Editorial: Our Premier cannot ignore these fresh integrity claims

It’s impossible to know where the integrity scandal now engulfing the seven-year Labor state government ends, but some gravely serious questions must be swiftly answered before Queenslanders will be satisfied things are anywhere near kosher in the state’s corridors of power.

A bottle of Grange has caused a major Australian political scandal before but never a laptop. It’s impossible to know where the integrity scandal now engulfing the seven-year Labor state government ends, but some gravely serious questions must be swiftly answered before Queenslanders will be satisfied things are anywhere near kosher in the state’s corridors of power.

Four significant people who have held very senior independent positions during the Palaszczuk administration have either made serious allegations or vowed to do so at an appropriate inquiry. But the most chilling relates to what went on when the Public Service Commission allegedly raided the office of Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov and seized (and subsequently wiped) a laptop which she was seeking to have examined over concerns about the handling and management of highly sensitive and confidential materials.

One of the striking things about the Palaszczuk integrity issues is the pedigree of the people who are making the allegations. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

It’s got the vibe (to use a term favoured by Deputy Premier Steven Miles) of something very unusual and very wrong – and Dr Stepanov has alleged that she has evidence to back up her story.

In today’s Sunday Mail, Jessica Marszalek and Domanii Cameron have revealed explosive new details of an extraordinary seven-month period beginning just before the state election in October 2020 (a time, incidentally, when Labor was paying former senior political staff who had become private lobbyists – able to use their contacts in the Palaszczuk administration to make profit lobbying the government on behalf of corporate clients – to run its campaign for re-election).

They are details of how Dr Stepanov complained to the Public Service Commission believing a staff member of her office was mishandling confidential information – including deeply sensitive declarations by lobbyists and ministers and wanted the staffer’s laptop forensically examined. And details of the strange moment the PSC allegedly decided, instead of authorising the examination, to seize the laptop and wipe its contents. Queenslanders now know that in the weeks after Dr Stepanov complained about the episode, the Premier sent a letter to a parliament committee referring “allegations of potential misconduct” against Dr Stepanov “for possible action”.

The complaints? An apparently low-level allegation that two years earlier the integrity commissioner asked a subordinate “to assume Dr Stepanov’s identity in order to use her corporate credit card” to pay for a work expense in two split payments contrary to PSC financial guidelines and an unspecified claim Dr Stepanov behaved toward the complainant in a way that “may have constituted workplace bullying”.

One of the striking things about the Palaszczuk integrity issues is the pedigree of the people who are making the allegations. Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov has six degrees, a background in professional ethics and is a child advocate who is passionate about helping particularly vulnerable kids.

The government has tried to paint growing claims as a political mud-slinging exercise but after today’s revelations everyday Queenslanders will be more than certain there are serious questions for both Ms Palaszczuk and for her government to answer. If the Palaszczuk administration really has nothing to hide it will today announce a proper inquiry to answer these questions in a transparent, independent forum.