Opinion: Qld integrity crisis threatens to flare into inferno

If it’s true that where there’s smoke there’s fire, Queensland’s integrity crisis could become a full-blown inferno, writes Mike O’Connor.

If we are to believe that where there is smoke there is fire, then the Tower of Power housing the state government ministerial suites in Brisbane’s William St must be about to burst into flames.

Will Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk wait until the fire alarms start shrieking before she heads for the exit, or make a more dignified departure?

We will see. Former premier Peter Beattie, ever ready with some gratuitous advice, has tried to dampen the threatening inferno by saying the Premier needs to reset her Government.

“You’ve got to have a vision and you’ve got to demonstrate it. And the answer to this is you’ve got to go out and share it with people and take them with you,” he said.

I would suggest that it’s a bit late now for the government to talk about taking us with them.

Since being elected on a platform of probity and transparency, rather than take us with it the Palaszczuk ­administration has done its damnedest to cloak its actions in a blanket of secrecy and leave us foundering in the smokescreen generated by its army of media consultants.

Beattie was a canny politician, who was adept at defusing crises of his own making by admitting he had made a mistake, flashing his trademark cheesy grin for the cameras, saying that it was all his fault and promising, like a child caught with his hand in the ­bikky barrel, not to do it again.

His ability to change direction in a heartbeat made him a difficult target for his opponents. He also knew when his time was up, and left before the bell began to toll.

The present Government, however, is incapable of admitting fault. Its first reaction to accusations of policy vacuum, failure or maladministration is to deny that there is a problem.

When the issue refuses to disappear, the next move is to attempt to shift the blame onto someone else.

When all else fails, then hold an ­inquiry, which goes on to make all manner of recommendations that are quietly filed away in a bottom draw and ignored.

Right to Information requests are blocked, stalled or heavily redacted and ministers routinely smirk as they bat away media questioning with declarations of “commercial in confidence”.

This is far removed from a government that has a vision, shares it with its citizens and takes them with it. It is, instead, a deliberate policy aimed at running the state as a private fiefdom.

It beggars belief that we need an inquiry into the activities of lobbyists – guns for hire peddling influence as they wander in and out of ministerial offices.

Surely anyone with even a faint sense of morality and the loosest of appreciations of the difference between right and wrong would show the door to anyone attempting to unduly influence the deliberations of government and direct them to make their approach through the proper channels, in the same way that all those people who don’t hire lobbyists must do.

Our ministers, however, seem incapable of making the distinction between what is proper and what is not, and so we need an inquiry.

Anyone who can read could not help but be shocked by the revelations of money laundering that have been made in the inquiries into the operations of casinos in other states, and the “I can’t remember” and “I can’t recall” testimonies of senior casino executives under questioning.

It did not, however, occur to anyone in the Queensland Government that it might not be such a bad idea to take a look at the operations of casinos in this state until media pressure forced an inquiry. Why?

We don’t expect our politicians to be perfect.

They are prey to the same frailties and faults as all of us, but unlike us, they wield significant power that we have entrusted to them and that they have sworn to employ for the betterment of us all, not just for those who enjoy access to their inner circle.

We do not expect them to be perfect, but nor do we expect to be taken for granted and treated like fools. Sadly, this is too often the case.

The Opposition, alas, has been a voice in the wilderness, and if it wants to be considered as a viable alternative government, it needs to exhibit more energy, vitality, strength and determination than it has done thus far.

There is smoke in the air.

When will the first flicker of flame appear?