Gleeson: Blame game won’t change battle for integrity
A blame game started after former deputy premier Bill Gunn pulled the trigger on the original Fitzgerald Inquiry didn’t help the premier all those years ago – and it won’t help now either, writes Peter Gleeson.
Peter Gleeson
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On May 27, 1987, when former deputy premier Bill Gunn agreed to a Commission of Inquiry into serious corruption allegations aired in The Courier-Mail, premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was blindsided, kept out of the loop.
Sir Joh was out of the country, flying into Seoul when Gunn pulled the trigger, along with Brian Austin and Mike Ahern, on a full-blown Commission of Inquiry, to be known and etched into history as the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
Bjelke-Petersen and the National Party had been in government for nearly three decades and Sir Joh and his ministerial soulmate Russ Hinze were old school – they would never pull a stunt like an inquiry unless they knew the outcome.
But the stench of corruption allegations had grown stronger and stronger and even National Party president Sir Robert Sparkes knew it was the right thing to do.
For Bjelke-Petersen, the Fitzgerald Inquiry became his worst nightmare, costing him government, the premiership and his reputation.
Had Bjelke-Petersen been kept in the loop on calling the inquiry, he would have vetoed it immediately. When he found out what Gunn had done as Acting premier, he blew his top, according to several people familiar with those events.
The great thing about the original Fitzgerald Inquiry in 1989 was the scope of its terms of reference.
Nothing was off the table, and the corruption buster Fitzgerald, a QC, cut a swath through police and political wrongdoing. Premier Mike Ahern adopted Fitzgerald’s recommendations “lock, stock and barrel’’.
There is no doubt it cost the Ahern Government power as the Labor Party’s Wayne Goss offered a new broom, a pledge to rid the state of corruption.
Since then, the Labor Party has held office for 28 of the past 32 years. It now faces new integrity questions as a conga line of senior and former senior public servants blow the whistle on discrepancies and favours for mates within the Labor Party.
Ironically, after Goss won office, it was a young Peter Coaldrake who teamed with the premier and his then chief of staff Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister, to reform the public service, which had become very much an arm of the National Party.
Now, it is that same Peter Coaldrake who has been asked by premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to look at the current public service.
As much as the learned Professor Coaldrake is probably the most qualified person in Queensland to conduct the inquiry, it is important we address the cynics.
Firstly, Prof Coaldrake donated $2000 to the Labor Party before the last election. That should not disqualify him from doing an inquiry, nor doing a good job. I just wish he’d also donated $2000 to the LNP.
Secondly, Prof Coaldrake’s powers are limited by the skinny terms of reference. They do not include the role of lobbyists with this government. They should. Whistleblowers need to be given proper protection, and individuals should be allowed to complain.
He should also be getting to the bottom of the missing laptop affair and the fact that the state archivists’s annual report was amended.
Interestingly, the premier said on Friday he could talk to whoever he wanted, so we will assume he’ll be calling Ms Palaszczuk herself over the private emails affair that she got caught up in with Transport Minister Mark Bailey.
That issue goes to the heart of integrity and culture. This inquiry also has federal implications as the Labor Party pushes for a federal ICAC.
Last week in federal Parliament, the man charged with being the Commonwealth’s representative on the 2032 Olympics committee, went to town on the Palaszczuk Government.
Fairfax MP Ted O’Brien told federal parliament that his Queensland Labor colleagues in the House of Representatives had “gone missing’’ during debate on a federal ICAC.
He said:
“There is no Queenslander from the Labor Party speaking to this. So where are the members for Moreton, Griffith, Rankin and Oxley? They’re all in their suites under their desks. They’re rocking back and forth with their hands over their ears saying, ‘I can’t hear this; I can’t hear this.’ I’ll tell you why: because the Queensland Labor government is burning in an inferno of misconduct, and those opposite know it. They come here today with all the motherhood statements about integrity in office, yet they failed to mention the very jurisdiction in this nation which is burning because of its lack of integrity, and that is the Queensland Labor government. They know it, and that’s why the shadow Attorney-General (Mark Dreyfuss) has fallen silent with his head down at the desk. He knows as much as the rest of them do that the Queensland Labor government is in deep trouble. We have a conga line of people, all statutory office bearers or former office bearers in Queensland, running from the Queen Street Mall all the way to 1 William Street.
“Guess what they’re doing: they are blowing the whistle on the lack of integrity in the Palaszczuk government in Queensland. What do those opposite say about that today?
“Oh, they’re blaming News Corp. There you go — good old News Corp. We’ll take the News Corp option from the shadow Attorney-General. They know that it is ridiculous. Here we have a situation. Just imagine the integrity commissioner, Dr Stepanov, who’s been asking tough questions of the Labor government in Queensland because of their use of lobbyists in the executive building during the last election campaign.
“She makes a complaint about one of her staff members, and what happens? Within two weeks, her office is raided and a laptop that she had asked to be investigated and forensically examined is taken and allegedly wiped. What was on that laptop, I wonder, Premier Palaszczuk? What lack of integrity is your office representing, and why do your federal colleagues come in here and stay silent about your state.’’
Don’t forget Bjelke-Petersen and Hinze also blamed the Courier Mail. In the end, it didn’t help them.
