Opinion: State’s move on lobbying will have zero impact

Does Annastacia Palaszczuk think we are fools? Temporary bans on the directors of powerful lobbying firms is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide inaction on integrity, writes Kylie Lang. VOTE IN OUR POLL

If the Premier was even half serious about making “Queensland the most transparent government in the nation”, she would sever ties with powerful lobbying firms.

Temporarily banning the directors of these firms from engaging with her government, as Annastacia Palaszczuk announced this week amid mounting pressure, is a dud move with zero impact.

It is simply another smokescreen to hide inaction on integrity issues.

Preventing the co-founders of Anacta Strategies, Evan Moorhead and David Nelson, from working with the government for two years in no way stops other Anacta staff – including Ms Palaszczuk’s ex deputy chief-of-staff Denise Spinks, who was hired in March – from getting on with the job of influencing politicians.

Annastacia Palaszczuk during a media conference in Brisbane earlier this month. Picture: David Clark

Former ALP state secretary Cameron Milner, a director of Next Level Strategic Services, was also cut – but not his firm after the Coaldrake Review into accountability recommended a ban on election campaigners acting as lobbyists.

The three men were instrumental in Ms Palaszczuk’s 2020 win at the polls while continuing to lobby the government on behalf of corporate clients.

Are we to believe that removing the trio fixes the problem? Does the Premier think we are fools? Or is this just more of the same from the woman who stubbornly refuses to admit anything’s wrong until she’s forced, invariably by a grilling from the media?

Ms Palaszczuk’s “nothing to see here” approach has unfortunately contributed to her longevity in the top job, with many Queenslanders showing at election time that they have short memories.

But glossing over failings doesn’t serve this state well.

In his report, released last Tuesday, Professor Peter Coaldrake called out the rise of lobbyists “unquestionably attached politically to the governing side of politics with understanding of the system”.

He said they had helped secure outcomes that might otherwise have been impossible, identifying a “market failure”. That being “the failure of government itself to be able to deal with business and community interests without the involvement of a paid intermediary”.

This indicates we have a government unwilling to engage, a government that is aloof and arrogant.

Former Labor state secretary and MP Evan Moorhead. File picture

Ms Palaszczuk’s three differing responses in recent days to the unchecked power of lobbyists are telling.

The first came last Monday, strategically pre-empting the Coaldrake Review, when she expanded the definition of lobbying. Big deal.

The second came last Thursday when, in a complete contradiction of Prof Coaldrake’s finding on paid intermediaries, she said businesses did not need to employ lobbyists to meet with her government.

She also refused to rule out her lot continuing to deal with the likes of Mr Moorhead, Mr Nelson and Mr Milner during the remainder of this term.

Then on Monday, after media scrutiny and a Cabinet meeting in which someone might have twigged that the government needed to be seen to be doing something, she said the three men were banned until 2024. Again I say, big deal. The Premier doesn’t get it – or refuses to get it.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli is right in describing the ban on individuals as “farcical”.

Mr Crisafulli said with Evan Moorhead now working in Canberra “because he’s spotted greener pastures with the change of government”, his Anacta minions were still here in Queensland to “funnel the rivers of gold back to him”.

Anacta has donated $217,000 to the ALP since Ms Palaszczuk helped launch the firm in 2019. Mr Crisafulli said that money had provided unprecedented government access to Anacta’s clients.

How could it not?

Lobbyists exist on both sides of politics, but the reach and influence of Labor stalwarts such as Mr Moorhead and Mr Milner on a government that is in power, and not in opposition, cannot be overstated.

Banning three people but not their businesses makes a complete mockery of reform.

And it doesn’t augur well for how other recommendations in the scathing Coaldrake Review will be selectively interpreted by the Palaszczuk government.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail

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