Annastacia Palaszczuk on trade mission to China as LNP members worry about teals on Gold Coast
G’day readers and welcome to the latest edition of Feeding the Chooks, The Australian’s weekly peek behind-the-scenes of politics in Queensland.
Palaszczuk’s Shanghai express
Annastacia Palaszczuk jets out Monday to China for a trade mission that will begin at the Shanghai trade show.
The Queensland Premier, who announced the trip in April, was apparently comforted by the prospect of weekend rain and a “very low chance of a fire weather warning” before she began packing after weeks of devastating fires in the state.
Chooks has been told by her office that she will head one of the biggest-ever delegations assembled from the state, with reps from the university, tourism, business and agriculture sectors going to the show before heading to Beijing.
Also tagging along will be Palaszczuk’s partner Reza Adib, whose attendance, with pen and notebook in hand, at an official Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games meeting last year in Sydney forced a rare apology from the Premier.
Chooks has been told that the surgeon was invited by the city of Shanghai when they asked the Premier to the trade show and that he is “paying his own way”.
No surprise really, especially in light of Anthony Albanese’s partner Jodie Haydon joining the Prime Minister on his recent trip to the United States.
Albanese will also be in China until Wednesday although it’s not clear if he will cross paths with the Queensland Premier.
And while Ms Palaszczuk will be talking business with China, Queensland’s largest trading partner, the Premier’s ministers will be fanning out in pairs across the state.
Maybe a little burnt from when leadership talk erupted during her vacation to Italy, the Premier has ordered her cabinet out to the regions to front community forums.
Peter Beattie created the forums as a way, some suggested at the time, to keep them away from the cabinet table in his absence.
The usual Monday cabinet meeting has been cancelled in Palaszczuk’s absence.
Diary notes
Anyone who reads Annastacia Palaszczuk’s official ministerial diaries knows that it is quite unusual for the Premier to meet with backbench MPs or assistant ministers.
So Chooks was intrigued to see Palaszczuk had seven one-on-one meetings with non-cabinet members of her caucus in the two days after she returned from her Italian vacanza.
Of course it was during her two-week jaunt to the Amalfi coast in early September that speculation about her leadership was running rife across the Labor Party.
So who was called in for a special sit down with the boss upon her return?
From her own Right faction was Jimmy Sullivan, Joan Pease, Corrine McMillan and Michael Healy. From the Left and Old Guard was, Aaron Harper, Shane King and Jess Pugh.
For a bit of context, Palaszczuk met alone with the exact number of non-cabinet members in those two days than she had for the first eight months of the year.
Between January and August she had one-on-ones with Speaker Curtis Pitt as well as Adrian Tantari, Tom Smith, Bart Mellish, Jason Hunt, Bruce Saunders and Barry O’Rourke.
During the leadership hoo-ha, a common complaint from Labor MPs was that Palaszczuk was not communicating with her own team.
And what better way to rekindle the love than to show some holiday snaps from her trip?
Chooks expects diaries for the next few months will be full of teatime with backbenchers.
O Canada
A week after Annastacia Palaszczuk revealed treaties with Indigenous groups would not go ahead in Queensland without LNP support, her Treaty Minister, Leeanne Enoch, flew to Canada.
Canada, which has 70 historic and 26 modern treaties, was used as a blueprint for Queensland’s treaty legislation which passed earlier this year with bipartisan support.
After the Voice referendum was overwhelmingly rejected in Queensland, the LNP yanked its backing for the deals prompting Palaszczuk to walk back Labor’s support.
Enoch’s office said while in Canada she would be “seeking to strengthen knowledge and understanding of Government relationships with First Nations Peoples”. She was also due to deliver the keynote address at a First Nations Leaders gathering in Vancouver on Friday morning (Qld time).
Government spinners say there are no treaty-specific meetings in her diary, but it will likely come up.
A day before jumping on the plane, Enoch met with two of the architects of Queensland’s treaty laws - Mick Gooda and Sallyanne Atkinson - at Parliament House about next steps for treaty.
A 10-member treaty institute - designed to facilitate negotiations between Indigenous groups and the state government - is on track to be set up early next year.
Exactly what the committee will do for the next few years remains a mystery given Palaszczuk’s declaration that treaty deals are three to five years away and won’t go ahead without the LNP’s support.
Chooks also asked Palaszczuk last week why Queensland has a Minister for Treaty given her confirmation that the deals would be for “subsequent governments”
Palaszczuk said: “We have a Minister for Treaty, because the next stage is setting up the Treaty Institute and the truth telling inquiry”.
Restless on the Goldy
LNP groupies on the Gold Coast are getting antsy that the party still hasn’t set a preselection date to pick the replacement for former home affairs minister Karen Andrews.
It has been more than six months since Andrews revealed she would pull the pin on her political career at the next election, leaving the blue-ribbon seat of McPherson up for grabs.
As LNP HQ focuses its attention on locking down candidates for next October’s state election, the teals have begun to take a few steps in their planned march on McPherson.
Climate 200, which financially backs Teal independents, is hosting a (recruitment?) event in the electorate on November 19 titled “Politics done Independently; meet the people who have run and won campaigns!”
Teal MP Sophie Scamps — who ousted Liberal Jason Falinski at the 2022 federal election — will be attending along with Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay and Kooyong campaign manager Ann Capling.
As one LNP member told Chooks, party faithful were “really frustrated” that a preselection date had not been set down for McPherson.
“Now the teals are coming into the fold it seems like we are already behind the eightball, we desperately need a candidate,” they said.
So who is lining up to have a crack? The names circling among LNP insiders are Ben Naday, Leon Rebello and David Stevens.
Harp-ing on
A Townsville rally went off the rails this week when Labor backbencher Aaron Harper mocked crime victims.
Harper, who labelled the group a “rent-a-crowd” commandeered by the LNP, was purportedly chuffed with his performance and claimed to have helped diffuse the situation.
But to the more astute political operatives it was clear the Thuringowa MP had added fuel to the flames and he was rolled out the following day to issue a half-apology.
“I have to question the motive of the LNP members that were there to disrupt and hijack that because perhaps they’re reluctant to actually want to work with government on that committee,” Harper said.
“I’ve had informal conversations with members of the LNP on that and there is reluctance to travel to Townsville.”
Even his apology was inflammatory, prompting a rare rebuke from Independent MP Sandy Bolton.
Bolton, who chairs the parliament’s special youth crime committee, issued a statement calling out Harper’s “misleading comments”.
“I can confirm no committee member has expressed reluctance to travel to Townsville or anywhere else,” Bolton said.
Harper was chosen by Left leader Steven Miles as the faction’s representative on the committee last month (his nomination put a few noses out of joint).
To be fair to Harper, at least he went out to try and speak to the rally. Not since the days of Peter Beattie have we seen a Labor MP willing to front a fiery protest.
Passion for fashion
Is retiring Gregory MP Lachlan Millar ditching Emerald for Milan?
The outback MP, who announced his retirement plans in October, will host a fashion parade at parliament later this month to showcase First Nations fashion brand, Red Ridge the Label.
Millar’s unexpected fashionista role has delighted many in halls of parliament who will be popping their heads into the event the hopes he will take to the catwalk.
Spotted
There’s a new chicken coop at parliament, and three new hens, but the last remaining chook from the first round, the Cluck of the Parliament, has absconded in protest.
Clerk of the Parliament, Neil Laurie, told Chooks that Cluck had been spotted hiding out in the bushes and was still warming up to her new roommates.
The three new chickens will assume the names of their predecessors: Dorothy Dixer, Miss Hensard and Miss Erskinelay.
As Laurie said: “It is not about the individual chook, but the office they hold”.
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