three years in the political wilderness – when he ran training company SET solutions that later collapsed – before moving to the Gold Coast to roll sitting LNP MP Verity Barton for her safe seat of Broadwater.
And Miles is no different, rising through the political ranks through the traditional ALP apprenticeship.
The Premier, who wrote his PhD thesis on union renewal, worked as a policy adviser to former Treasurer Andrew Fraser and was an official at the Queensland Public Sector Union and then-United Voice union.
Before entering state parliament he ran for Labor in the federal seat of Ryan at the 2010 election, but lost.
In 2015 he won back Fraser’s old seat of Mount Coot-Tha from the LNP and was promoted straight to Annastacia Palaszczuk’s frontbench. When his electorate was removed in a 2017 redistribution, Miles’s union overlord Gary Bullock helped him parachute to the safe seat of Murrumba in Brisbane’s northern outskirts.
Trouble in post-political paradise?
Chooks hears that Donna O’Donoghue, the taxpayer-funded executive assistant to Annastacia Palaszczuk for the first year of her parliamentary afterlife, is quitting.
The role is part of the perks given to a Queensland premier who has served five years or longer, and also includes “reasonable” office accommodation, $2000 worth of phone and correspondence expenses, a car and a driver on an “as needs” basis, and home security if the state’s police commissioner decides it’s warranted.
O’Donoghue was a long-time staffer in the premier’s office and the 1998 Labor candidate for the western Queensland seat of Gregory.
But Chooks hears that the once-loyal staffer has told the former premier she is leaving in the next few weeks.
Chooks unsuccessfully tried to contact O’Donoghue about her decision, which has tongues wagging throughout Labor.
From the archives
It would not be a Queensland election campaign without a political leader embarking on the obligatory run/power-walk along the Townsville waterfront in front of a bunch of cameras. Here is a flashback to leaders at the past five elections strutting their stuff along the The Strand.
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