Feeding the Chooks: Palaszczuk lays down the law: ‘I am the Premier’
‘I AM THE PREMIER’
Annastacia Palaszczuk should heed the philosophy of John Howard when it comes to leadership and the partyroom.
The former long-serving prime minister regularly warned his colleagues about the dangers of hubris.
He would walk-the-walk by being accessible to backbenchers who he was only too aware could end his leadership on a whim despite leading them to four election wins.
But this week the Queensland premier showed none of that when she declared in an interview with The Courier-Mail, to mark eight years in the top job, that her retirement plans were “a matter for the public” and she may stay around for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.
She would not name her favoured successor, declaring “I’m the Premier”.
Asked if she could would still be in charge for the opening ceremony, she said: “I hope to be watching the Olympics, in whatever capacity that is … my track record speaks (three election wins) for itself.’’
Palaszczuk’s long-reigning ambitions appears to have come as news to many in her party, who were expecting she step aside ahead of the next election in 2024.
Treasurer Cameron Dick (Right faction) and deputy premier Steven Miles (Left faction) are the obvious contenders – with both barely hiding their rivalry and, sometimes, disdain for each other – with the Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman (Left) also firming as a real show for the leadership, if she wants it.
Insiders say Palaszczuk’s comments about “not relinquishing power” anytime soon have angered the opposing Left faction, which has the clear majority in caucus and could roll Palaszczuk (of the Right) and install one of their own, Miles or Fentiman as premier.
It won’t happen though, with Queensland Labor leadership rules making it almost impossible for any internal rival to wield the knife.
In Queensland the state parliamentary leader is chosen evenly by the party membership, caucus and affiliated unions. It should also be noted that Dick has previously pushed for the party to remove union influence from the parliamentary leadership.
YOUTH CRIME FIGHT
The youth justice debate, and release of 13 detained juveniles on bail last week by a Townsville magistrate, fired up the chatter about the Dick-Miles dynamic.
Chooks has been told that Labor electorate offices are being besieged by constituents’ calls and emails over their concerns about youth crime and what the government is doing.
Might explain Miles’ extraordinary condemnation last Friday of the en-masse bail release of the alleged offenders by Labor-appointed Townsville Magistrate Viviana Keegan as a “media stunt”.
His comments dominated the news bulletins across the state but it seems Dick didn’t want to have a bar of them.
When asked about Miles’ comments, which drew criticism from the law society and bar association, Dick said: “As a former Attorney-General I need to choose my words carefully and I need to be careful about what I say,” adding that police were going to appeal “so I’m not going to say anything that is going to impact on that process of considering appeal, of enacting or taking action on an appeal and I’m not going to say anything that’s going to potentially impact on the prospects of appeal as a result of those decisions.”
Some are wondering whether Fentiman, as AG, will follow another Labor AG, Kerry Shine (in 2007) who launched contempt proceedings in the Supreme Court against then Police Union president Gary Wilkinson when he publicly criticised a coroner over a decision relating to the death of Palm Islander Mulrunji Doomadgee.
FACTIONAL WARFARE
Speaking of Cameron Dick, the leadership aspirant was spotted at the University of Queensland’s open day on Wednesday, manning the stall of the UQ ALP Club.
That august establishment proudly boasts it’s the uni’s “oldest and largest Labor club”.
But it’s not the only one.
Chooks was intrigued to discover the UQ ALP Club is the Right faction’s stronghold on the sandstone university’s St Lucia campus, but is a different organisation from UQ Labor Left, the club that represents the dominant faction in the state branch at the uni.
At market day, the two Labor clubs had their stalls set up well apart, separated by the Greens, the uni’s Tory organisation – the UQ Liberal National Society, and the Monarchist League.
UQ Labor Left boasted visits from Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon, Bundaberg MP Tom Smith and Pumicestone MP Ali King – all members of the faction.
Several metres away (and there wasn’t much mingling between the factions, according to Chooks’ spies), the UQ ALP Club had Dick, Aspley MP Bart Mellish, and Labor’s Brisbane City Council leader Jared Cassidy.
What unites the two Labor clubs on campus? Membership is just $2.
DEEP POCKETS
Twice-convicted fraudster Eddy Andrews is busy donating his hard-earned to the Liberal National Party in Queensland.
Donation records from the Australian Electoral Commission show that in 2021-22, Andrews’ company Illira Group Pty Ltd tipped $155,700 into the LNP’s coffers in 18 separate instalments.
That’s on top of the more than $83,000 Mr Andrews and his companies have donated to the Queensland LNP in 46 instalments between November 14, 2016 and June 16 last year.
Despite his colourful history of criminal convictions – and having his charity registration revoked by the federal charities regulator in 2015 – Andrews has been judged a fit and proper person by the federal government regulator in charge of vocational training. His registered training organisation, the Public Safety Training & Response Group runs vocational training courses for helicopter crews and drone pilots, as well as first-aid and swift-water rescue skills.
COAL COMFORT FOR CLIVE
Rumours of the demise of Clive Palmer’s coal dreams in Queensland could be greatly exaggerated, if you believe the Palmer camp.
The former federal MP has suffered a bruising series of business blows recently. Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek blocked his proposed central Queensland coal mine project, citing the risk of “irreversible damage” to the nearby Great Barrier Reef.
And two days later, Palmer abruptly withdrew his appeal – formally called a judicial review application – to Land Court president Fleur Kingham’s November ruling that Clive should be stopped from building another coal mine, this time in the nearby Galilee Basin.
Kingham recommended the state government reject Palmer’s Waratah Coal mine application, because the burning of its coal overseas could worsen climate change and hinder the human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Long-time watchers of the colourful Queensland billionaire were shocked when he nixed that legal appeal.
The businessman famously listed one of his hobbies in the 1996 edition of Who’s Who as “litigation with government”.
Palmer is not known for capitulating in court, quite the opposite.
The Environmental Defenders Office, which represented Youth Verdict and the Bimblebox Alliance who brought the Land Court action against the Waratah Coal mining proposal, trumpeted the move, insisting the Galilee Coal Project was now “dead in the water”.
Maybe so.
But a source close to Clive said: “Clive doesn’t give up on anything. Ever. He’ll have a Plan B and a Plan Z”.
Only time will tell.
SPOTTED
Toowoomba is the place to be this week, it seems.
Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll and Palaszczuk government Police Minister Mark Ryan and rarely-seen Youth Justice Minister Leanne Linard fronted a heated crime forum on Wednesday night.
Irate residents warned the officials the garden city was on the “cusp of anarchy,” a situation intensified by the death of a loved 75-year-old man who suffered a fatal head injury after he was allegedly pushed to the ground and robbed by an 18-year-old outside the local shopping centre.
On Sunday, another high-profile visitor will lob into town – the Crown Prince of Tonga.
It’s an interesting destination for Prince Tupouto’a ‘Ulukalala, who is apparently in town to sign a deal with Indigenous-owned IT company Kalinda IT.
His Royal Highness will attend an event to launch the Indigenous Sovereign Cloud which Kalinda says is a “game-changing solution that is poised to revolutionise the way Indigenous Peoples control and manage their data”.
Missy, Troye, Stingray among APRA song of the year finalists
The creativity and diversity of voices on display in this five-song playlist is remarkable, and together show that Australian music is in rude health. | READ THE FULL LIST
More foreign criminals use Direction 110 to have their deportations halted
A drug trafficker and a man who exposed himself to a 10-year-old boy have become the latest foreign criminals to have their deportations halted despite Labor’s revamped ministerial direction.
G’day readers, and welcome to the latest edition of Feeding the Chooks.