Dee-day to Daniel Andrews’ man for Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk
Queensland Labor has hired Daniel Andrews’ adman to run Annastacia Palaszczuk’s 2024 campaign for a fourth term in power, cutting ties with campaign guru Dee Madigan.
Queensland Labor has hired Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ adman to run Annastacia Palaszczuk’s 2024 campaign for a fourth term in power, cutting ties with campaign guru and her personal friend Dee Madigan.
The shock move comes despite Campaign Edge founder Ms Madigan’s role as creative director for federal Labor and Anthony Albanese’s successful campaign to topple Scott Morrison, and leading Ms Palaszczuk to her three election wins with increased majorities each time.
Darren Moss’s Moss Group will be installed for next year’s October campaign, after Mr Moss orchestrated Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan’s landslide victory in 2017 and Mr Andrews’ political makeover in 2014 and his re-election in 2018.
ALP research and published polls show Ms Palaszczuk’s personal popularity has nosedived and Labor is heading for defeat, sparking a desire to rehabilitate her image.
It follows concern from some of her colleagues that the Liberal National Party opposition’s attacks on her as the “red carpet Premier” are gaining traction.
Ms Palaszczuk – who is holidaying in Italy with partner Reza Adib as her colleagues back home question her leadership – will be without key campaign strategists, including lobbyists and former state secretaries Evan Moorhead and Cameron Milner, lobbyist and ad buyer David Nelson, and now Ms Madigan.
The Labor leader and Ms Madigan have been friends since the star of ABC TV’s Gruen helped shape the Labor leader’s 2015 come-from-nowhere election defeat of one-term LNP Premier Campbell Newman.
Labor sources said Ms Madigan had been left shocked and angry by the decision to switch campaign directors, but she did not respond to questions.
The Australian has been told by several sources that the decision to replace Ms Madigan’s firm was made by Ms Palaszczuk and her office in recent months, but that was contested by a source close to the Premier who insisted it was solely up to relatively new state secretary Kate Flanders.
Ms Flanders said Campaign Edge was an “excellent agency” which was busy working for Labor’s national secretariat.
“I am still finalising all of the suppliers for the campaign next year,” she said.
While Mr Moss’s firm hasn’t worked on a Queensland state campaign before, Ms Madigan has been involved in every election since 2012, when she was responsible for the “spider web” attack ads against Mr Newman.
After Ms Palaszczuk’s victory, she personally inscribed The Sunday Mail newspaper’s front page with a message to Ms Madigan: “Campaign Edge, thanks for the help in 2015. Annastacia.”
Electoral disclosure records show the Queensland ALP paid Campaign Edge $1,170,066.30 in the 2020 election year.
Labor’s then state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell outsourced campaign strategy to Mr Moorhead and Mr Milner, both of whom were registered lobbyists actively making representations to the Palaszczuk government on behalf of their paying clients.
After The Australian revealed their dual roles as campaigner-lobbyists, Ms Palaszczuk ordered an integrity review by Peter Coaldrake, and on his recommendation banned the pair, and Mr Moorhead’s business partner David Nelson, from lobbying the government for the rest of the term. They will not be working on Labor’s 2024 campaign.
Ms Palaszczuk’s cabinet met in her absence on Monday, the second time the weekly meeting has been held without her during her almost nine years as premier. Former deputy premier Jackie Trad chaired the meeting once in 2017.
Cabinet discussions were overseen by Deputy Premier Steven Miles, the most likely person to replace Ms Palaszczuk when she decides to quit politics.
Mr Miles would not say what was discussed at the meeting, due to cabinet confidentiality rules.
“But what I can assure you is that there were a wide range of submissions brought by a wide number of ministers; we ran over time discussing those,” he said.
“Many ministers, in fact all ministers, wanted to express the strength of their support for Annastacia Palaszczuk, their unity and their belief in the team that we have, what we’ve achieved for Queensland and what we can achieve going forward.”
Despite some key figures in Queensland Labor fearing that the party cannot win a fourth term with Ms Palaszczuk at the helm, it will be up to the Premier to decide whether or not she will contest the next election. Party rules make it almost impossible for her colleagues to forcibly oust their leader.
Mr Miles said he was confident Ms Palaszczuk would stay on until the next election, despite not having spoken to her since she left for Europe last month.
“I know how resolute she is, how determined she is,” he said.
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