Queensland Speaker to take Pitt stop; fed MP potty mouth in Qantas lounge
G’day readers, and welcome to the latest edition of Feeding the Chooks, your weekly peek behind the scenes of Queensland politics. Reported this week by Michael McKenna, Lydia Lynch and Sarah Elks.
SPEAKER TO TAKE LONGER PITT STOP
Internal pressure is building on Queensland Speaker Curtis Pitt after he arrived late and appeared to be slurring words on the first day of the regional sitting of parliament in his home town of Cairns on Tuesday.
The veteran Labor MP was adamant to Chooks on Thursday night that it was the effects of the flu, and not late night drinks, for him rolling up 45 minutes late to the special sitting in his home town of Cairns on Tuesday.
Sources have said he is now going to take next week off, but there are grumblings within the Labor caucus that he should consider taking more time away from parliament.
Appointed Speaker in 2017 after being pushed aside as Treasurer by the now-departed Jackie Trad, Pitt had to be woken by police on Tuesday morning who went to his hotel room for a “welfare check” after he failed to take frantic calls from parliamentary staff.
With deputy Speaker Joe Kelly filling in, Clerk of Parliament Neil Laurie informed the house at 9.30am of the “unavoidable absence of the Speaker from this morning’s sittings”.
And when Pitt finally did take the Speakers’ chair to oversee the beginning of Question Time at 10.15am, MPs from both sides of the aisle told Chooks he appeared to slur a few words.
He then began proceedings by declaring that the traditional hour of QT scrutiny would “conclude at 11.15pm” – a full 12 hours later. (The Hansard now has a corrected record that he said “11.15am”).
Thankfully, the charade of unanswered opposition questions and government Dorothy Dixers didn’t go beyond the usual 60 minutes.
During QT, Pitt’s occasional call for “Order” seemed to take a long and languid delivery and he even reached into what many believe could be the future hope for Labor, with Annastacia Palaszczuk’s falling popularity, when he addressed Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman as “the premier”
There were bizarre scenes in parliament after Speaker Curtis Pitt was nowhere to be found. The MP claims he fell ill after attending government functions. https://t.co/f3b41UXpLe@MarlinaWhop#qldpol#7NEWSpic.twitter.com/J8EA57dCxU
— 7NEWS Brisbane (@7NewsBrisbane) May 9, 2023
After QT, Pitt then notified the Clerk that he would be taking sick leave for the remainder of the three days of parliament at the Cairns Convention Centre.
The Speaker, who was staying at taxpayer’s expense at the Hilton, just 20 or so kilometres from his electorate office, had been out the night before until at least around midnight.
He had hosted a Cairns’ youth parliament event for 12 schools on Monday, before going to Trade and Investment Queensland’s Taste of Tropical Queensland shindig at the cruise liner terminal in the evening.
Pitt later told reporters he had “a couple of drinks, like everyone else did” at the government event.
He then went to dinner with friends at Italian restaurant Villa Romana, on the Cairns esplanade, before stopping in at another venue on the way back to his hotel.
But Pitt tells Chooks it wasn’t the late night or the booze behind his behaviour.
“I still feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. I have a really bad flu,” Pitt says.
“And it disappoints me greatly to miss any aspects of the Cairns parliament, because of how much time and effort I’ve put in, as well as the parliamentary service.”
“I am sick. I am unwell.”
Chooks: “So it wasn’t that you were under the influence?”
Pitt: “No, not to what anyone is suggesting at all”.
Chooks has learned Pitt has provided a medical certificate that says he has suspected influenza.
Alarm bells rang in April about Pitt’s behaviour, after a Saturday evening event at Brisbane’s parliament house to officially swear in members of the youth parliament, aged between 15 and 25.
Pitt was supposed to MC the event, but he turned up late - blaming it on a personal phone.
Chooks understands Pitt insists that he was affected by a combination of prescription medications.
POTTY MOUTH IN QANTAS LOUNGE
On Sunday afternoon, deep inside Qantas’s Chairman’s Lounge in the Brisbane airport, an unedifying snafu was unfolding.
In the exclusive club was a gaggle of state and federal MPs; the feds waiting to board a flight to Canberra for budget week, the state MPs northbound, for Queensland’s regional sitting of parliament in Cairns.
But Chooks hears the gentle hubbub of the Chairman’s Lounge was shattered by Federal LNP MP for Capricornia Michelle Landry, who yelled “This place is F..KED!” and stormed out.
What prompted the outburst?
A claustrophobic Landry had fallen victim to a malfunctioning door in the bathroom, and got stuck in a toilet stall, and was at risk of missing her flight.
Landry apparently had a few choice, and loud, words for Qantas staff who had tried to free her as quickly as possible.
The veteran federal MP denies she was rude to staff, telling Chooks she was simply pleading to “get me out” because of her claustrophobia.
And she vehemently denies using the “F word” on her way out – saying it is not in her vocabulary – and that her public declaration was more along the lines of “that was absolute bullshit”.
COAL CLIMATE
It will become even trickier to get a coal mine approved in Queensland, if some grassroots ALP members have their way.
Chooks has stumbled upon a draft copy of the Queensland Labor policy platform for this year’s state conference on the first week of June in Mackay.
The Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN) is pushing for a change to the “public interest test for mining approvals” to include the “material contribution to climate change” of a proposed coal mine project.
That new test would require a state government to consider the scope 3 emissions produced by the “downstream combustion of coal” - meaning Australian coal that is exported and burnt overseas - as well as the impact of emissions on climate change targets, and “the human and cultural rights of First Nations people, neighbours and communities”.
The tougher public interest test for mining approvals follows a landmark judgement by the Land Court in Queensland late last year, which knocked Clive Palmer’s proposed Galilee Basin coal mine on its head.
Land Court president Fleur Kingham recommended that Palmer’s mine should be blocked because the burning of its coal overseas would worsen global climate change and limit the human rights of Indigenous people and Queensland children.
Let’s wait and see what the mining division of the CFMEU have to say in June in Mackay. District president Steve Smyth told Chooks recently that the now factionally unaligned union wouldn’t be doing any favours for their old friends the Left come June.
“Our masters are our members,” Smyth says.
“We’ll vote on policy we think can deliver what matters to our members in regional Queensland - like cost of living - and best serve us.”
“That’s where sometimes there will be policies that the Left put up that we won’t support, policies that drive a split between the regions and the city.”
UNDER PRESSURE
Struggling to make ends meet? The Queensland Liberal National Party has set up a “Pressure Relief Fund” to help you out.
Oh wait. It’s just a new ploy to elicit political donations.
In a sponsored social media ad splashed over Facebook, the party encourages people to “stand up to the pressure” and contribute cash to the Pressure Relief Fund.
The LNP, which has been struggling to raise cash after new donation laws were brought in by Labor a few years ago, was called out by Deputy Premier Steven Miles in parliament on Thursday.
“Where do donations to the Pressure Relief Fund go?” Miles asked.
“Is it the Salvos or the Red Cross? When you donate to the Pressure Relief Fund, you get an email which says, ‘Thank you for your generous donation to the LNP’s campaign’.”
While the Facebook post takes you to a landing page that makes it clear the money will go to the LNP, and the fund appears in posts sponsored by the party, it is still not a great look.
Annastacia Palaszczuk has called on the LNP to give the money back and wants Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman’s office “to investigate this alleged scam”.
LNP state director Ben Riley says “the Palaszczuk Labor Government are now so desperate to cling to power they will do and say anything”.
CATFISHING CLERK
If Clerk of Queensland Parliament Neil Laurie emails and asks you to buy something, don’t do it.
MPs were alarmed and bemused to receive texts and emails this week from someone purporting to be the veteran parliamentary overlord. The missives demanded some pollies see Laurie immediately, and asked others to buy gift cards. When Laurie speaks, MPs listen, so a number of dutiful politicians leapt to attention.
The problem was, it wasn’t the clerk of parliament.
Laurie was forced to email MPs on Tuesday morning, as the regional parliament opened.
“Honourable Members, it has come to my attention that someone is ‘spoofing’ Members and staff in my name by both email and texts,” he wrote.
“That is, they are using my name to email and text members and staff, in order to hoax people.”
“Please check any odd emails and texts before responding…even if an email or text purports to be me, check the email and telephone number.”
WHAT A SPREAD
While extravagant budget parties were raging across Canberra this week, one Queensland LNP senator threw his own glamorous shindig.
Avid antique collector and history buff James McGrath hosted an evening soirée in his parliament office on Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary of Winston Churchill's appointment as UK Prime Minister.
The invitation billed a “selection of fine foods and drinks” and it appears no expense was spared with cheerios cooked in the office sink and cubed cheese and kabana served on toothpicks. Yum?
Bundaberg Rum and XXXX Gold - first-rate Queensland beverages - were also on offer for attendees who included senators Hollie Hughes, Simon Birmingham, Jane Hume, Andrew McLachlan, Paul Scarr and Perin Davey.
Even McGrath’s famous dessert - Milo, ice cream and rum - was on offer.
One guest told Chooks: “(Queensland Labor Senator Anthony) Chisholm’s office is opposite and kept an eye on the comings and goings”.
Maybe he’ll get an invite next time.
SPOTTED UP NORTH
The regional parliament sitting in Cairns has been exhausting for all MPs (some more so than others), so it wasn’t surprising that one of Chooks’ spies spotted someone having a power nap under their hat during the lunch break on Wednesday.
A closer look revealed the snoozer could be identified by the name embroidered on their shirt: Katter’s Australian Party MP for Hill, Shane Knuth.
Knuth ‘fessed up to Chooks and admits that sometimes “politics does make you tired, all that political jargon” and after he pulled his Akubra down for a spot of shut-eye, he woke feeling “much refreshed”.
“It reminds me of the good old days on the railway gang out in outback Queensland, having a quick snooze under the tarp at lunchtime,” Knuth says.
For 20 years, before he was elected to QLD parliament as a Nationals MP in 2004, he worked in regional Queensland building railway tracks.
Knuth told Chooks he and the Charters Towers team were the “silver spike railway champions” at the Ekka for three years running in the 1990s, crowned the railway gang capable of building a stretch of track fastest and safest.
SPOTTED DOWN SOUTH
The night after the budget in Canberra, a bipartisan group of MPs were spotted dining with Sydney-based former NSW Liberal Minister and lobbyist Michael Photios and lobbyist and Labor luminary Graham Richardson at Pan-Asian institution Chairman & Yip.
Joining Photios and Richo were Labor Resources Minister Madeleine King, Labor Speaker Milton Dick, Liberal frontbencher Paul Fletcher, WA Labor MP Josh Wilson, Liberal MP for Hughes Jenny Ware, and Labor chief government whip Joanne Ryan - as well as a number of business people, presumably PremierNational clients.
Dining at a table nearby were Opposition leader Peter Dutton and Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall.
FEED THE CHOOKS
Chooks love a tip. Got a yarn?
mckennam@theaustralian.com.au
lynchl@theaustralian.com.au
elkss@theaustralian.com.au
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