Opinion: Minister Mick de Brenni on borrowed time over QBCC
Labor insiders say minister Mick de Brenni’s position is being reviewed over the QBCC debacle, writes Peter Gleeson.
Peter Gleeson
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Is dud minister Mick de Brenni running out of tarmac? Labor insiders say his position after the QBCC debacle is being “reviewed’’ by the Premier’s Department.
Nearly two months after being splashed across the front page of The Courier-Mail, sensitive emails between former QBCC commissioner Brett Bassett and the office of Public Works Minister Mick de Brenni have finally been released to the State Opposition.
Why bother? The public has seen them now. But that’s how the Right to Information system works in this state. Rename the number plates, the “Secret State”.
The emails – leaked to The Courier-Mail as part of a campaign to expose alleged widespread interference within the trouble-plagued Queensland Building and Construction Commission – directly link Mr de Brenni’s office to the building watchdog’s failed bid to prosecute Gold Coast company Groupline.
The damaging emails were mysteriously omitted from documentation provided under an extensive RTI request from Opposition MP Michael Hart months earlier in July.
Just to recap, Mr de Brenni’s parliamentary diary for September 6, 2019, showed the minister, whose jurisdiction includes the QBCC, met with Kirra Vista body corporate chairwoman Toni Bowler, who owned a unit next door to the site where Groupline – a third-generation small building company – was building an eight-level, 16-unit block, Maya.
The Supreme Court and Court of Appeal both ruled the QBCC had acted outside its powers by prosecuting Groupline.
Groupline is now suing the QBCC in a civil matter.
