LNP on track to win next Queensland election as Annastacia Palaszczuk’s popularity dives
G’day readers and welcome to the latest edition of Feeding the Chooks, your insiders’ guide to the intrigue, insanity and inanity of Queensland politics. Reporting by Michael McKenna, Sarah Elks, Lydia Lynch and Mackenzie Scott.
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Palaszczuk’s poll plight
Annastacia Palaszczuk’s magic with Queensland voters seems to have vanished before her eyes.
The Labor premier – who single-handedly won three state elections on the back of her personal popularity (and reminding voters of the one-term experiment with Campbell Newman) – is recording her worst poll numbers since taking power in 2015.
A YouGov poll, commissioned by The Courier Mail, shows Labor is now on track to lose government when it faces voters in October next year.
And at the heart of Labor’s woes is the steady decline of the premier’s standing as “preferred premier”.
On the eve of the 2020 election, when she increased Labor’s majority, 48 per cent of voters put Palaszczuk as their preferred premier.
But after the integrity scandals of last year – led by The Australian’s reporting of the “Stepanov” affair, Labor’s close links with lobbyists, and questions about the premier’s love of the red carpet – her popularity has sunk.
Now, only 31 per cent of voters rate Palaszczuk as preferred premier – which, ominously, is worse than what both Anna Bligh and Campbell Newman garnered before they were ousted.
Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli is still behind – with 29 per cent of voters rating him as preferred premier – and 40 per cent of voters are uncommitted. The LNP must win an extra 13 electorates in the 93-seat parliament to secure majority government.
ALP insiders say the Opposition leader’s prosecution of youth crime, health and economic issues has helped to stoke an “it’s time” sentiment among voters, particularly in the state’s volatile regions.
Labor’s primary vote has sunk to 33 per cent, from its 2020 election day high of 39 per cent, while the LNP’s primary has risen to 39 per cent from the 35.9 per cent it received at the poll.
On a two-party preferred basis, YouGov pollsters have the LNP on 51 per cent and Labor on 49 per cent.
It is the most explosive poll since Palaszczuk won the boilover 2015 election and a lot can happen between now and election day.
And could that involve a leadership change?
The poll results have insiders already talking; the more considered, more informed are saying the premier ain’t going anywhere – for the time being.
But if things don’t improve by next year, Palaszczuk may jump and then the question is who takes the helm: deputy premier Stephen Miles, treasurer Cameron Dick or Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman.
But could any of those three realistically pull a come-from-behind election victory out of the hat?
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An eggcelent idea?
It’s that time in the political cycle: when Queensland country folk start talking about unscrambling an egg.
In the years since the 2008 merger of the conservative forces in Queensland – to form the Liberal National Party – there’ve been persistent rumblings about whether the grand experiment should be reversed.
As The Australian has been reporting, there’s some serious soul-searching going on in the ranks of the Liberal Party nationwide. And even though the LNP in Queensland is the hope of the side for Opposition leader Peter Dutton – where the LNP holds 21 of 30 seats, one-third of the Coalition’s roster in the House – the locals are restless.
Chooks was on the blower to first-term federal LNP MP for Flynn Colin Boyce – a former LNP state MP and an old Nat – on Friday morning, who reckons if the LNP can’t win the October 2024 state election, and the conservatives can’t defeat Anthony Albanese federally at the next poll, then “all bets are off”.
“If the LNP in Queensland can’t win government in Queensland at the next election, then all bets are off,” Boyce says.
“If the LNP, as I say, can’t manage to put away the current Albanese federal government, then I think there will be lots of people asking a lot of questions.”
Boyce, who replaced LNP MP Ken O’Dowd in the central Queensland electorate at last year’s federal election, acknowledged that the process of demerging would be difficult.
“That’s obviously the question: how do you unscramble the egg?” he mused.
“But there will be discussions in that space. Where that goes and where that ends up, is a grey area. It’ll cause a great debate in conservative politics.”
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Andrews exits
Scott Morrison’s Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews (well, the Home Affairs Minister who wasn’t Scott Morrison) pulled the pin on her political career this week, shocking many when she revealed she wouldn’t be recontesting the blue-ribbon LNP seat of McPherson, on the Gold Coast.
Keen watchers of Queensland politics will remember one Peter Dutton – then a federal Opposition frontbencher and MP for the seat of Dickson, in Brisbane’s north – lost a preselection battle for McPherson in 2009, to the local, Andrews.
As tempting as it might be for Dutton to again attempt to parachute south from marginal Dickson to safe McPherson, Chooks reckons the Opposition leader can only dream.
So who is in line to replace Andrews as LNP candidate at the next federal election?
Announcing her retirement on the Gold Coast this week, Andrews made a point of stating she hoped her successor was “local through and through”.
In LNP circles, that remark has been interpreted as an endorsement of her young branch chair, Ben Naday, a lawyer, rural fire brigade officer, and Volunteering Gold Coast board member.
Also touted is King & Wood Mallesons solicitor Leon Rebello, chair of the Burleigh state electoral council, who moved to the Gold Coast from Canberra after working for then Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
Rebello is said to have recruited a lot of new members to the party recently; only people who have been members for more than 12 months can vote in LNP preselections.
Chooks heard some scuttlebutt that state LNP MP for Currumbin Laura Gerber might also throw her hat in the ring, but Gerber definitively shot that down.
“I’m fully committed to representing my community of Currumbin, and delivering Queenslanders the strong LNP government they deserve in October next year,” Gerber told Chooks.
There’s also talk that former LNP Senator Amanda Stoker is “sniffing around the Gold Coast” for a seat, and Stoker enigmatically told Chooks, “no comment from me for now”. Hmmm.
Let the battle begin.
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Left right out
As Chooks revealed last week, two Queensland Labor bloke MPs will have to quit and make way for women candidates before next year’s state election, to meet the ALP’s strict gender quota rules.
Well, didn’t that news get feathers flying among the male members of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s political flock?
As of last Friday, Mundingburra’s pub-enthusiast Les Walker (Right faction) reckoned he hadn’t thought about his long-range future because he’s “way too busy doing (his) job,” while Transport Minister Mark Bailey (Left) and “Call me Sir” MP Jim Madden (Left) didn’t respond.
Since then, Bailey told his Facebook followers that he “yes, absolutely!” will be running for Miller in 2024.
And after a torrid week of allegations, Madden fell on his sword in parliament on Tuesday, revealing he wouldn’t be standing at the next election. But for health reasons, definitely not because of the allegations or the political pain he may or may not be causing the Premier.
With Madden’s departure, senior Left faction figures reckon their Affirmative Action duty is done, so long as the party preselects a woman to run in Madden’s seat of Ipswich West. There’s a certain degree of gloating among members of the Left at this, given Madden defected from the Right in 2020.
The question remains: which bloke from Palaszczuk’s Right faction will be forced out?
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Greens solve housing crisis
The Queensland Greens have put forward another idea to solve the state’s persistent housing crisis: unit developers can simply “gift” the government a quarter of all new stock. Simple!
After calls for two-year rental freezes, a levy on vacant properties, and caps failed to gain traction, the minor party’s next option has been laid out in the Greens’ Inclusionary Zoning private member’s bill, which borrows from the European ideal of mandatory inclusionary zoning.
Proposed at a time when building approvals have slumped and projects are stalling under the pressure of construction costs, developers of multi-residential projects must feature 25 per cent public housing with the same standard of fit-out throughout all apartments.
South Brisbane MP Amy MacMahon emphasises that “luxury tower blocks in the inner city” aren’t exempt, arguing developers should help shoulder the cost of decades of underinvestment in public housing.
“Property developers have continued to make millions off our communities, with low infrastructure charges, and lax planning laws that let developers ignore local communities, and build luxury apartments just blocks away from where families are sleeping in tents,” she tweeted this week.
MacMahon says the proposal will make rents cheaper rents in the middle of a housing crisis, but the Property Council’s Queensland executive director Jen Williams reckons other people will be footing the bill.
“Inclusionary zoning is being held up by some as the ‘magic pudding’ that will solve housing affordability, but the reality is that someone has to pay for the houses,” Williams says.
“It will ultimately be the other owners in a unit complex or development that end up cross-subsiding the delivery of social housing.”
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Ain’t no party like a YLNP party
What’s a wild Young LNP member to do on a Saturday night in early May? Why, go to a “Coronation Watchparty” to see King Charles be formally anointed live on the big screen, of course!
It seems the LNP has turned to some creative fundraising tactics after being hamstrung by new donation rules.
The fundraiser – hosted at the Red Hill Cinema in Brisbane by youth wing president and Peter Dutton staffer Darcy Creighton and YLNP treasurer and Brisbane City Council policy advisor Kate Samios – is being spruiked as a “once-in-a-lifetime, extra special event” with pre-screening “British-inspired canapes” and a cash bar.
“LNP members and friends, young and old, royal and republican, are all cordially invited to join us in an exclusive watch party for the coronation of Charles III and Camilla on the big screen at the Red Hill Cinemas,” the invite reads.
YLNP members pay $35/ticket, but “senior party members” will be slugged $50.
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Spotted: LNP aims high
LNP Gold Coast MPs Sam O’Connor and John-Paul Langbroek were eyeing off 1 William Street – the Brisbane city skyscraper that houses the Palaszczuk government’s executive – on Thursday from the Speaker’s Green of Queensland parliament.
An eagle-eyed Chooks spy noticed young-gun O’Connor set his sights not just at the building, but all the way to the top floor, where the Premier works.
Future leadership ambitions, perhaps?
Spotted: musical chairs
Annastacia Palaszczuk’s seating switcheroo at an upcoming Anzac Day ceremony has raised some eyebrows.
Originally the Premier was set to be seated between Opposition Leader David Crisafulli and Professor Graeme Nimmo (Governor Jeannette Young’s husband).
But Chooks hears the Premier’s office was not happy with her spot. After some musical chairs, Ms Palaszczuk has snaffled the chair first reserved for Anzac Day Commemoration Committee president Colonel David Smith.
Colonel Smith has been shuffled down one spot and will sit between the Premier and Governor.
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