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Bruz intensifies, STOOOOGE.

Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie has purged all union figures from two key Queensland government boards, in an act the labour movement says undermines the integrity of the bodies as the LNP embarks on reviews of workplace laws.

Bleijie announced overhauls of the state’s Work Health and Safety and WorkCover boards at 6pm on Friday, with new paid appointments including LNP stalwart Lawrence Springborg and Stafford byelection candidate Fiona Hammond.

What Bleijie did not announce was that six representatives from state unions had been removed from their roles, and no new union leaders had been added.

Queensland Council of Unions general secretary Jacqueline King said Bleijie’s move disregarded the independent worker voices on the statutory bodies that union representatives had provided “for generations”.

“Queensland workers should have zero confidence that these reviews will be conducted fairly or independently when the deputy premier has deliberately removed every representative of Queensland’s registered trade unions from the very bodies established to advise government on workplace safety and workers’ compensation,” King told this masthead in a statement.

“Silencing the voice of workers while expanding the influence of employer representatives fundamentally undermines the integrity of these advisory bodies.

“At the very time workers need a strong, independent voice at the table, the deputy premier has chosen to shut that voice out.”

Bleijie’s move follows a campaign launched by unions in April accusing the Crisafulli LNP of using a review of safety codes, along with one into the state’s broader industrial relations and workers compensation laws, to wind back workplace protections.

Even the former Newman LNP government, of which Bleijie was a member, appointed a union leader to the WorkCover Board – then police union president Ian Leavers.

Bleijie, in a statement to this masthead, described King’s idea of independence as “laughable”, given former Labor ministers Linda Lavarch and Anthony Lynham chaired the Work Health and Safety and WorkCover boards, respectively, under the former government.

“Her definition of independence is, as long as their Labor mates are in charge, all is well,” Bleijie said, adding that workers were “well represented on the Work Health and Safety Board”, to which Labor had also appointed CFMEU figure Kurt Pauls.

“The Crisafulli government is ensuring Queensland workers have adequate protections and fair conditions in their employment. Workers should be safe at their workplace and paid competitively.”

The union figures removed from the nine-person WorkCover Board were Australian Workers’ Union state secretary Stacey Schinnerl and Queensland Teachers’ Union president Cresta Richardson.

In a statement to this masthead, Schinnerl said the lack of union figures on the boards, which administer the state’s workers compensation scheme and advise government on health and safety matters, was disappointing.

She said removing respected union representatives risked undermining the principle that workers should have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting them, and risked “weakening confidence that the interests of working people are being properly represented”.

Schinnerl and King are the two union leaders to have so far given evidence critical of the CFMEU to the government-commissioned inquiry into the construction union and wider sector.

Outside WorkCover chair Chloe Kopilovic – also a Bleijie appointment and a director at the same law firm as Glenn Ferguson, one of the government’s reviewers – and deputy chair Greg Hallam, all board members’ terms were due for expiry or reappointment on June 30.

The previous Work Health and Safety Board was chaired by former LNP Burleigh MP Michael Hart, who was appointed to the role after not contesting the 2024 election. That 14-person board has now been halved, with four union figures removed and none appointed.

These included acting teachers’ union general secretary Brendan Crotty, AWU assistant secretary Mark Raguse, Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union state secretary Rohan Webb, and Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union secretary Sarah Beaman.

In a statement, Beaman said: “The announcement is not only disappointing and misguided, it continues the deputy premier’s anti-worker and anti-registered trade union agenda.”

Split evenly along employer and worker representative lines, new additions to that board’s three “worker representative members” include beef producer Australian Country Choice’s chief people and compliance officer, Tracie Deegan.

Abby Sommer, a director at Sommer Partners after a 15-year stint with major contractor John Holland, also joins an earlier appointee, Red Union Group managing director Jack McGuire.

New additions to the employer side include 4 Ingredients founder Kim McCosker.

The entire Work Health and Safety Board’s membership was not due for expiry or reappointment until September 12. This masthead is not suggesting any appointees are not qualified or suitable for the roles.

An army of foreign influencers supporting Pauline Hanson on social media could be the first example of Indonesian “buzzers” being deployed on Australian politics.

In the past seven months, new Facebook groups supporting Hanson have been popping up – controlled out of Indonesia, but with a rapidly growing number of Australian followers.

One group has 117,000 members, with all three administrators based in Indonesia and dozens of posts daily supporting One Nation.

Some of the content targets Muslims, despite being posted by Indonesian accounts, often with a profile picture of a woman wearing an Islamic headscarf.

One such poster, named Yeti Marati, has posts calling for mosques to be closed down in Australia.
Another of her posts claims “Muslims won’t come to Australia if One Nation wins power”, generating many comments in support.

ANU researcher Ross Tapsell believes it could be the first time Indonesian “buzzers” – or election influencers – have been used to impact Australian politics.

“There is this underground, hidden industry – it’s an influence operations industry,” said Tapsell, who has spent the past decade researching disinformation in south-east Asia.

“A ‘buzzer’ is an organised digital labourer who is generally posting content on social media for some form of financial gain.”

Buzzer teams are available for hire, deploying social media accounts they have been crafting for years. But it can be a controversial occupation: last year, one buzzer was arrested for impeding an Indonesian corruption investigation.

“Their job is to just continue to post what is given to them,” Tapsell said.

“It’s very top-down, and they’re at the bottom of the rung. They often don’t meet their employers.”

A Current Affair messaged about 25 Indonesian Facebook accounts supporting One Nation and failed to receive a single reply. One account removed a video that had been questioned.

“Sometimes one person might be managing 15 different Facebook pages, and they would be putting out the same content on [each of them],” Tapsell said.

One Indonesian post viewed by A Current Affair accidentally included the instructions they were given to “ask your audience this question”.

The pro-One Nation content from Indonesia flooding Australian feeds appears to be highly co-ordinated, with identical images repeated across multiple accounts.

Tapsell said they were clearly not doing it because they were interested in One Nation, but rather for “financial purposes”.

“Because it is so cheap, and because it is so readily available, and it’s now a big booming industry, I think it was always inevitable that it was going to now be part of Australian political and online life,” he said.

One Nation has admitted to outsourcing virtual assistants for its candidates to the Philippines, but a spokesperson said it has nothing to do with this social media surge from Indonesia.

“We are not involved with any of it. We are not in any way responsible for it. We consider it to be deliberate foreign interference in Australian politics,” the spokesperson said.

“These accounts operate in foreign countries, over which we have zero jurisdiction. It is properly the responsibility of the minister for foreign affairs to raise this matter with the governments of these countries.”

Pollster Tony Barry from RedBridge Group, who witnessed One Nation pick up close to 3 million extra voters in poll numbers this year, said whoever was behind it, it seemed to be working.

“That is a real turbocharging of their vote in just six months,” Barry said. “Based on our research, there’s something not quite organic which is turbocharging that vote.”

A north Queensland MP’s seat will be abolished for a third time, while a Labor leadership contender’s electorate will, on paper, flip to the LNP in an electoral map redraw the opposition has labelled “corrupted” by the Crisafulli government.

Independent analysis of the first redistribution since 2017 has confirmed seat boundary changes, subtractions and additions will leave the LNP better off by two seats, based on 2024 election results, with Labor and Katter’s Australian Party losing one each.

Despite Premier David Crisafulli suggesting both new seats in the fast-growing south-east were in “Labor heartland”, one in Caboolture will be notionally LNP. Labor’s Gold Coast enclave of Gaven, held by shadow attorney-general Meaghan Scanlon, will also flip blue.

And KAP MP Shane Knuth, a former LNP and Nationals member for Dalrymple and Charters Towers, will now need to navigate his seat being scrapped in a redistribution for a third time, after the Queensland Redistribution Commission agreed with an LNP suggestion to abolish the electorate of Hill.

“The QRC has made a shocking decision that weakens north Queensland’s voice in parliament and sends yet another seat to south-east Queensland,” Knuth said.

“The LNP could have legislated to increase the number of seats in parliament. That would have accommodated south-east Queensland’s population growth without robbing north Queensland of one of its valuable parliamentary voices.”

A second new seat, Springfield, will absorb some of the rapid population growth around Ipswich. On paper, it will likely be held by Labor after the 2028 election, during which the new electoral map will be used.

While the number of seats is up to parliament to legislate, the commission’s final report, published on Monday after a year-long consultation process, noted such changes were likely to be needed in the “not too distant future” to avoid the loss of one of the state’s four sprawling regional seats.

KAP leader Robbie Katter said the LNP had influenced the commission to abolish one of his party’s two seats and shift boundaries to benefit Resources Minister Dale Last, while making his own expansive seat of Flinders (formerly Traeger) even larger.

The commission is made up of State Development director-general John Sosso, Electoral Commissioner Pat Vidgen, and former judge Gregory Koppenol as chair. Sosso’s selection by the government has riled the Labor opposition, and others.

Tony Fitzgerald, who led the landmark Fitzgerald inquiry in the late 1980s, warned last year of a return to the “bad old days” of “biased electoral boundaries” after Sosso’s appointment. The LNP has defended his selection.

On Monday, Opposition Leader Steven Miles accused the government of having “corrupted” the process with a “very partisan commissioner” that meant the boundaries set out this week will “forever be questioned”.

Miles said Scanlon was an important member of the Labor team, which would work through the implications for her regarding the 2028 election.

Election analyst Ben Raue, writing in his blog, The Tally Room, on Monday, questioned the commission’s explanation of which seats were, in fact, new or abolished around Ipswich and Brisbane’s south.

But Raue confirmed the new seat around Ipswich was notionally Labor, and the seat of Caboolture notionally LNP – as was Scanlon’s seat of Gaven based on boundary changes.

Writing in his blog, The Poll Bludger, of the earlier draft redistribution, analyst William Bowe’s estimated the two-party-preferred result in Macalister suggested the redrawn seat – to be renamed Beenleigh and held by Labor’s Melissa McMahon – could also fall to the LNP by a margin of 0.4 per cent.

Raue’s estimate has McMahon’s margin trimmed from 1.9 per cent to 0.7 per cent.

On Tuesday morning, Crisafulli repeated suggestions that both new seats were in “Labor Party heartland”.

Asked on Monday if he felt the redrawn electoral map would help or hurt the LNP, he said the decision was made by the independent commission.

“Ultimately, what we have to do is, whatever the boundaries look like, we have to go to the people of Queensland and say this is what we spoke to you about before the last election, this is how we have sought to address those issues, this is our vision for the future,” he said.

“And who draws up those boundaries, and where … people fall on one side of the line. I don’t think many Queenslanders will be focused on that.”

Asked whether the government would consider the commission’s suggestions, including an expansion of the number of MPs in parliament, a spokesperson for Attorney-General Deb Frecklington said its focus was on “delivering more police, not more politicians”.

Three prominent LNP figures have been added to state government boards, with the appointments announced after the close of business on Friday.

Goondiwindi mayor Lawrence Springborg was appointed to the WorkCover Queensland board.

Springborg has served as mayor since 2020. He was previously a state MP for the seats of Carnarvon, Warwick and Southern Downs. During this time, he served as leader of the National Party in Queensland, then leader of the merged state LNP.

He also served as LNP president from to 2021 to 2025.

News Corp reported this week that Springborg was being put forward to replace Governor Jeannette Young after her five-year term finishes later this year.

Speaking to media shortly after that news, Opposition Leader Steven Miles said Young had been “faultless through her entire five years” and he would have preferred her continue.

“It’s important that whoever is in office, though … recommends to the King a governor who can be trusted and to be above reproach and above politics,” Miles said.

Asked if he thought Springborg would struggle to be above politics, Miles said he would wait to see the ultimate appointment, “but clearly he is not a non-partisan figure”.

LNP candidate for Stafford Fiona Hammond was also appointed to the board alongside Springborg.

Labor’s Luke Richmond claimed victory in the Stafford byelection in May, despite the party’s primary vote trailing Hammond by nearly 10 per cent.

Matthew Crossley, Scott Armstrong, Roz White, Trent Twomey and Renee Cooper were also added as directors to the WorkCover board.

Brisbane City Councillor Krista Adams has been added to the Economic Development Queensland board, alongside Tony Sowden, Michael McNab, Emma McCaughey and Sally Mlikota.

Adams has served as a councillor for Wishart since 2008. Earlier this week, she blamed NIMBYs for the scrapping of a pickleball court expansion project in her ward.

The park was already home to three pickleball courts, and locals complained the park did not have a toilet block, and there was not enough space to support a further three.

Kim McCosker, Tracie Deegan and Abby Sommer were also appointed to the Work Health and Safety board.

Mark Paddenburg was appointed chair of the Contract Cleaning Industry (Portable Long Service Leave) Authority, and David Ford was appointed deputy chair. Neville Wilmott and Bridey McMillan-Tooth were also added as directors.

Plans to transform an industrial block on the riverfront in South Brisbane into thousands of homes and public parkland have been released.

The Queensland government revealed Lendlease was awarded the tender to develop the Visy glass recycling site, with more than 4000 homes to be built on the 7.1-hectare block, which will include about 1.2 hectares of public space.

The project will include riverfront promenades and boardwalks, plazas and “amphitheatre-style” areas, parkland and shared pedestrian and cycling pathways.

Surrounded by piles of crushed glass at the site, Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie said the land would become “a new South Bank”.

Lendlease added it would have the public sections and about 800 units finished in time for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The glass recycling facility will close in April.

Bleijie, who also serves as the planning minister, and Lendlease chief executive Claire Johnston would not say if money was paid to the government or if the land would remain in public hands, citing “commercial in confidence”.

Asked if he would support information on the ownership structure being made public by Economic Development Queensland, Bleijie responded: “Does it matter?”

“The public are going to have access to 1.2 hectares of land they don’t have access to now … I reckon the taxpayer’s getting a pretty good deal,” the deputy premier said.

Bleijie said the tender process had been run by Economic Development Queensland, and they could be contacted for more information.

Representatives for EDQ did not comment.

More than 80 expressions of interest were lodged during the tender process.

In 2022, the then-Labor state government purchased the Visy glass factory for $165 million, with plans for it to become an Olympic broadcasting centre.

Those plans were scrapped after the LNP government’s 100-day review of Games planning, and developers were asked in October last year to pitch ideas for the land.

>"The Crisafulli government is acting immediately to undo Labor's failings, starting with a $16 million investment and a full system overhaul," the minister said.

>That investment was announced nearly 12 months ago.

ABC rightfully calling out Purdie and this government for doing fuck all.

A new two-way bikeway and separate footpath will be built along a busy inner-city stretch, long identified as dangerous and difficult to traverse by cyclists.

The strip will run 1.2 kilometres along Shafston Avenue between Kangaroo Point and East Brisbane and will link existing paths at Deakin Street and Mowbray Park, creating a direct route into the city.

The plans will be announced as part of Wednesday’s 2026-27 council budget – but the cost of the project is yet to be revealed.

Retiree Richard Boys from Norman Park frequently rides his bike toward the CBD.

“This is probably the roughest stretch of bike path between my house and the city, so if it gets upgraded it gives me a continuous link through to my house,” he said on Monday afternoon.

“Having a proper bike path would make it a bit safer.”

Belinda Ward, a spokesperson for cyclist group East BUG, said the upgrade was “long overdue”.

“There are sections that are quite congested … if you’re not a pretty confident cyclist, it’s not a good place.”

Preliminary designs of the planned cycleway were released to Brisbane Times ahead of the council budget on Wednesday.

Artist impressions show the same green and white colour scheme used on the Kangaroo Point Bridge, with separate lanes for riders travelling in each direction and a third for walkers.

There would be several pedestrian crossings, including at Thorn Street and Castlebar Street.

The final design will be released late in 2026, with construction due to start in 2027.

While costs are not yet known, but the project will be funded in the budget under a 50-50 agreement with the state government as part of the CityLink Cycleway program.

“As our city grows, we need a transport network that makes active travel easier, helping residents leave their cars at home and reducing congestion on our roads,” Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said in a statement.

Council infrastructure chair Ryan Murphy said the project would “give residents safer, easier travel options as Brisbane continues to grow”.

Initial designs had been for a shared bike and pedestrian path. The preliminary plans followed consultation with cycling groups, including East BUG.

“The eastern suburbs … are an area that’s been neglected or a long time,” Ward said.

“We’re very happy to have this little bit to finally get started, but there’s a lot more that needs to be done.

“We’ve had lots of announcements of things in the past, but what counts is when they start building it … We just want it to happen.”

In 2020, the then-Labor state government announced plans for a $22.5 million project to “fill in gaps on the popular Riverwalk at Kangaroo Point to create an unbroken bike and pedestrian path linking Kangaroo Point and Mowbray Park”.

In 2024, council also introduced a different $35 million proposal to upgrade the existing bike route along Shafston Avenue into a separated lane for cyclists.