Annastacia Palaszczuk puts Labor lobbyists on blacklist

Following a blistering integrity review the Queensland Premier has banned three lobbyists from doing business with her government for two years.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has blacklisted three Labor-linked lobbyists who helped elect her. Picture David Clark

Annastacia Palaszczuk has blacklisted three Labor lobbyists who held senior roles in her re-­election campaign, banning them from doing business with her government for two years, following a blistering integrity review.

Former ALP state secretaries Evan Moorhead and Cameron Milner, who ran Ms Palaszczuk’s October 2020 re-election campaign from her CBD office, have been cut off alongside veteran Labor campaigner David Nelson.

The Premier barred the high-profile trio from approaching departments, ministers and staff for the rest of her government’s third term after public administration expert Peter Coaldrake recommended a ban on election campaigners acting as lobbyists.

The lobbyists had enjoyed extraordinary access to the Palas­zczuk government since the election, securing almost daily ­access to minister’s offices and favourable treatment for clients.

Other lobbyists at their firms, Anacta Strategies and Next Level Strategic Services, will be permitted to meet with decision-makers.

Ms Palaszczuk, who for two years insisted Labor-aligned lobbyists had no inside running with her government, on Monday said her cabinet was “absolutely” unanimous in its decision to cut ties with Mr Moorhead, Mr Milner and Mr Nelson until the next election, in October 2024.

“Cabinet did endorse today my recommendation that three lobbyists will not be working with the government for the remainder of this term,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“That means approaching the department, or approaching ministers or staff.”

Asked whether the Albanese government should do the same, Ms Palaszczuk replied: “That is a matter for them.”

“What I would like to see is uniform lobbying laws across the country; I think it would make it much easier and a level playing field for everybody,” she said.

The Prime Minister’s office did not respond to request for comment while an Anacta spokesman said the firm had “no comment”. Mr Milner is on leave until later this month.

Mr Nelson, who co-founded ­Anacta with Mr Moorhead, was head of Labor’s advertising buys during the May federal campaign and was involved in strategy.

Immediately after Anthony Albanese’s federal election win on May 21, Anacta set up shop in Canberra, registering as a lobbying firm.

Cameron Milner.

Evan Moorhead

Mr Nelson is registered as a lobbyist with the firm in Queensland but not federally.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles’ former chief of staff Lidija Ivanovski in June quit her job to join Anacta in Canberra as a director of the firm, telling social media followers she was thrilled to join the “very clever, talented and decent team”.

Anacta has seven federal clients, including miner Glencore Australia, Southern Oil Refining, renewables company Bowen River Utilities, Griffith University, infrastructure investment business Plenary Group, and global beverage giant Lion Nathan.

A YouGov poll, published by The Courier Mail on Monday, revealed Ms Palaszczuk’s standing with Queensland voters has taken a battering over a series of integrity failings that continue to dog her third-term government.

The poll, which surveyed 1044 Queenslanders, suggests support for Labor and the Liberal National Party is split 50-50 cent on a two-party-preferred basis.

Ms Palaszczuk retained a strong lead on her LNP opponent David Crisafulli as preferred premier – 41-28 per cent.

In his assessment of lobbying operations in Queensland, Professor Coaldrake last week noted that the rise of Labor lobbyists with an understanding of the political system had helped corporate clients secure outcomes “that might not otherwise have been possible”.

The former Queensland University of Technology vice-­chancellor found those who guide political parties to office then begin to advocate for corporate clients “naturally raises suspicion” that can’t be fixed by promising to impose “Chinese Walls”.

“Suspicions about ‘dual hats’ may be heightened if subsequent government decisions favour clients of the firms engaged to run election campaigns.”

Professor Coaldrake’s report followed a two-year probe by The Australian into the growing power of lobbyists in Queensland.

His report made 14 recommendations to government, including banning campaign-lobbyists, which Ms Palaszczuk accepted “lock, stock and barrel”.

“These reforms will make Queensland the most transparent government in the country …(and) will set a benchmark for the rest of Australia to follow,” she said.

The Australian revealed in 2020 that Labor’s campaign strategy was outsourced to Mr Moorhead and Mr Milner by the then-ALP state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell.

Mr Milner, a director at Next Level Strategic Services, was given a car park and desk space alongside public servants in Ms Palas­zczuk’s riverfront offices in Brisbane’s CBD.

Some of the pair’s big business clients scored massive contracts, announced by Labor shortly before and during the election ­campaign.

Among them was train builder Downer, which was given a $600m contract to build new trains in Maryborough.

Contact logs show Mr Moorhead’s Anacta lobbied senior government advisers 22 times during the campaign.

Lobbying continued despite a public warning issued by the Crime and Corruption Commission, cautioning about the blurring lines between government and the private sector “with overlapping networks of association involving consultants, influencers, lobbyists and executives”.

Ms Palaszczuk helped officially launch Anacta in 2019, three months after Mr Moorhead resigned as her chief political strategist.

Anacta quickly became the Queensland’s go-to firms, acting on behalf of 59 clients including Aspen Medical, which was in January awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to run the Wellcamp quarantine precinct without going to tender.