Queensland election: David Crisafulli defends family in face of Labor ‘smear’

David Crisafulli has been forced to defend ‘living out of a suitcase’ as Queensland LNP leader, after Labor disputed his entitlement to claim parliamentary expenses for being away from home.

LNP leader David Crisafulli hits the campaign hustings on Tuesday. Picture: Liam Kidston.

David Crisafulli has been forced to defend “living out of a suitcase” as Queensland Liberal National Party leader, after Labor disputed his entitlement to claim parliamentary expenses for being away from home.

Mr Crisafulli, who is intensely protective of wife Tegan and their two daughters, on Tuesday reluctantly detailed his split living arrangements in the face of what he blasted as a smear campaign ahead of the October 26 state election.

He confirmed his family lived in a house in inner Brisbane where he spent as much time as possible, while at the same time maintaining a residential “presence” in his Gold Coast electorate of Broadwater. It is understood Mr Crisafulli rents a downstairs flat in the home of a member of his electorate office staff.

Premier Steven Miles injected fresh needle into the row, saying: “The only person who stirred this up is David Crisafulli. I found it astounding that he claimed $10,000 worth of travel allowance in Brisbane while he was secretly living in Brisbane.

“That doesn’t pass the pub test for me.”

Documents tabled in state parliament show Mr Crisafulli was paid $8332 for overnight stays in Brisbane in the financial year to June 30 – expenses to which he said he was entitled. “They’re allowances that are available for parliamentary sittings when we are away from family,” he said on Tuesday.

Under parliamentary rules, MPs who travel to Brisbane for parliament and stay overnight can claim an allowance of about $139 a day when using rooms in the adjoining annex tower. However, this has been mostly closed for renovation over 2023-24, and eligible MPs were put up in a hotel instead.

Mr Crisafulli is understood to have claimed only the available meal allowance of about $130 per day.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles in Mackay on Tuesday. Picture: Adam Head

He had been trying to spend as much time as possible with his wife and daughters after they moved to Brisbane for the girls’ schooling. Property records show the couple sold their five-bedroom waterfront home at Sanctuary Cove, on the northern lip of the Gold Coast, for $2.35m in April 2021. The house was in Ms Crisafulli’s name.

The following month, a two-bedroom unit in George St in Brisbane’s CBD was purchased in her name for $745,000 before being sold in January 2023 for $855,000.

Property records show Ms Crisafulli bought the family’s inner Brisbane home, a three-bedroom Queenslander in fashionable Bulimba, for $1.025m in August last year. Mr Crisafulli remained registered to vote at his rented address on the Gold Coast.

“We have taken a conscious decision as a family for me to spend more time with my kids, who are both being educated in Brisbane,” the LNP leader said.

“You know, this … is … deeply personal, deeply personal. I think Queenslanders have seen that I am prepared to live out of a suitcase to get a job done for them.

“I am very proud of the area I represent, I maintain a presence on the Gold Coast. That’s important. But equally is spending some time with the kids.”

Labor ramped up its attacks on Mr Crisafulli’s housing arrangements leading into the campaign, now formally under way, with Deputy Premier and Treasurer Cameron Dick accusing him of “living a lie”. “The member for Broadwater cannot even tell people where he lives. He is enrolled in Bulimba, but he will not answer a simple question,” Mr Dick told parliament on September 10.

Labor’s social media machine has been heavily focused on Mr Crisafulli’s Bulimba address, particularly on the Miles HQ TikTok and Instagram accounts, authorised by ALP state secretary Kate Flanders, with nearly 20,000 likes and followers.

In one recent post, Miles HQ mocked a video of Mr Crisafulli holding a set of keys and saying – “Good morning Queensland, we’ve got a big announcement” – with the subtitle: “Big announcement: I’m ditching the Gold Coast for my new inner-city mansion”.

@mileshq_ Crisafulli wants to show you around his bulimba mansion (he ‘represents’ Broadwater) #qldpol#secret♬ original sound - MilesHQ

Mr Crisafulli predicted the personal attacks on him would backfire, with voters seeing through the purported smears.

“Some of the claims that have been made at the moment are borderline the most desperate things I have seen a government do,” he told reporters in Bundaberg, a regional seat Labor won by only nine votes in 2020.

“I believe the more desperate the government gets, the more Queenslanders are going to shake their heads and say, ‘it’s time’. It is time for a fresh start.”

An LNP spokesman said: “The Labor Party are fully aware David’s job and family life obviously means he spends significant amounts of time in Brisbane, where the office of the opposition leader has always been located. The Labor Party also knows he maintains a separate residence in the electorate where he stays, as recently as the weekend.”

Mr Crisafulli’s determination to keep his family out of the spotlight reaches back to his time as a rookie minister in Campbell Newman’s one-term LNP government from 2012.

Like the then premier, Mr Crisafulli lost his seat in Townsville when Labor under Annastacia Palaszczuk pulled off a boilover win in 2015 that put the ALP government on track for two more terms. Mr Crisafulli, 45, moved with his family to the Gold Coast and re-entered state parliament in 2017.

He emulates British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in avoiding using his daughters’ names in public.

Mr Miles, in contrast, has featured 10-year-old daughter Bridie in his “lunch box chats” from the family kitchen to spruik government policy on social media.

Reflecting on that turbulent period in his life in a recent interview, Mr Crisafulli told The Australian: “We took a decision as a family to shield the girls … and the more I see about the aggression on social media, the more I think we made the right decision.

“But I want to stress I do not criticise people who take a different approach. There are people who do share their family’s story … and I respect that.”