LNP leader Deb Frecklington’s secret meetings with property developers

QLD Deputy Premier Steven Miles says Frydenberg dishonest over border closure attacks, after Deb Frecklington’s secret meetings revealed.

Queensland opposition leader Deb Frecklington attends the official opening of the Rheinmetall Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence in Redbank. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles has accused federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg of being dishonest over attacks on the state’s border closures, after revelations LNP leader Deb Frecklington ran a “co-ordinated” campaign with the Prime Minister on borders.

The Australian revealed today Ms Frecklington secretly met property developers banned from making political donations to brief them on her election strategy and campaign finance struggles.

In leaked agenda documents from her June 24 meeting with her “business advisory forum,” Ms Frecklington boasted that her top achievement was her “open the border” campaign, which she said her state LNP team had been running “in co-ordination with the Prime Minister”.

Read the leaked agenda below:

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Attended by property developers Laurence Lancini, Kim Pradella and Triumph Investment Group executive chairman Mark Brodie, Ms Frecklington and chief of staff Matt Jeffries warned there were just “130 days until the election”.

Ms Frecklington’s publicly ­released official diaries give scant details of the forum, listing it only as a meeting with “business stakeholders”. The individuals at the meeting or their companies are not named, as Ms Frecklington has done with other corporate ­engagements noted in her diaries.

Deb Frecklington says overhauling Labor’s laws preventing property developer donations to political parties would not be a “priority” if she becomes premier but refused to rule out scrapping the laws altogether.

Asked on Monday whether she would scrap the laws prohibiting property developer donations, Ms Freecklington said: “That is certainly not my priority at all”.

“My priority is fixing the health system,” she said.

“We’ve got laws in place, I’m on record through the debate in the parliament in relation to those laws.”

Asked if it would be something she aimed to change in her first term, if the LNP forms government after the October 31 election, Ms Frecklington was circumspect.

“I’ve not announced that or said anything about that,” she said.

Defending her meeting with the developers, Ms Frecklington said all politicians regularly met with business and industry figures.

“I attend business meetings on a regular basis,” she said.

“The purpose is to get Queensland working again.”

The Palaszczuk Labor government banned property developers from making political donations in 2018, and the ban was upheld by the High Court last year, after an unsuccessful challenge from then-LNP president and developer Gary Spence.

There is no suggestion the business advisory forum was a fundraiser, or that the property developers did anything wrong by attending.

At the breakfast meeting, held at the National Retail Association’s offices where Mr Brodie is chairman, Ms Frecklington described her top three accomplishments and top three challenges, listing her crowning achievement as the “open the border campaign”.

“In co-ordination with the Prime Minister the state LNP team has been calling for the Premier to honour her initial commitment of reopening borders on 10 July, after she moved the goalposts and said September,” Ms Frecklington’s report says.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reopened the state’s borders to all but Victoria on July 10, and then progressively closed them to parts of NSW and the ACT. Scott Morrison, his federal counterparts, and the state LNP have used the border closure, and problems with border exemptions, to attack Ms Palaszczuk and Queensland Labor.

Josh Frydenberg accused Deputy Premier ­Steven Miles of being a “conspiracy theorist” last month after Mr Miles suggested the state and federal LNP’s criticism over the borders was a “grand conspiracy” concocted in the Prime Minister’s office.

“I suppose he also thinks that Fidel Castro killed JFK. I don’t know what other conspiracies he’s thinking about…maybe he believes in UFOs and Godzilla,” Mr Frydenberg told Brisbane radio station 4BC of Mr Miles’s allegations.

Ms Frecklington’s listed her other “achievements” as her New Bradfield Scheme water policy, a policy to overhaul the child safety system, and a favourable YouGov poll showing a swing from Labor to the LNP.

Her major challenges included COVID-19 travel restrictions, making it difficult to campaign, voter disengagement, and “resourcing,” in light of Labor’s recent introduction of electoral expenditure caps and rules about signage at polling booths.

The Australian understands Ms Frecklington held similar meetings on February 12, May 6, and July 21. A spokesman for Ms Frecklington said she was not trying to cover up the fact she was meeting with banned donors and discussing campaign financing challenges.

“No, the discussion was about Labor’s law changes that allow Labor and the unions to outspend the LNP due to electoral caps and are consistent with the LNP’s public commentary on the laws, including in parliament,” he said.

Asked at a press conference on Sunday whether she had co-ordinated her campaign on borders with the Prime Minister’s office, Ms Frecklington said she had not.

But she later backtracked, telling The Australian she had misunderstood, and that she had discussed the border situation with Mr Morrison and Mr Frydenberg in June and July.

“At the time I was on a unity ticket with the Prime Minister,” she said. “I was saying ‘open the borders’ because there was no (contrary) medical advice at that time.”

“Since then I’ve said that I’ll follow the health advice which has come since the second wave in Victoria.”

Ms Frecklington said the situation was different now than it had been in June and July. “Labor has done their best to conflate the two but the truth is they are two very different times,” she said.

Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles launched a stinging attack on Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Mr Frydenberg and Ms Frecklington today in the wake of The Australian’s revelations.

“They have been co-ordinated throughout this entire pandemic, we have evidence dating back to June which shows just how co-ordinated Scott Morrison and Deb Frecklington have been,” Mr Miles said.

He said Ms Frecklington and the LNP needed to “guarantee no dollars changed hands for that exclusive briefing”.

Today, Mr Miles said Mr Frydenberg should apologise.

“Clearly he has been proven to be dishonest here, and he should apologise for those statements,” Mr Miles said.

“This makes it all very very clear…all along, big business, Scott Morrison, Deb Frecklington, Josh Frydenberg have been working together to undermine Queensland’s strong health response, and if they had succeeded Queenslanders’ lives would have been at risk.”

“That’s why Scott Morrison is here in Queensland – he’s continuing that co-ordinated effort.”

“He knows she (Ms Frecklington) does what he says.”

‘Health wait lists inspired career in politics’

Meanwhile, Deb Frecklington has pledged $300m to clear a backlog on surgery waiting lists which she says has grown by about 26,000 patients in the past five years.

The Liberal National Party leader announced the funding on Monday in the Hervey Bay, which is famed for its whale watching industry and significant population of retirees.

Ms Frecklington joined a group of seniors to discuss their waitlist woes, with many telling the Opposition Leader they and their family members had spent months in agony while waiting for surgery.

She said the waiting list for surgeries in the Hervey Bay hospital had grown by 51 per cent since Annastacia Palaszczuk became premier.

The $300m would be used to fast-track the surgeries of about 56,000 patients throughout Queensland by partnering with private hospitals.

Ms Frecklington said health waiting lists in her hometown of Kingaroy had inspired her to enter politics in 2012.

“I got into politics for many, many reasons, but one of the reasons was that the Kingaroy dental waitlist was eight years long and it was unacceptable,” she said.

“We got in (to government) and we fixed it up.

“Health all across Queensland, but in regional areas like this in the Wide Bay, is very important.

“People choose to live in regional Queensland because it’s beautiful, they deserve to have good healthcare.”

Additional reporting:

Michael McKenna