Opinion: Premier is perfecting the playbook of Joh
If the integrity challenges experienced by the Palaszczuk government happened within the private sector, there would be sackings and public humiliation, writes Peter Gleeson.
Opinion
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There are two striking similarities between the governments presided over by Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Annastacia Palaszczuk.
The “us against Canberra’’ card has always been popular because Queenslanders have a healthy cynicism towards the Commonwealth.
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It goes back to a century ago when political leaders claimed – and were believed – that NSW and Victoria always got the better funding deal from Canberra.
Sir Joh went after Whitlam, Fraser, even Hawke because whipping up a jingoistic fight with the federal government always played out well with voters.
Ms Palaszczuk has borrowed the same playbook, even accusing Prime Minister Scott Morrison of trying to bully her on RU OK Day, as he tried to convince her to allow a woman, 26, to go to her father’s funeral after she’d been denied an exemption.
But the real similarities between the Bjelke-Petersen regime and the Palaszczuk government centre on integrity. Bjelke-Petersen’s government was rife with integrity issues, culminating in ministers Leisha Harvey, Don Lane and Brian Austin being jailed for expense rorts, falsifying documents and misappropriating funds.
Former police commissioner Terence Lewis was jailed for corruption and stripped of his knighthood.
Sir Joh was charged with perverting the course of justice but after a hung jury the first time, the charges never proceeded.
Russ Hinze died before he faced court. On any level, it was a government beset with moral and ethical challenges.
Fast-forward 30 years to the Palaszczuk government, which campaigned on being open and transparent in 2015, and you have a government with its own serious integrity challenges but without the criminal charges.
First up, Ms Palaszczuk, was found to be in contempt of Parliament after her threats to strip the Katter Australian Party of staff after they refused to denounce former colleague Fraser Anning’s speech calling for a Muslim immigration ban.
Last month, the Premier was also singled out in the so-called Barbagallo report, authored by the Crime and Corruption Commission.
Jackie Trad resigned as deputy premier and Treasurer after the CCC found she had not properly declared on her register of interests the family purchase of a $700,000 Gabba house. It found she had not acted corruptly but recommended new laws which would make such behaviour a criminal offence.
Ms Trad was again embroiled in another CCC probe after the selection process for a principal within her own electorate raised serious questions. Again, she was cleared of official corruption but the CCC found “the nature of her involvement in DOE (education department) decision-making created a corruption risk’’. Ms Trad apologised.
Transport Minister Mark Bailey incurred the wrath of the CCC after using his private email to conduct government business. He apologised.
Sports Minister Mick De Brenni won the gold medal last week for pork-barrelling, changing his department’s advice to give Labor electorates the lion’s share of a sports grant program.
You’ve got former Labor Party directors Mike Kaiser and Evan Moorhead providing consultancy advice within the Office of the Premier, being paid significant sums of taxpayer money to help with the government’s COVID response.
You’ve had changes to election donor rules which stop developers contributing to party coffers but unions can offer up as much as they want. You’ve got tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money being spent on the government’s COVID “unite and recover’’ campaign after the government changed the law last year, allowing them to advertise right up until election day. The Fitzgerald report warned of “propaganda’’ in this way.
One thing is clear. If the integrity challenges experienced by the Palaszczuk government happened within the private sector, there would be sackings and public humiliation.
Apologies don’t cut it in the real world.
