Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, October eighteen.
Speaker 2: Nine.
Speaker 1: Entertainment has a systemic cultural issue with abuse of power
Speaker 1: and authority, bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment. That's according to
Speaker 1: a review commissioned by the organization itself, But there are
Speaker 1: no findings about individual incidents or allegations, leading to fears
Speaker 1: nobody will be held accountable. You can read all the
Speaker 1: detail right now at the Australian dot com. A free
Speaker 1: lunch for every school kid sounds great, but it comes
Speaker 1: with a one point four billion dollar price tag and
Speaker 1: it's turning up the heat in a Queensland election campaign. Today,
Speaker 1: our reporter joins us from a famous pub with a
Speaker 1: big yarn about the man who wants to be premiere.
Speaker 2: What's your name, l Amelia? And what's your favorite thing
Speaker 2: to have for lunch?
Speaker 1: This is Queensland's Labor Premier, Stephen Miles, interviewing some preschoolers.
Speaker 3: What's your name?
Speaker 1: Amelia likes fruit, Azaia likes nuggets, and Miles, who's desperately
Speaker 1: hoping to keep labor alive in the upcoming election, is
Speaker 1: hoping their moms and dads like free lunches. That's his
Speaker 1: big policy announcement of the week and it's captivated parents.
Speaker 1: It's also led us on a deep dive into Miles's
Speaker 1: TikTok and it turns out lunch is a bit.
Speaker 2: Of a theme, all right.
Speaker 1: Sandwich there's a stack of tiktoks where Myles stands in
Speaker 1: his kitchen wearing a series of t shirts tight enough
Speaker 1: to show off his gums. Making sandwiches sometimes a come
Speaker 1: needed by his daughter.
Speaker 4: Lots of announcements, including one I'm really excited in that, which.
Speaker 1: Is a massive There's chopping and shredding and buttering. It's
Speaker 1: quite gripping. He's slicing a tomato. He's what putting the
Speaker 1: tomato strata on the bread and then pouring salt on it. Geez, salami,
Speaker 1: raw onion.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: He really loves sandwiches.
Speaker 4: He loves making a Sunday sandwich with his ten year
Speaker 4: old daughter Brady. I think it's part of his kind
Speaker 4: of daggy dad stick. He's doing it a little bit
Speaker 4: more convincingly than Scott Morrison did I think, Honey.
Speaker 1: This is one of the Australian's gun reporters. Sarah Elks
Speaker 1: who's part of our team covering Queensland politics.
Speaker 4: And then he's supercharged that at the ALP campaign launch
Speaker 4: on Sunday when he said that Queensland Labor, if re elected,
Speaker 4: would provide a free school lunch for every kid between
Speaker 4: prep and year six, so all of primary school, every day.
Speaker 1: We caught her in the middle of a busy day
Speaker 1: on the campaign trail and she'd just taken her first
Speaker 1: sip of a beer that looked icy and pretty delicious.
Speaker 4: Just excuse my beer, it's really hot.
Speaker 2: It's hot.
Speaker 4: I got up at four am to get on the plane.
Speaker 1: Sarah's got some experience with school lunches as a real
Speaker 1: life issue as well as a policy.
Speaker 4: Debate, and as a new school mum myself, I can
Speaker 4: say that I don't love making school lunches, but I
Speaker 4: also understand that.
Speaker 1: It's really tricky for school touch shops.
Speaker 4: Ours has one paid staff member and the rest rely
Speaker 4: on volunteers. Sometimes it's really tricky to find volunteers. And
Speaker 4: there's not been a huge amount of detail from Stephen
Speaker 4: Mars and Labor about exactly how he's going to roll
Speaker 4: out these school lunches to every single kid, particularly in
Speaker 4: regional and rural areas where some schools don't even have
Speaker 4: a touch shop. But I think it goes to show
Speaker 4: that labor is really focusing on cost of living relief.
Speaker 1: There's been a bit of scoffing about the free lunch policy,
Speaker 1: in particular it's one point four billion dollar price tag.
Speaker 1: What's your take on how ordinary Queenslanders will receive this policy?
Speaker 4: From talking to my small focus group of ordinary Queenslanders,
Speaker 4: you know, friends and family, I think that there is
Speaker 4: some acceptance that the government is trying to relieve cost
Speaker 4: of living pressures and everyone is doing it a little
Speaker 4: bit tough, but I think they're really taking a leaf
Speaker 4: out of say the pmc's book. The Queensland Parents and
Speaker 4: Citizens Association released a statement to say thank you for
Speaker 4: recognizing that cost of living is a problem, but we
Speaker 4: would prefer the money being spent on the cost of
Speaker 4: school expenses, stationery and uniforms and excursions and all that
Speaker 4: kind of thing. So I think that there is skepticism
Speaker 4: and also I think the problem with these kind of
Speaker 4: measures with a third term government is people might be
Speaker 4: happy to accept them, but it may not be enough
Speaker 4: to win over their votes when there's such a strong
Speaker 4: it's time factor that's kind of ricocheting through the electorate.
Speaker 1: Coming up. Sarah's been breaking big yarns about David Chrisfuli's past.
Speaker 1: After the break what he says about his record.
Speaker 2: In business.
Speaker 1: For as life on a campaign trail can be hard going.
Speaker 1: The leaders load you onto buses, but you don't get
Speaker 1: told where you're going or what you're doing until you arrive.
Speaker 1: It's political party's way of avoiding nasty surprises like protesters
Speaker 1: showing up. But it makes for long days for journos.
Speaker 1: So where have you been today?
Speaker 4: We flew from Brisbane to Townsville and we did a
Speaker 4: press conference outside the Youth Detention Center in Townsville, and
Speaker 4: then we drove up the road to Ingham, which is
Speaker 4: David chrystop philliess hometown, and we went to the tennis club.
Speaker 4: He's now gone to his favorite deli and we're just
Speaker 4: having a lunch in allegedly the pub that Slim Dusty
Speaker 4: wrote the song Pub with No Beer About a Lot
Speaker 4: of Chair of Little Place is a pub with no beer,
Speaker 4: although it has beer now, which is definitely a plus.
Speaker 4: You're on the David Christifully come Back tour now in
Speaker 4: his home town of Ingham, Sarah, and you've been digging
Speaker 4: into his past what he did after losing his seat
Speaker 4: in the Queensland Parliament a few years back. David chrysip
Speaker 4: Fully lost his seat Munding Borough, which is a Townspall
Speaker 4: seat in twenty fifteen when the Newman government was swept
Speaker 4: out of power. When he found himself without a seat,
Speaker 4: he looked to the private sector for employment. The first
Speaker 4: thing he did was get some consulting work for a
Speaker 4: company called Outcome Results, which was like a recruitment company
Speaker 4: for unemployment training providers. So they found people who were
Speaker 4: long term unemployed and connected them with registered training organizations.
Speaker 4: Outcome Results was a company that was run by a
Speaker 4: gentleman called Rabbia Kraem and he is a long term
Speaker 4: associate of mister Chrysa Fullies. And in the dying days
Speaker 4: of the Newman government, David Chrisipfully as local member, boasted
Speaker 4: that he secured a taxpayer FUNDEDRT worth about three hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty one thousand dollars for Outcome Results to set
Speaker 4: up a call center in Townsville to shift its operations
Speaker 4: from Melbourne to towns full And what we found out
Speaker 4: is that soon after mister chrysa Fully lost his seat
Speaker 4: of monding Borough. He then became a consultant for mister
Speaker 4: Craam's outcome results. Following that consultancy work, he then agreed
Speaker 4: to be the sole director and the chief executive of
Speaker 4: a registered training organization that mister Crayam was the half
Speaker 4: owner of. And this is a business that has now
Speaker 4: come back to haunt mister chrysa Fully in terms of
Speaker 4: questions about its running. It ultimately failed. It fell into
Speaker 4: liquidation a couple of months after mister chrisa Fully left
Speaker 4: that business in April twenty sixteen, and while he was
Speaker 4: only there for four months, I think questions do need
Speaker 4: to be asked at what he knew when he entered
Speaker 4: the business, what he did as its sole director and
Speaker 4: the person who was in charge of running the business,
Speaker 4: and then what he did afterwards.
Speaker 1: Here's Sarah taking on Chris a Fully at a press
Speaker 1: conference just before the beer in Ingham on Thursday.
Speaker 4: Can I ask some questions about your business if that's okay, please?
Speaker 4: Why did you leave Southern Edge Training on April one
Speaker 4: in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Because my promise capital been country.
Speaker 4: I was in the business.
Speaker 2: Performer and I met every single one.
Speaker 3: Of my obligations.
Speaker 1: Sarah versus Chris A. Fooley kept going for a solid
Speaker 1: eight minutes based.
Speaker 4: On what Cameron Dick said, and he spent seventy two
Speaker 4: hours talking about the Supreme Court of Victoria. I'm not
Speaker 4: talking about the Supreme Court of Victoria, I am because
Speaker 4: it's related to.
Speaker 3: No, it's really not. I got a statement from the
Speaker 3: Australian Skills Quality Authority last night to say that the
Speaker 3: report I have read the report, can I it's the
Speaker 3: allegation was that the company traded.
Speaker 1: His heart really must sink when he sees reporters from
Speaker 1: the Australian showing up at his press conference every day.
Speaker 1: We spoke to Lydia Lynch last week about his difficulty
Speaker 1: answering questions about how he's going to handle the issue
Speaker 1: of abortion if he's elected. What's been your sense of
Speaker 1: his inability or unwillingness to answer some pretty simple questions
Speaker 1: about this issue.
Speaker 4: It has been unfortunate as a reporter and disappointing as
Speaker 4: a reporter and as a Queenslander to ask these simple
Speaker 4: and relevant questions about mister Chris Fully's personal policy position
Speaker 4: on things and his party's policy position on things. And
Speaker 4: also issues that are on the public record about his
Speaker 4: business dealings and be met with non answers. I don't
Speaker 4: want anyone to feel sorry for a We're used to
Speaker 4: people not answering our questions, but I think, particularly during
Speaker 4: an election campaign, it's voters who deserve that transparency and
Speaker 4: that accountability. I think to not answer really straightforward questions
Speaker 4: is being disrespectful to voters.
Speaker 1: Sarah Elks is a senior reporter with The Australian. You
Speaker 1: can check out all her reporting and don't miss our
Speaker 1: Queensland team's political gossip column, Feeding the Chucks at the
Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot u. Thanks for joining us this
Speaker 1: week on the front. Our team is Kristin Amiot, Jasper
Speaker 1: leik Leat, Samaglue, Joshua Burton, Tiffany Dimac and me Claire Harvey.