Election 2025: Ex-campaign boss backs LNP defector

The Liberal heavyweight who orchestrated Peter Dutton’s 2019 and 2022 wins in his Brisbane electorate is telling voters to support Liberal National Party defector Gerard Rennick in the Senate.

Former Queensland Liberal Party state director Geoff Greene.

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Peter Dutton’s former campaign manager and Liberal heavyweight Geoff Greene is advocating for voters in the Brisbane seat of Lilley to back LNP defector Gerard Rennick in the Senate, under the guise of opposing an alleged potential wind farm development in Moreton Bay.

Mr Greene has authorised the how-to-vote card, which tells voters to put the Gerard Rennick People First party and Katter’s Australian Party joint ticket first on their Senate ballot papers, followed by five other conservative minor parties.

The flyer being circulated in Lilley, authorised by Mr Greene.

The LNP Senate ticket is not promoted despite Mr Greene being a member of the South Australian Liberal Party, a former state director of the SA Liberals and Queensland Liberals, and Mr Dutton’s campaign director in his marginal seat of Dickson in 2019. He also oversaw Mr Dutton’s 2022 campaign.

Mr Greene lives in the Labor-held suburban Brisbane seat of Lilley. The how-to-vote card tells Lilley voters to put LNP candidate Kimberley Washington – a former staff member of Senator Rennick – first on their House of Representatives ballots.

“Kimberley Washington and Senator Gerard Rennick will help stop Labor and the Greens’ plan for wind farms in Moreton Bay,” the flyer reads.

In an interview with The Australian, Mr Greene said he was not involved in the campaigns.

But he said he checked with both candidates that they would oppose wind farms in the bay.

“There’s a company that wants to put up wind farms off Brisbane; they are doing a feasibility study, so I thought what’s going to happen is they’ll put it in Moreton Bay … the LNP weren’t interested so I thought I would do it myself,” Mr Greene said.

An LNP volunteer holds Mr Greene’s anti-wind farm flyers at the pre-poll voting booth in the electorate of Lilley.

Mr Greene's wife, left, speaks to LNP candidate Kimberley Washington, who is holding one of the how-to-vote cards.

Asked which company he was referring to, he couldn’t immediately remember, then sent a 2023 article from an offshore wind industry news website that said a Brisbane-based company called Orchid Energy was in the “early stages of investigating the potential for a multi-gigawatt portfolio of fixed and floating offshore wind projects off Queensland”. The company’s phone number appears to be disconnected and there has been no update to its website.