Rogue MP’s calls to name whistleblowers insensitive and ignorant

Bruce Saunders would do well to listen to his maiden speech in Parliament back in 2015 as a reminder why his demands to unmask and investigate bullied public servants for being “anti-Labor” is out of touch, writes Neil Doorley.

I’d like to take “Bruce is Bruce” back to his maiden Parliamentary speech in May 2015, when Labor’s shiny new member for Maryborough quoted the famous words of the 44th President of the United States.

“President Obama once said that one voice can change a room. If a voice can change a room, it can change a city. If it can change a city, it can change a state. If it can change a state, it can change a nation.”

Seven years on, unfortunately it would seem Bruce Saunders now only wants to hear the voices of those who sing the praises of this third-term Palaszczuk Government.

His call for whistleblowers who’d made confidential submission to the Coaldrake Inquiry be named and investigated for “anti-Labor” bias, was to put it mildly, insensitive and ignorant.

Mr Saunders – who also spruiked in his maiden speech that he “will always stand up for public sector workers” – on Thursday went on to question whether those people who’d come forward with damning allegations to Professor Peter Coaldrake were attempting to “make the government look bad”.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Professor Peter Coaldrake.

The Assistant Minister for Train Manufacturing made special mention of me, noting I was “assisting the LNP” and wondered out loud if other public servants were supportive of one side of politics.

While a smiling Premier later waved away any controversy by reassuring Queenslanders that “Bruce is Bruce”, I’d like to set a few things straight.

I raised concerns about several issues with this government while being employed as senior media Adviser between 2015 and 2018 – so to use ALP terminology, I was actually still “in the tent”.

One matter I was particularly disturbed about, lead me to sending emails to my then Minister, my Chief of Staff, and a former staffer of the Premier’s office – who told me that putting it in writing wasn’t “helpful”.

My requests to also speak to senior staff within the Premier’s office about other “issues” I was having in a Ministerial office unfortunately fell on deaf ears.

Four years later, in February, I went public – in this paper – to call for an independent inquiry into the government where I’d happily go under oath to “name names” about the often-toxic environment in 1 William Street.

I also stressed – not for the first time - that in my new role as a media consultant, my clients included an LNP MP.

While I did make a submission to Prof Coaldrake, his terms of reference – unveiled by the Premier – didn’t provide the legal protections for me to elaborate on what I’d seen, and unfortunately done – including deleting emails to circumvent the RTI process and following orders to avoid leaving a “digital footprint” around potentially sensitive issues in the lead up to the 2017 election.

I want to assure Mr Saunders that my primary objective is – and has always been - to ensure the checks and balances around integrity aren’t being exploited – and that Ministerial offices become safer working environments.

Perhaps Mr Saunders should take note of what Barack Obama said in 2011: “Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let’s use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together”.

Neil Doorley is a Former Palaszczuk government media adviser who has since done consulting for the LNP