Calls for royal commission into Mangocube saga

The troubling Mangocube controversy has raised its ugly head again, with an anti-corruption campaigner calling for a royal commission into the long-running political scandal.

The Palaszczuk government has been under an integrity cloud since the Mangocube scandal. Picture: Glenn Hampson

A Gold Coast anti-corruption campaigner has called for a royal commission into a long-running political scandal that has left the Palaszczuk government under an integrity cloud.

Member for Burleigh Heads Michael Hart points out that a review of the Public Records Act promised eight years ago still hasn’t been completed. And that is how the Labor Party wants it, he said.

Is almost a decade too long to wait for a vital reform? Of course it is.

The Public Records Act might sound like a big yawn to most Queenslanders, but unless it is fit for purpose it can be used to expunge embarrassing records and hide information the public has the right to know. Hart said Labor’s delaying tactics and obfuscation made a mockery of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s commitment to integrity and accountability. And he is right.

I suspect the “review” may not now be concluded before the next election.

Opposition MP and anti-corruption campaigner Michael Hart says a royal commission would end the ‘rotten culture’. Picture Glenn Hampson

The Palaszczuk government regularly sets up reviews to push controversies into the never-never. It might be a clever political tactic but it’s a grubby one in my opinion.

Said Hart: “This is no ordinary review, as the Act is one of the cornerstones of government accountability and transparency.

“Yet, even after the state’s corruption watchdog, the CCC backed former State Archivist Mike Summerell’s call for an urgent review in 2017 after the Mangocube affair, we’re still waiting for these important reforms to be legislated.

“It’s abundantly clear this government has little respect for robust public record-keeping practices.

“A royal commission must be held to put an end to the rotten culture that continues to deliver rotten services to Queenslanders.” I agree.

Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch was the relevant minister who proposed a review of the Act in 2015. Two years later the baton was passed to Mick de Brenni, now Minister for Works, who put it on the backburner.

At the centre of the controversy was the Mangocube scandal and the ousting of Mike Summerell, who was asked to investigate it. Summerell complained the Queensland Government was “toxic”. And he showed how Parliament was misled and his annual reports falsified to hide “bad news”.

Last year he accused the government of setting up a “black ops dirt unit” to blacken his reputation.

In a social media post, he said “scumbags” were “looking for dirt and seeking to muddy me”.

The saga began in 2017 when Transport Minister Mark Bailey was accused of using his private [e-mail] email for official business in breach of the Public Records Act.

Former state archivist Mike Summerell has accused the government of ‘looking for dirt’ on him.

He was also under investigation for his attempt to delete the account after it was exposed. In his report, Summerell said Bailey’s attempts to delete his emails “can’t be explained through simple mistake or ignorance”. “The State Archivist considers that there are multiple grounds to argue that the actions of Minister Bailey are consistent with (sic) breach of section 13 of the Public Records Act and are of such significance in terms of number and importance of the records to consider prosecution under the Public Records Act and any other relevant legislation,’’ the report said.

“However, the State Archivist also recognises the difficulties in prosecution given the fact the records were recovered when the account was reactivated …’’

In my opinion, Bailey was lucky.

Although hundreds of public records were found in his Mangocube account, the CCC ultimately cleared him of wrongdoing because they had recovered the emails and so they hadn’t been permanently deleted. The CCC said at the time it had “found no evidence to suggest the intention of Mr Bailey in deactivating the account was to conceal corrupt conduct made out by the content of any email”.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey was cleared by the Crime and Corruption Commission of wrongdoing over the affair. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Last year the government commissioned a review of the Act. The Courier-Mail reported that attempts to unlawfully dispose of public records should be made an offence. A proposed new law would expand on the existing offence in Queensland that makes it unlawful for records to be disposed of.

Hart has a suitcase full of documents relating to Mangocube and other dubious government practices. For years he has been conducting Right to Information searches, a process he says is far from satisfactory. Searches take months, deadlines are missed or pushed back and when he does receive the files they arrive with hundreds of pages blacked out. Other LNP members are also digging.

Shadow Integrity Minister Fiona Simpson has called on the Premier to provide a firm commitment on exactly when new public record laws will come to Parliament.

She said the delays were deliberate and ran counter to Peter Coaldrake’s “Let the Sunshine In” report into the lack of government transparency.

“These are not the actions of a government that wants to ‘let the sunshine in’. They are the
actions of the Palaszczuk Labor Government that wants to protect their dodgy mates.”

She said the Palaszczuk government had been “in a wilderness of secrecy and dodgy deals” for nearly a decade.