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'Getting to the guts of it': Pyne says more corruption docs to come
By Felicity Caldwell
More claims of corruption and misconduct will be tabled under parliamentary privilege, member for Cairns Rob Pyne has promised.
Mr Pyne announced on Wednesday he was teaming up with the Greens' South Brisbane candidate, Amy MacMahon, to push for a ban donations from corporate for-profit companies if they were elected.
It comes after Mr Pyne's latest document dump alleged cover-ups, mistresses and phone calls seeking help with immigration processing for "young Asian women".
"We're getting to the guts of it but there's still more to come," Mr Pyne said.
Mr Pyne said he was flooded with information from the public and he believed his process of tabling allegations was "very rigorous".
"There are many things we're given that clearly aren't official corruption but people with agendas and we don't pursue that," he said.
Mr Pyne said the Crime and Corruption Commission did not have the powers or resources to address the issues in Queensland.
"If they were up to it, we wouldn't have these cases regularly coming forward," he said.
Ms MacMahon is set to take on Deputy Premier Jackie Trad in the electorate of South Brisbane.
Ms Trad clashed with Mr Pyne after he demanded an inquiry into local government, with the member for Cairns quitting the Labor Party last year.
Mr Pyne ruled out running for the Greens at the next election, and said he would run as an independent.
"The major parties ... get their money from corporate sources and the members of Parliament are then told how to vote," he said.
"So some of the poor buggers are as helpless as beached whales, just being told, they have to stick their hand in the air and vote for something, often when they don't actually support it.
"I'd never put myself in that situation again."
Later on Wednesday, more documents appeared on the Queensland Parliament tabled papers website, including complaints about candidates being members of a political party while running for election as independents.
They also contain allegations of bullying in local government.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said serious allegations of corruption should be immediately referred to the CCC.
"Pre-Tony Fitzgerald, members of Parliament used parliamentary privilege to explore issues in this state because there was no anti-corruption watchdog in this state," she said.
"Privilege should be used in a measured and respectful way."
Ms Palaszczuk said the CCC had sufficient resources to deal with the complaints.
It came after CCC chair Alan MacSporran confirmed during estimates hearings the CCC budget was $55.88 million for 2017-18, compared to $56.2 million the previous year.
"It should not affect us operationally," he said.
"It is just a matter of finding efficiencies in other areas. The overall reduction is quite small by comparison and we managed to absorb that into other areas."
Meanwhile, Speaker Peter Wellington said he only made minimal redactions to the documents tabled by Mr Pyne on Tuesday, which were published with the names blacked out.
"These redactions related to imputations and inferences and consisted of three sentences in the bundle of documents," Mr Wellington said.
"The documents sought to be tabled by the member for Cairns already contained numerous redactions of names and other matters."
The documents Mr Pyne tabled in June levelling allegations against former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale did not contain redactions.