Queensland Labor missed the memo on integrity

The state government’s vote to censor Queensland’s crime watchdog today shows one major lesson of Saturday’s election still escaped them, writes Jessica Marszalek.

On a day Labor members dressed in red and lauded the new PM, one major lesson of Saturday’s election still escaped them.

Just three days after Australians sent a memo about the issues they care about – integrity being a key one – four Labor backbenchers voted to censor Queensland’s crime watchdog at a parliament committee hearing that was an affront to government transparency.

On May 3, Crime and Corruption Commission acting chair Bruce Barbour appeared before the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee and was asked by an LNP MP how much the CCC had spent on legal costs on Jackie Trad’s Supreme Court fight to suppress a CCC report into her hiring of under treasurer Frankie Carroll.

Jackie Trad at a polling location during the 2020 Queensland election. Picture: Jono Searle/Getty Images

Barbour said he was happy to provide those costs and has done so via letter.

On Tuesday, Labor MPs Jonty Bush, Corrine McMillan, Jessica Pugh and Ali King voted against LNP MPs to block the release of that letter.

It was a rare glimpse into how parliament’s Labor-stacked committee system works, in which government MPs regularly use their numbers to block all manner of things in usually closed sessions.

So no, Queenslanders, you cannot know what the CCC has paid to try to effect the release of information it thinks you should see.

Trad doesn’t want you to see that report, and the government doesn’t even want you to know how much you’ve spent fighting about its release.