Feeding the chooks: the news you need to know from Queensland politics
It’s a little known fact that in the dying days of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen reign, a pair of future premiers formed a lifelong friendship.
G’day readers and welcome to our new column covering the sitting days of the Queensland parliament.
Former premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen may be long gone, but some of you would remember his oft-repeated description of press conferences as “feeding the chooks’’.
Since then, the phrase has lived-on as a challenge to Queensland’s political reporters to get behind the media releases and political spin and tell it like it really is.
This column will give you an insight into the daily debate, legislation, party politics, gossip and goings-on in the corridors and backrooms of the 93-seat, unicameral parliament.
OLD SCHOOL TIES
And we’ll start with a look back to the days of Bjelke-Petersen and its link to Annastacia Palaszczuk, once-deemed the “accidental premier” who now leads a third-term government.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Palaszczuk and her WA counterpart Mark McGowan seem like they are cut from the same political cloth with their hard border lockdowns on either side of the country.
Their shared populism, which has rewarded both with resounding election wins during the pandemic, can be traced back thirty years to the University of Queensland when Bjelke-Petersen was in power.
Then, the cradle of dissent was the UQ ALP Club which gave us Peter Beattie and Wayne Swan among a string of Queensland Labor luminaries.
But a little known fact is that in the dying days of Joh, Palaszczuk and McGowan were both law students who struck a lifelong friendship at the club as it led campus protests against the Nationals’ premier.
It seems they have even picked up a trick or two from the ultimate populist for their own political futures.
Like Bjelke-Petersen, both premiers bemoan Canberra’s every move and draw on state parochialism with a “them and us” tack to justify their hardline lockdown policies.
The premier recently told the Chooks that she talks regularly with her former uni buddy and reckons she and McGowan have shown the rest of the country how to protect their states…and, along the way, their governments.
WAGS IN EXILE
Question Time was dominated with the premier’s grilling over her government’s decision to allow the wives, girlfriends and children of NRL players into Queensland while grieving families are banned from entering the state.
About 100 officials and players’ families flew into Brisbane on Monday afternoon, despite a two week ban on arrivals from NSW, Victoria and the ACT.
Ms Palaszczuk paused interstate arrivals last week to take pressure off the hotel quarantine system. The NRL entourage has been given exclusive use of hotels in the south-east and is not included in the state’s hotel quarantine cap.
Opposition Leader David Crisafulli asked what grieving families desperate to come to Queensland for funerals, or residents wanting to return home, had to do to be allowed in.
“Sharon is a cancer patient stuck interstate following her mother’s funeral, what does Sharon have to do to not be counted in the cap and return to Queensland?” he asked.
Ms Palaszczuk said people given rare exemptions to enter Queensland, including for medical reasons, are also excluded from the cap.
“There is an exemptions unit that deals with people who either have bereavement issues or medical issues, they are dealt with separately to the cap.
“This is a pause for two weeks to enable our hotels to cope.
“There was one week when we had 1900 people who rocked up to Queensland. We do not know when they are arriving, they turn up and then our agencies have to scramble for hotels.”
Cricket players from NSW, Victoria and the Indian national team also began quarantine in Brisbane on Monday ahead of three international women’s matches.
ANYONE FOR A GAME?
After Annastacia Palaszczuk faced the LNP volleys over her decision to give special exemptions to the WAGS, MPs were down on the Speaker’s Green for the annual parliament grand slam.
The lines were drawn and net put up for this strange tradition which few know the origins or rationale, apart from it giving the TV reporters some vision for the nightly news.
Among those that took to the court was one-time treasurer and now-Speaker Curtis Pitt, tyro Labor MP for the outer Brisbane seat of Bundamba, Lance McCallum and LNP MP for the bayside seat of Oodgeroo Mark Robinson.
Pitt was the clear performer, but you might wonder whether those on the other side of the net went a little easy on The Speaker.
PARLIAMENT SHUTDOWN
Queensland parliament was plunged into lockdown during QT by a group of anti-lockdown protesters.
The building was shuttered up for several hours after police received word the group planned to storm Parliament House.
Two other demonstrations were staged around the building on Tuesday morning, including a small group rallying against the government’s assisted dying legislation and anti-coal protesters.
In comparison to the boisterous union protests often staged outside parliament, Tuesday’s anti-Covid rally was rather tame.
FEELING THE HEAT
He has his sights on going to Canberra, but second-term state LNP MP Colin Boyce is busy making sure no-one knifes him in the back.
The self-described “maverick” – he has been known to use the moniker in his press releases – was recently preselected as the party’s candidate for the Gladstone-based Federal seat of Flynn to replace Ken O’Dowd, who is retiring.
Former LNP state leader Deb Frecklington had been rumoured as a possible challenger for the preselection in Flynn, or in neighbouring Blair, but was a no-show at both.
Boyce won the preselection easily but is now facing a backroom push from some in the state parliamentary team to resign now from his now safe state seat of Callide.
LNP insiders say that the party’s parliamentary leaders see it as an opportunity to replace the “Maverick MP”, who has been known to cross the floor on occasion, with someone a little more predictable.
So far, he has stared down his wannabe assailants with the backing of the old “Nationals” guard in the LNP.
WALKER SLUGGED OVER BRAWL
Labor’s Les Walker looked sheepish as he walked into parliament for the first time since he allegedly roughed up an LNP supporter outside a Townsville pub after a drinking session in July.
The Mundingburra MP was swiftly given a clip around the ear by his colleagues and stripped of his role as temporary speaker of the parliament.
It’s the second time this year the former Townsville Deputy Mayor has been in trouble for scuffling while out on the town.
He was knocked out cold by a swift hook from a much younger patron in Townsville’s infamous Mad Cow Tavern in January.
Obviously never one to back down, Walker has vowed to fight charges of common assault and being drunk or disorderly in public.
It seemed Walker’s time in government could be coming to an abrupt end after less than a year in the job, but the Premier decided another stern talking-to would suffice for her Right faction colleague (after her dressing down in January apparently didn’t sink in).
Walker was also stripped of his committee and speaker roles, although he was still getting paid the extra allowance that comes with them until parliament reconvened.
The charge isn’t likely to land Walker in the Big House, where he worked as a prison guard before entering politics, but the matter is due to be mentioned again in Townsville Magistrates Court on Friday.
HALF TRUTH ON ABORTION
Yvette D’Ath appears to have been a little rubbery with figures when she said there had been no increase in abortions since the Palaszczuk government legalised abortion in 2018.
The Health Minister told the parliament in March that abortion rates had remained stable in the year after the Termination of Pregnancy Act was passed.
But she was only telling half of the story.
D’Ath referred only to the number of surgical abortions in hospitals – 9496 – despite the department warning her that the full story was reflected by data including terminations performed by doctors in private clinics.
According to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme data, medical abortions in Queensland rose from 7446 in 2018 to 17,087 in 2019.
KAP leader Robbie Katter has written to the speaker to ask for D’Ath to explain herself.
“It’s not like it’s a rounding error,” Katter told the Chooks.
“It’s either gross ignorance, or a scarier scenario, it was done deliberately.”
Emails between D’Ath’s office and Queensland Health, released to anti-abortion group Cherish Life under Right to Information laws, show the minister was briefed that the figure she relied on to make her claim in parliament was only a subset of the data.
Why would D’Ath fudge the figures?
Possibly because of promises that the legislation would not lead to an increase in abortions.
It could also be because the same promise was used to convince reluctant Labor MPs to support the legislation in a conscience vote.
Katter reckons the truth could cause jitters for those still on the fence regarding the Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation set for a conscience vote this month.
A day after the Chooks asked D’Ath if she stood by her earlier claim or wilfully misled the House, she dodged the questions with a two-line response.
“I’m a supporter of women’s right to choose,” Ms D’Ath said in a statement.
“If Robbie Katter is suggesting the number of medical abortions has gone up, what is his solution – to decriminalise it again?”
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