Labor preferences to benefit rogues

LABOR has gifted preferences to two scandal-ridden candidates: one whose dumping triggered the election, and another who photographed his penis plonked in a wine glass.

The ALP has placed Pumicestone MP “Slick” Rick Williams third on its how-tovote ticket, despite Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk disendorsing him as Labor’s candidate following a complaint from a newspaper owner that he threatened her.

And they’ve stitched up a deal with former Redlands MP “Plonker” Peter Dowling, who lost LNP preselection in 2015 because of a sexting scandal involving his mistress.

Mr Williams, who tore up his Labor membership two weeks ago to run as an independent, has also preferenced Labor third but both he and Labor have denied a formal deal.

He said he reprinted his how-to-vote cards on Monday to favour Labor after he realised One Nation had “lied” to him about preferencing him over the major parties, while Labor said it’s simply giving preference to independent candidates over the LNP.

Meanwhile, Mr Dowling said his camp and Labor had reached a deal to preference each other third in the seat he hopes to reclaim as an independent following a tumultuous time in the Newman government.

The former parliamentary ethics boss – who claimed he was a victim of revenge porn – garnered international attention when pictures of his penis in a red wine glass were released and it was revealed he’d wrongly taken his mistress on parliamentary travel trips to Perth and New Zealand.

“My people, we negotiated a two with One Nation and we negotiated a three with Labor and there weren’t any conversations with the LNP and the Greens,” Mr Dowling said yesterday.