Conflict-of-interest questions over role of Evan Moorhead in Downer EDI trains pledge

A $600m election pledge benefiting a client of Labor-linked lobbyist Evan Moorhead has prompted conflict-of-interest questions.

Taxpayers will likely never know how much extra they will pay for new trains promised under a $600 million build-it-at-home election pledge benefiting a client of a Labor-linked lobbying firm.

Economists have told The Courier-Mail that stringent conditions of the Palaszczuk Government plan dictating 20 new trains be built in the Labor-held seat of Maryborough – home to train builder Downer EDI – would inevitably drive up the cost of the Cross River Rail train building project, but taxpayers would likely stay in the dark on the details.

Former Labor state secretary turned lobbyist Evan Moorhead. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk travelled to Downer’s Maryborough factory during the October election campaign, donned a pink hard hat and pledged $600 million work for the city.

It was applauded by the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, which has long campaigned for more Government work in the marginal Labor seat.

But the election-eve promise enlivened conflict-of-interest questions involving Labor strategist-turned-lobbyist Evan Moorhead, a co-director of lobbying firm Anacta Strategies, which listed Downer as one of its first clients after launching.

Mr Moorhead had finished an almost 18-month stint as chief strategist in the Premier’s office just months before Ms Palaszczuk officially opened Anacta’s office with Transport Minister Mark Bailey in August 2019.

An ex-AMWU researcher, Mr Moorhead’s Labor pedigree includes serving as an ALP state MP and party state secretary.

But it is his dual role as lobbyist and Labor campaign adviser that has forced him to defend accusations of a blurring of the lines, with Anacta on a monthly retainer by Labor to provide advice leading up to the election.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at the Downer train building facility in Maryborough during the election campaign. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dan Peled

Mr Moorhead did not return phone calls, but a spokesman referred the newspaper to a statement in which it says it had “rigorously complied” with the state’s lobbying rules.

It states the campaign work included electoral research, analysis and media spend strategy but not policy development, the awarding of government contracts or allocation of public funds.

Ms Palaszczuk in October declared the Maryborough train project would add to 283 local jobs it saved at Downer in 2017 after it sent $85 million work to Downer to patch up the troubled New Generation Rollingstock trains. Downer also scored $300 million work through Queensland Rail.

The Premier visited Rockhampton (then held by Labor on a 5.2 per cent margin and retained at the election) days later, promising to buy back the city’s shuttered rail workshops – split off under its rail freight privatisation in 2009 – at an undisclosed cost.

It would become part of a supply chain for the Maryborough train building.

The Courier-Mail can reveal that months before the buyback announcement, a meeting took place in Rockhampton between a Downer engineer and Anacta co-director David Nelson.

The pair were spotted at Rockhampton’s Red Lion Hotel in about May.

Ex-Labor Minister Robert Schwarten was also at the pub to meet with the Downer engineer.

Mr Schwarten said the engineer had wanted to sound him out about the Rockhampton rail workshops. “My view was the cost would be large in setting it up,” he said he told him.

Mr Schwarten did not meet with Mr Nelson and said he had “never met with lobbyists when I was a Minister.”

An Anacta spokesman said Mr Nelson had accompanied a Downer representative to Rockhampton earlier this year to “assist Downer with its investigation of various supply chain opportunities with Rockhampton businesses.”

Premier Palaszczuk visits the Rockhampton rail workshops. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dan Peled

He said Anacta was only told by industry stakeholders that the Premier’s Rockhampton announcement was planned “the day before it was made” and “they were not aware of the substance of the announcement until it was released, and played no part in formulating it.”

Mr Moorhead had no part in discussions relating to Labor’s campaign strategy to announce train building work for Maryborough and Rockhampton, he said, and there was a “clear separation between Anacta’s campaign work for the party and government relations work for clients.”

A Downer spokeswoman said there had been no discussions about the Rockhampton rail workshops with the Government by any third party and it had not reviewed the facility.

She said Downer staff do travel to Rockhampton and Townsville to assess local supply chain capability, which was unrelated to the Government’s Rockhampton announcement.

Lobbying records show Anacta has lobbied senior ministerial staffers for Downer 15 times since April this year – all stamped “commercial-in-confidence.”

Economist Gene Tunny was doubtful a full cost-benefit-analysis showing the extra cost of stipulating local production for the number of jobs created by the train building project had been done.

He said the best deal for taxpayers was where trains were built to the quality and specifications needed for the lowest cost, but the project was more a political decision than about efficiency.

“It’s almost guaranteed not to be the lowest cost solution to getting the purchasing outcome we want, which is to get these trains. But does it meet some other legitimate policy objectives? Quite possibly? But then you have to ask a question is that the best way to do it or are there other ways to do it. I would argue there are other ways to do it.”

Ms Palaszczuk told media during the campaign that “Mr Moorhead is following all the rules”and must “abide by the rules just like everyone else.”

LOBBYING OPENS UP THE DOORS

Abattoir boss Barry Moule says he had no allusions hiring Labor-linked lobbyist Anacta Strategies would get him lunch with the Premier.

The managing director of Churchill Abattoir in the Ipswich area had been trying to make its case for state assistance to help get the abattoir up to export standard.

He says it would create 600 jobs and resurrect at the factory – mothballed since 2017.

Mr Moule hired Anacta on September 1. Lobbying records show it quickly set to work, lobbying three minister’s offices on four occasions that month and twice in October.

That was of the more than 200 times Anacta recorded it had lobbied the State Government since it launched in August 2019. It quickly amassed clients, climbing to 28 today, as diverse as Football Queensland, Griffith University, lawyers Maurice Blackburn and miner Glencore.

But Mr Moule told the newspaper it was not the firm’s Labor connections that drew him to hire Anacta, rather it was co-director Evan Moorhead’s knowledge of “wading through bureaucracy.”

“Has he got me into George St? No he hasn’t. Has he got me to sit down at lunch with Annastacia Palaszczuk. No he hasn’t,” Mr Moule said.

“So all I can say is that I’m a businessman. All I wanted from him was to, you know, give me a snapshot of where we can go to make an application to be considered on our merits.

“I’m not an expert on how government works. I’m certainly not an expert on how the bureaucracy works. And people like lobbyists that are living and breathing government departments every day of their life understand.”