Seeds of new country party on Queensland’s political landscape
G’day readers and welcome to the latest edition of Feeding the Chooks, your weekly insight into what’s really going on in Queensland politics.
Bringing back the Qld Nats
Is Queensland about to have a new country party on the political landscape?
As opposition leader David Crisafulli charges to a likely win at the October 26 state election, according to the polls, a group of angry farmers and landholders disgruntled with the Liberal National Party’s direction are organising to form a rival conservative outfit in the regions.
Touted as the “New Country Party”, they are rallying to collect the required 500 signatories to register as a political party and stand against LNP MPs in seven seats.
A Facebook page called “Bring back the Qld Nats” has been created by Biloela-based businessman and farmer Terry Wilkie and boasts that meetings have already been held to form the party and write its constitution ahead of an imminent registration with the Electoral Commission of Queensland.
High-level LNP spies have told Chooks that some LNP members, one of whom is purportedly an office holder, have already quit the party and are involved in birthing the new political entity.
Wilkie told Chooks over the weekend that some LNP members have been at meetings but that he in unaware of any quitting to join his fledgling grassroots party.
“There are a lot of people out here and across the regions who believe we need a stronger representation,” he said.
“We are based around groups that have been meeting about this renewables push, the wind turbines and the rollout of transmission lines across our land.
“The LNP have signed up to Labor’s emissions targets and they haven’t told anyone about their policies in regards to use of the land.
“We did a poll in our area and there is only 7 per cent support for renewables.
“We will easily get the 500 signatures to register as a party and then go from there.”
Who is running the show?
It is 99 days until Queensland’s state election and Labor still hasn’t figured out a target seat campaign.
The party’s powerful admin committee has, however, finally set up its official campaign committee, locked in a CHQ location (war room) in Milton and hired Sasha Marin as its campaign field director.
And it’s time to get cracking.
YouGov polling, published in The Courier-Mail this week, has the LNP miles ahead, 57-43 per cent on the two-party vote, which would translate to a 24-seat loss for Steven Miles if the 10.2 per cent swing against Labor was uniform across the state at the election.
But the ALP’s own polling paints a rosier picture, suggesting the 2PP is more like 52-48.
One senior Labor source tells Chooks internal party research suggests the shift away from Labor was not uniform and there was a much wider variation of swings in the regions.
That is not unusual, at the last election Labor suffered an 8.8 per cent swing against it in Warrego and an 11.1 per cent swing towards it in Hervey Bay.
So who is the brains behind Labor’s challenging bid to secure a fourth term?
State secretary Kate Flanders is leading the central campaign committee alongside her assistant state secretary Zac Beers and party president John Battams.
Senator Anthony Chisholm – the architect of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s 2015 win – is one of six elected reps in the group, along with Senator Nita Green, state ministers Grace Grace and Meaghan Scanlon, veteran MP Stirling Hinchliffe and Brisbane City councillor Jared Cassidy.
Of the wannabe politicians there is Edwina Andrew (federal candidate for Herbert), Bisma Asif (state candidate for Sandgate) and Corinne Mulholland (Star casino lobbyist and presumptive senate candidate).
One of Miles’s policy advisers, Ben Driscoll (who is also secretary of the Left), is joined by other political staffers Rachel Bailey (works for Mount Ommaney MP Jess Pugh) and Jane Webster (works for federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt).
From the unions there is Joey Kaiser (Australian Workers Union), Josh Millroy (Transport Workers Union), Angus Haigh (Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and Young Labor president), Jean Cotterell (Together Union), Brianna Bailey (United Workers Union).
Chooks would also like to note that Together, UWU and AWU have all registered as third-party donors, allowing them to each spend up to $1m on the campaign statewide.
The LNP has had its own campaign committee up-and-running throughout this term of government.
It includes leader David Crisafulli, his chief of staff Richard Ferrett, and deputy Jarrod Bleijie, federal senators James McGrath and Susan McDonald, state director Ben Riley and his deputy Michael Negerevich, party president Lawrence Springborg, and VPs Doug Hawkes and Josh Auld, policy chair Sue Quinn and former state director Lincoln Folo (now federal director of the Nationals).
Go time
Jumping over to the federal political arena where talk of an early election is as rife as ever.
Anthony Albanese flew back to the sunshine state this week to announce another round of candidates (Edwina Andrew in Herbert and Matt Smith in Leichhardt) and the party finalised another round of preselections on Wednesday night.
Renée Coffey – a close childhood friend of Jessica Rudd – has been picked as the candidate in Kevin Rudd’s old seat off Griffith which Labor is desperate to take back off one-term Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather.
A member of the Old Guard, Coffey beat out the Left’s candidate, Katie Havelberg.
In the central Queensland seat of Capricornia – held by Nationals MP Michelle Landry on a margin of 6.59 per cent – Brisbane-based lawyer Emily Mawson was chosen over Rockhampton psychologist Helen Madell.
Chooks hears there are a few in the party miffed that a “blow-in” from the capital beat Madell.
And finally in Longman, nestled between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, the Left are overjoyed they have taken the seat back from the Right, with their candidate (and Labor HQ staffer) Rhiannyn Douglas triumphing over the Right’s Rebecca Fanning.
Fanning falters
Speaking of the Right’s Rebecca Fanning, you can’t accuse the former chief of staff of Mines Minister Scott Stewart of not throwing everything into her ultimately doomed attempt at securing preselection in Longman for a second time.
Caboolture-based Fanning quit her job in Stewart’s office, had been privately paying for Facebook ads promoting herself on the social media site, and – Chooks has been told – even went to a private campaign strategy firm for advice. Chooks wonders how ALP HQ – where successful preselection candidate, the Left’s Rhiannyn Douglas, works as an organiser – feels about Fanning engaging Stephen Donnelly’s Dunn Street, which specialises in grassroots Labor campaigning.
Fanning politely declined to comment, but Chooks understands the Dunn Street training was focused on getting ready for the general election, whenever PM Anthony Albanese chooses to call it.
The Left faction is celebrating Douglas’s victory, and one source told Chooks: “The result in Longman is a return to normalcy for the dominant Left faction and a rejection of Ms Fanning by branch members who weren’t convinced that spending thousands of dollars on outside consulting was going to make her a better candidate this time around”.
Party time
The central Queensland seaside town of Yeppoon was pumping on Thursday night as pollies and industry VIPs jetted in for a shindig to celebrate Nationals Senator Matt Canavan’s 10 years in office.
A vocal supporter of coal, Canavan was elected to the senate at the 2013 election and served as resources minister in the Turnbull and Morrison governments.
Veteran shock jock Alan Jones and former ALP powerbroker Graham Richardson made the journey north for the celebratory shindig, held at The Paddock, along with plenty of reps from the mining industry, colleagues, former staff and local business leaders.
Canavan tells Chooks his decade in the senate had been the “honour of (his) professional career”.
Mining gold
The mining union is spending big bucks to get former Isaac Shire mayor Anne Baker elected in October.
Baker – who served as mayor of one of the country’s largest coal mining regions for 12 years – is Labor’s candidate chosen to contest the central Queensland seat of Burdekin.
An inspection of donation records reveals the Mining and Energy Union has funnelled $82,350 into Baker’s campaign this month to help her win the LNP-held seat (Dale Last, 7 per cent).
Of the haul, $25,000 has been donated for “operational costs” and $40,350 is for “non-electoral expenditure”.
Non-electoral expenditure can be used to employ campaign staff and pay for “factual advertising”. It does not fall under election spending caps and cannot be used for polling or on political flyers, billboards, brochures, signs, or how-to-vote cards.
Grate staffer
Chooks has discovered Brisbane rock royalty Patience Hodgson, the lead singer of indie darlings The Grates (who disbanded in 2020), is now employed in the Griffith electorate office of federal Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather.
Chandler-Mather tells Chooks that Hodgson – arguably the nation’s most energetic frontwoman – is an organiser who runs “all our free meal programs, including three weekly school breakfasts, two weekly dinners, and another two free BBQs a month”. And who pays for all that food?
Chandler-Mather gives up about $27,000 of his annual salary, which goes to funding the free food program, while the $33,000 electorate allowance that goes to all federal MPs is spent on “more standard electorate stuff” like grants to local schools to run their fetes.
As at July 1, the base salary for an MP is $233,660, plus super.
Behind the scenes
Anthony Albanese just can’t stay away from Queensland this month. The PM has been in the sunshine state six of the last nine days, in two separate trips to announce a swag of federal Labor candidates. Take a look at Feeding the Chooks’ behind the scenes video of Albanese and Brisbane candidate Madonna Jarrett’s visit to a local childcare centre on Wednesday, just hours before the State of Origin decider (the less said about that, the better).
Spotted
Mainland Australia’s most senior governing Liberal, Brisbane Lord-Mayor Adrian Schrinner, was seen out after dark this week, celebrating the opening of Naldham House in the CBD, the restored heritage building that once housed the Polo Club.
Schrinner decided it wasn’t too soon to make a Trump assassination joke (noting that at least politicians could speak in public here without being shot at), considered tickling the ivories of the Raffles-inspired venue’s grand piano, and quipped that the new three-storey, bistro-bar-restaurant operation would at least give locals “somewhere to go after 9pm”.
Feed the Chooks
Got a tip?
elkss@theaustralian.com.au
lynchl@theaustralian.com.au
mckennam@theaustralian.com.au
More Coverage
Moving and shaking in the Tower of Power
Is David Crisafulli readying to break his first election promise if, as expected, he wins the October 26 election?
Crisafulli: Not a conviction politician on abortion
LNP leader David Crisafulli calls himself a conviction politician. So why can’t he tell Queenslanders what he believes about abortion?