Opinion: Time for know-nothing minister to get a clue

Claiming ignorance will only work for so long, and it is past time for Grace Grace to acquaint herself with her responsibilities as education minister, writes Steven Wardill.

IF IGNORANCE really is bliss, then Education Minister Grace Grace must be the happiest person in Queensland right now.

Ms Grace seems to think it’s a virtue that she saw nothing, heard nothing and did nothing about allegations Jackie Trad interfered in the process to appoint a principal at Queensland’s most expensive ever school, under construction in the former treasurer’s electorate.

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Since this scandal snowballed at the weekend with revelations the Crime and Corruption Commission is formally investigating – prompting Ms Trad to resign from Cabinet – the minister has disappeared from public view.

She emerged briefly for a television interview on Wednesday night, but it left Queenslanders none the wiser about what really went on.

“I have no role whatsoever in the appointment of any principal, never have, never will,” Ms Grace harrumphed.

And with po-faced conviction she added: “The appointment of a principal has no role for the minister. I don’t even sign off on their appointment.”

Slow clap to the Minister for this artless little piece of deception.

She might have managed to muster the right answers in front of the television camera, but they were to the wrong questions.

There are no allegations that Ms Grace personally manufactured the curious process at the centre of this scandal, where an independent panel picked one candidate to be the principal of the new Inner City South Secondary College but was required to reconvene and then picked another.

There are no allegations either that Ms Grace arranged the highly unusual 15-minute meeting between Ms Trad and the candidate initially chosen, Tracey Cook, before a job offer was formally made.

Education Minister Grace Grace (left) with then treasurer and Member for South Brisbane Jackie Trad

However, there are questions about whether the Education Minister knew the process to pick a principal had been restarted by her department, ostensibly because new demographic data dictated that the pay scale needed to be improved.

And there are more questions about whether Ms Grace knew Ms Trad was meeting with prospective principal candidates and was seemingly regularly liaising with one of her most senior bureaucrats, deputy director-general Jeff Hunt, who was stood down from his role on Monday.

Ms Grace would have us believe she was clueless about such “operational matters” while happily announcing every bit of minutia to do with the $130 million project since she’s been the minister.

She even appeared alongside Ms Trad and the principal who was eventually chosen, Kirsten Ferdinands, in a Facebook video wrongly adorned with a Labor logo, although she didn’t know anything about that either.

If Ms Grace didn’t know about all of the above, there are also serious questions about what she did when she found out.

In November, the Opposition raised questions in State Parliament about Trad’s meeting with a prospective principal during the independent selection process and tabled an anonymous letter about the alleged interference.

If Ms Grace knows now that politicians shouldn’t be involved in the appointment of principals, did she not know back then?

Education Minister Grace Grace (left) and Member for South Brisbane Jackie Trad (right) with Inner City South State Secondary College foundation principal Kirsten Ferdinands at the school site

Then in February the Opposition asked about text messages between Trad and Hunt and queried why new the demographic data didn’t seem to exist.

Did Ms Grace ever ask to see this data, which she relied on to tell Parliament that this whole thing wasn’t a problem?

In the absence of any other explanation, it appears the minister’s response was to stay mum and do nothing.

Why did it take five months and for the CCC to reveal it was investigating for Ms Grace’s department to sideline Mr Hunt?

It’s past time for Ms Grace to acquaint herself with her responsibilities under her ministerial charter letter and the ministerial code of conduct.

Under the charter letters, ministers are obligated to “make all decisions and take all actions in the public’s interest without regard to personal, party political or other immaterial considerations”.

Under the code, ministers are obligated to act in the public interest at all times, and ensure the talents of public servants are maximised without bias.

Importantly, it also states “any allegation that a minister has breached this Code of Conduct is to be referred to the Premier”.

Ms Grace can’t just say she wasn’t involved and from the day this matter was referred to Queensland’s corruption watchdog by the Opposition that she no longer had responsibility to find out whether something untoward happened under her watch.

These rules are there for a reason or they’re supposed to be.

Ignorance might work for a while, but it is never an excuse.