Opinion: Trad case puts CCC boss in uncharted waters

A phone call from the Treasurer may have been “quite harmless” as the state’s top corruption buster says, but it has further muddied the waters around her integrity case, writes Steven Wardill.

CORRUPTION buster Alan MacSporran might reckon putting together an IKEA bookshelf is harder than dealing with complaints about Treasurer Jackie Trad.

However, in the end, MacSporran will never really know, given his errant five-minute phone call with the powerful Left faction leader on Sunday before she referred herself to his watchdog has forced him to recuse himself from the case.

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There’s certainly no instruction manual for the scenario that MacSporran faced.

He assumed the Treasurer was calling about the watchdog’s budget, not the political hubbub about her property purchase, so he happily shelved the IKEA Allen key he was wielding and fetched his phone.

However while MacSporran insists the phone call was “quite harmless”, he admits in hindsight it was “unwise”, so he’s taken the appropriate step to protect the integrity of whatever decision the Crime and Corruption Commission makes.

This is a prudent decision by the experienced QC, who has fast proven to be one of the best leaders of Queensland’s corruption watchdog since it was established after the Fitzgerald inquiry.

But his decision to step aside shifts the spotlight back to the Treasurer, and the question of why she called to discuss her own case to begin with.

The CCC might very well find nothing untoward in Trad’s purchase of a property along the route chosen by the State Government for Cross River Rail.

However Trad’s performance throughout this scandal has convinced more than a few of her colleagues that she needs to be sent flat-packed out of Parliament.