Queensland Senate ticket: Amanda Stoker and James McGrath in backroom battle
Amanda Stoker and James McGrath are canny and connected but both are going at it hammer and tong for the No 1 spot on the Queensland Senate ticket.
It’s what you might call a diabolical political choice.
On the one hand, there’s eloquent culture warrior Amanda Stoker, an up and coming assistant minister meant to help engineer the federal government’s reset on gender after months of damaging headlines over allegations of rape and bullying.
Then there is James McGrath, quirky and unconventional, but a whiz with the numbers and stubbornly popular with the grassroots membership.
He was involved in putting Boris Johnson on the path to Downing Street as elected mayor of London and, back home in Queensland, ran the Liberal National Party’s 2012 state election campaign, delivering the monster win that brought it to short-lived power under Campbell Newman.
Both are rising stars in the Liberal firmament: canny, connected and well-regarded social conservatives who share many personal values but are now going at it hammer and tong for the No 1 spot on the Queensland Senate ticket to be decided on Saturday by the LNP State Council.
In a novel twist, Scott Morrison has baulked at choosing between them. Senator Stoker, 38, and Senator McGrath, 46, each go into the showdown with the endorsement of a prime minister who doesn’t want to be seen to be taking sides.
Of his newly minted Assistant Women’s Minister, he said: “Our government, the Senate and the LNP is stronger and better because of her outstanding work and dedication to public service.”
Describing Senator McGrath as an asset to the LNP and the Senate, the Prime Minister enthused: “James is always in tune with the needs and concerns of Queenslanders and Australians and represents them with passion and persuasion.”
The competition is fierce because top spot on the ticket guarantees re-election, while LNP rules stipulate that the second-placed Liberal-aligned candidate goes No 3, behind the lead National —in this case former cabinet minister Matt Canavan.
Although Senator Stoker has been in parliament for barely three years, having taken the casual vacancy created by the departure to London as high commissioner of former attorney-general George Brandis, she soon made a name for herself.
The Brisbane-based mother of three is a darling of the conservative right, which champions free speech and Christian values, and cheerfully courts controversy by speaking out against abortion, voluntary euthanasia and sex reassignment for transgender teens.
She calls herself a conviction politician.
Her supporters insist her relegation to the more contested but still eminently winnable third spot on the LNP ticket would be a snub to Mr Morrison and offend women voters.
Senator McGrath is a study in contrasts. Single and childless, his pitch to the 311 State Council delegates registered to turn out for the preselection is that the party needs his nous to shore up “fortress Queensland” at the coming federal election.
Safely ensconced at No 1 on the ticket, he could devote his full attention to the campaign, including getting Senator Stoker over the line from a down-ballot spot.
Having returned 23 LNP MPs from a then 30 seats in 2019, anchoring Mr Morrison’s federal victory, no state is more important to the government’s re-election prospects than is Queensland.
In his “manifesto” to the preselectors, Senator McGrath alludes to himself as “someone who puts the beliefs of their party before personal ambition or factional interests.”
The hard-fought contest is taking place against a backdrop of bitter infighting in the LNP between the so-called Christian Right faction that has locked in behind Senator Stoker and a loose coalition of interests and players broadly for Senator McGrath.
His supporters include Defence Minister Peter Dutton, Agriculture Minister David Littleproud and Brisbane lord mayor Adrian Schrinner, each commanding a bloc of votes on State Council.
Senator Stoker insists she has backing from all quarters and disputes claims by her factional opponents that she is a mouthpiece for the Christian Right. “It’s about conviction,” she recently told The Australian. “Why be in politics if you are not going to do something and say something meaningful when you see people in our community facing hardship?
“Despite what people say about Liberals … we aren’t all about money and the economy, although those things are very important.”
For a relatively junior senator, she has risen fast. In addition to her responsibilities for women, Senator Stoker is Assistant Minister for Industrial Relations and Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General, reflecting her background in the law.
The chatter in Canberra is further promotion to cabinet would be in her future should the government be returned.
Ironically, she is on the same page as Senator McGrath with her signature social campaigning against abortion, euthanasia and gender transition. While his supporters insist he holds equally strong views on the right to life and assisted dying, he shies away from voicing them publicly.
“It’s Amanda on Sky versus James on the road,” said one LNP wag, contrasting Senator McGrath’s prodigious travel in regional Queensland with Senator Stoker’s regular appearances on the pay-TV news outlet.
Senator Stoker’s views on abortion are among her most incendiary. Asked where she stood on a woman’s right to choose, she said: “To my mind, any adult woman has the opportunity to choose in their behaviours every day of the week and there are probably 100 decisions one can take leading up to the point at which one finds oneself pregnant.
“That’s a woman’s right to choose. But there are two human beings in this story and … we are talking about another human being who has human rights too.”
On gender transition she said: “You can’t change your chromosomes, you can’t change the way you were born. It’s a false hope that all the research shows doesn’t deliver better mental health outcomes, it doesn’t deliver better life satisfaction for people down the track.”
Senator McGrath, who declined to be interviewed, citing LNP rules against preselection candidates putting their case in the media, is a hawk on China who touts in a circular to State Council delegates his concern about the “economic war” Beijing has declared “on free democratic nations”.
He writes: “We must be weary (sic) of China and when it comes to it, we must stand by the side of Taiwan — as its resemblance with Poland in 1939 is chilling.”
His colourful reputation preceded his entry to the Senate in 2014: he was reportedly sacked from Mr Johnson’s London lord mayoral campaign team in 2008 for disparaging Afro-Caribbean immigrants.
Senator McGrath was promoted to the outer ministry in 2015 as assistant minister to the prime minister and assistant minister for immigration and border protection after he helped gather the numbers for Malcolm Turnbull to seize the prime ministership from Tony Abbott, but he was overlooked by Mr Morrison when Mr Turnbull was in turn cut down in 2018 in a partyroom strike launched by Mr Dutton.
Senator Stoker is understood to have appealed to the PM for backing after Senator McGrath circulated his endorsement among State Council delegates. Her matching testimonial is a sign that Mr Morrison doesn’t want to take sides when the outcome of the preselection seems finely balanced in the febrile atmospherics of the LNP.
While both sides say they are confident of having the numbers to prevail, the contest is considered too close to call and could come down to whether Senator McGrath can mobilise his supporters in the country to undertake a potentially long and expensive journey to Brisbane to vote at State Council.
LNP rules state this must be done in person, an advantage for Senator Stoker when her core support is in the state capital.
She will also go in with extra letters of endorsement from Josh Frydenberg and former High Court judge Ian Callinan, for whom she clerked before becoming a barrister.
Each candidate will speak and field questions from the floor.
Old scores promise to be settled. Senator McGrath’s lead role in 2015 in knifing Mr Abbott — who was more popular with the LNP rank and file than Mr Turnbull — was being played up by Senator Stoker’s supporters, one LNP source said.
Senator Stoker’s backhander last year to then state LNP leader Deb Frecklington for deploying the “gender card” after she went after “backroom boys” in the LNP for destabilising her position had galvanised state MPs on State Council to come out for Senator McGrath, another insider said.
“There are a lot of state MPs who want to take her head off for having a crack at Deb,” the party figure said.
More Coverage
Trump’s Ukraine plan risks appeasement, envoy warns
Ukraine’s top diplomat in Australia has warned Donald Trump’s plan to end his country’s war with Russia risks becoming an exercise in appeasement.
‘That’s just not true’: Steggall and Farrell in Parliament corridor stoush |WATCH
Independent Zali Steggall has blasted Special Minister for State Don Farrell at a doorstop in Canberra over controversial new electoral reforms agreed to by the two major parties.