Palaszczuk government failing to maintain accountability

When Wayne Goss won power in Queensland in late 1989 he vowed to implement reforms laid out by corruption buster Tony Fitzgerald. Goss and his colleagues would be bitterly disappointed with today’s government, writes Des Houghton.

Wayne Goss would roll in his grave if he could see how the Palaszczuk government has eroded the integrity code laid down by corruption buster Tony Fitzgerald QC.

What would Goss think of a politicised police force that recently bundled an elderly woman, handcuffed, into the back of a paddywagon for daring to cross the border to be reunited with her family?

What would he think of ministerial spending being hidden? Fitzgerald warned that secrecy bred corruption.

Goss agreed, and moved Queensland into a new era of accountability and fairness.

With a young campaign director named Wayne Swan, Goss swept to power in December 1989. He vowed to put meat on the bones of the reform agenda outlined by Fitzgerald in his report to ousted National’s premier Mike Ahern.

Ahern had meritoriously promised to introduce the Fitzgerald recommendations “lock stock and barrel” before Labor ended 32 years of Coalition rule.

Wayne Goss with his former campaign director Wayne Swan. File picture: Bruce Long

By March 1991 a young diplomat named Kevin Rudd was appointed as director-general of Goss’s new Office of Cabinet. Goss, Swan and Rudd became a clean-hands’ troika. Their fingerprints were on everything.

Rudd was a pedant who even lorded it over Cabinet ministers, insisting he approve their press statements before they were released.

Goss made good his pledges of a more open and accountable government. He introduced freedom of information laws and merit-based appointments to the Queensland public service.

I’m certain the troika would be bitterly disappointed with today’s government. Goss’s reforms have been trashed.

Annastacia Palaszczuk likes to hide information like hospital ramping numbers, surgical waiting lists and literacy and numeracy scores.

The Premier has been personally shamed, with her department blocking the release of many documents in Right-To-Information searches, only to see them released on appeals to the Information Commissioner.

There is much trickery in how all sorts of data is released. “Full disclosure” comes in dribs and drabs and in different documents to make the full picture indecipherable.

Journalists are livid.

Member for Buderim Brent Mickelberg, the Opposition Open Data spokesman, describes this as Labor’s disaggregation policy.

“The government has disaggregated the data to hide it from the public,” said Mickelberg, a former stockman and infantry officer.

“They split it up into pieces that cannot be analysed.’’

To further confuse readers, some material comes in Excel spreadsheets that cannot be easily compared with other documents released on PDFs at different times.

Suspiciously, some ministerial spending data is released six monthly and some annually, making it difficult to track.

Former prime minister with then premier Wayne Goss, right, and fellow politician Tom Burns. File picture

“The state government has a culture of secrecy from the top down,” said Mickelberg.

He said hospital data is still fudged with chairs counted as beds.

“Chairs are not hospital beds, but the state government counts them in their data to suit their own agenda,” he said.

“They are hiding behind the spin.

“Hospital data that is of public importance should be transparent and easily accessible for all Queenslanders.”

Labor’s propaganda machine has outsmarted itself.

Here I should point out that the annual report of the Department of Premier and Cabinet fails to list the number of media and communications staff engaged in propaganda.

And like so many annual reports, it is replete with waffle and self-praise and short on facts.

The troika would not have put up with it.

We may already be in a totalitarian state where our right to know is curtailed and our freedom of movement curbed.

Government spin doctors have a statutory obligation to provide information, not hide it.

We got more worrying examples of life inside the secret state this week.

Dr Nikola Stepanov, the Queensland Integrity Commissioner, suggested wrongdoing was rampant inside the government. And public servants were afraid to speak out about it.

“There has been a noticeable increase in the number of requests relating to concerns about corrupt conduct, bullying, and other improper conduct,” she reported to parliament.

She said she had been approached by individuals “unsure as to which approach to take to resolving these matters.’’

Stepanov said something even worse. The Palaszczuk government stripped her of staff as complaints rolled in.

Surprise, surprise. She was unable to do a deep dive into the questionable conduct of Labor-linked registered lobbyists.

Stepanov referred to “potential breaches of the Lobbying Code of Conduct”.

“Unfortunately, I was unable to provide advice in response to all requests received,’’ she said.

Her office was hobbled when it “was substantially affected” by staff cuts.

Fiona Simpson, the Opposition integrity spokeswoman, wonders whether all annual reports meet the legislative requirements.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk giving a Covid-19 update. Picture: Richard Walker

“Accountability and transparency matter as they help prevent or reveal corruption and maladministration,” she said.

“Corruption and maladministration both hurt people.”

Simpson said the then auditor-general Glenn Poole first raised these issues 13 years ago.

In a report to parliament Poole warned senior bureaucrats they had to develop “robust systems” with their ministers “to meet the prescribed requirements of the Financial Administration and Audit Act 1977 and Financial Management Standard 1997, particularly with regard to tabling, and the reporting on governance, performance and other specific information and the statutory obligations they administer’’.

Des Houghton is a media consultant and former editor of The Courier-Mail, the Sunday Mail and Sunday Sun.