Des Houghton: Do we pretend the rorts, harassment, cronyism under Labor’s watch just didn’t happen?
The election was so consumed with youth crime, cost of living and ambulance ramping that integrity breaches from the Palaszczuk-Miles era regrettably didn’t really get a look in, writes Des Houghton.
Des Houghton
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There is much unfinished business from the Palaszczuk-Miles era that goes to the heart of government integrity – and the lack of it.
The election campaign was so consumed with youth crime, cost of living and ambulance ramping that integrity breaches didn’t really get a look in. This is to be regretted.
So what happens now?
Should we draw a line under the rorts, harassments and cronyism and pretend the wrongdoings under Labor’s watch didn’t happen?
And what happens to the valid complaints of misconduct still before government department ethical standards units? Will they never see the light of day? The first duty of incoming ministers should be to call for an update on outstanding matters.
The change of government should not be an invitation to sweep aside allegations of improper behaviour or corruption. It’s time for David Crisafulli and his capable wingman Jarrod Bleijie to start the fightback against Labor coercions and union featherbedding of the public service.
The role of the Crime and Misconduct Commission in this equation needs scrutiny. It is hard to criticise the CCC because of its fine work in areas like drug detection. But I will anyway. Why is the CCC seemingly so reticent to probe serious complaints against government departments and individuals raised by whistleblowers?
Has our crime watchdog got fleas?
Is it time for the CCC to be dismantled? Probably. Was the CCC unwittingly part of the covert-ups in the toxic public service for the last nine years?
The CCC has to accept that it became a political tool of the Labor administration with no action taken in many cases referred to it by political leaders.
If there were negative findings against ministers, how would we know?
The CCC continues to operate in secret and has not bothered to replace the media man who left the building months ago. Our crime watchdog demands transparency in public institutions yet fails to meet its own accountability standards.
What happened to all the Public Interest Disclosures? Brave public servants who offered frank and fearless advice were sometimes punished for doing so.
Along the way the premier’s moral compass was trampled under a CFMEU jackboot.
There is other unfinished business. One of the most shameful periods of the Palaszczuk-Miles era was the political jihad waged against state archivist Mike Summerell and Integrity Commissioner Dr Nikola Stepanov by an assortment of Labor ministers.
Perhaps Summerell and Stepanov should be recalled to complete their missions.
Summerell accused “scumbags” inside the “toxic” Palaszczuk government of attempting to dig dirt to blacken his name in the wake of the Mangocube affair.
Parliament heard Stepanov had her laptop seized from her office had the contents “deleted without my knowledge or consent”.
In evidence to a Parliamentary hearing, she said a senior public servant described her as a “b**** on a witch hunt”.
She accused the Public Service Commission and the Department of Premier and Cabinet of interfering in her investigations.
Questions remain unanswered about funds collected from public servants by Queensland’s biggest unions. Tens of millions of dollars are at stake and the public servants deserve answers.
This controversy sparked one of the most bitter debates in the last parliament when Jarrod Bleijie, then the shadow Attorney-General, said two of the biggest unions were corrupt.
He told the House that the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union and the Queensland Teachers’ Union ripped off their 114,000 public servant members with high fees.
“I want to give the House some transparency with respect to corruption in Queensland involving the Labor Party and their association with the union movement in the state of Queensland,” he began.
He referred to Courier-Mail disclosures that the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union was allowed to vet internal communications for Queensland Health. That’s right; private government matters sent to unelected outsiders.
Bleijie referred to reporter Hayden Johnson’s story about an email trail between Queensland government industrial relations staff and the QNMU. “The paper revealed that not only were the nurses’ union getting advance copies of a secret government document; they were helping to draft it,” Bleijie told the House. “Not only were they drafting it; they were editing it!”
He added: “When the nurses’ union is not only editing a government document with respect to government policy but making a direct attack on competition, that is corruption.”
He called for a CCC investigation.
Now he wields more authority, Bleijie must again ask the CCC to pursue the matter.
More than 140,000 public servants deserve to know whether the union “corruption” file was dropped into a big black hole like hundreds of others.
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