CCC inquiry: Sacked Ipswich councillors want compensation, apology from state government over dismissal

The nine Ipswich councillors dismissed by the state government, including two returned to office last year, have made explosive claims about the state’s corruption watchdog.

Former and current Ipswich councillors lodegd a joint submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the Crime and Corruption Commission’s investigation into Logan City Council.

Ipswich councillors sacked by the state government three years ago have called for the head of Queensland’s corruption watchdog to be sacked and they also want compensation and a public apology for the “reputational, mental health and financial” impacts caused by their dismissal.

Seven former and two serving Ipswich councillors filed a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the Crime and Corruption Commission’s investigation into Logan City Council which led to councillors being charged with fraud.

Those charges were sensationally dropped in April.

Current councillors Sheila Ireland and Paul Tully, voted back into office in March last year, formed part of the joint submission.

The Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee, which is chaired by Scenic Rim MP Jon Krause, will continue its probe this week.

Current councillors Paul Tully and Sheila Ireland and former councillors David Pahlke, Charlie Pisasale, David Morrison, Cheryl Bromage, Kerry Silver, Wayne Wendt and David Martin lodged a joint submission to the inquiry to “raise serious issues regarding the operational processes and investigative techniques” of the CCC.

None of them have ever been charged with any offence.

Corrupt former Mayor Paul Pisasale was arrested in June 2017 and sentenced to a jail term of seven-and-a-half years for sexual assault, fraud and official corruption crimes in September last year.

Former Mayor Andrew Antoniolli was charged with fraud in May 2018 and found guilty a year later, only to be acquitted in December last year.

Police filed an appeal to this decision with the decision still under appeal in the Court of Appeal.

Other key council figures and senior staff were charged and jailed as part of the CCC’s Operation Windage, which found a “toxic” culture existed in the organisation and led to the state parliament passing special legislation to dismiss the city’s elected representatives.

Councillors were dismissed in August 2018.

Administrator Greg Chemello was brought in to lead the council for 18 months before new councillors were voted in last year.

“In the case of Ipswich, this has led to harsh personal outcomes involving reputational, mental health and financial issues, as well as family breakdown,” the joint submission noted.

Crime and Corruption Commission chairman Alan MacSporran. Photographer: Liam Kidston

“Subsequent to the arrest of former Mayor Paul Pisasale by the CCC on 20 June 2017 on several charges, it became well-known in political circles that senior members of the state government had made it clear that if one more Ipswich councillor was to be charged, all Ipswich councillors would be dismissed from office.

“This was nothing more than ‘guilt by association’ and reminiscent of the McCarthy era in America in the 1950s.”

The current and former councillors’ joint submission raised several alleged issues with the CCC’s handling of the investigation, including claims the watchdog consistently leaked information to the media, “improper intervention” in regards to key council staffing appointments and chairman Alan MacSporran “wrongly pressing” the government to sack them.

“On the eve of the appointment of a new Ipswich CEO on 30 April 2018, the CCC advised the acting Ipswich CEO Kellar how the appointment of a serving ICC officer to the position could be perceived amid ongoing CCC investigations,” the document claimed.

“It was a not-so-subtle warning to Ipswich councillors not to appoint any inside candidate.

“It was the reverse of the Logan situation where CCC Chair MacSporran warned councillors against sacking their CEO.

“It is understood the CCC subsequently recommended to the Ipswich interim administrator that the earlier appointment of the ‘inside candidate’, highly-respected and experienced ICC CEO Sean Madigan should be terminated.

“Mr Madigan was a former Queensland Police Officer and senior state public servant.

“It is understood that the CCC also provided an unlawful and/or inappropriate additional ‘hit list’ of ICC officers - against whom no legal action was ever taken by the CCC - which it had determined and/or recommended to the ICC CEO or interim administrator, should be dismissed or who were effectively forced to resign to avoid dismissal.”

Former councillor David Pahlke waves goodbye as then acting mayor Wayne Wendt looks on following the Ipswich City Council's final meeting in August 2018.

Mr Madigan is still with the council, working as a senior officer.

The document argued the sacked Ipswich councillors were treated less favourably than the elected representatives in Logan.

“(Four Logan councillors) were immediately re-engaged as council advisors on the interim management committee in 2019, on their former salaries until the conclusion of the 2020 local government election,” it noted.

“This provided a clear political advantage for them by remaining in the public eye up until the new council election in Logan City in March 2020.”

The current and former councillors wanted the committee to recommend to the state government they be paid compensation for their dismissal and a public apology be made to them.

They also called for a comprehensive review of the CCC to be undertaken with the powers of a Royal Commission.

“The era of CCC Chair MacSporran must end,” the submission noted.

Under questioning during the inquiry, Mr MacSporran again reiterated what led to the council’s dismissal.

“In Ipswich we charged the mayor and others with criminal offences and they were before the courts,” he said.

“Quite unusually, in terms of the way we normally operated, we decided because of what had happened at Ipswich and uncovered during the evidence - not just at criminal charges, but a very toxic, dysfunctional workplace involving a lack of reporting, cover-ups, bullying, harassment; it was just a toxic workplace - we took the rather unusual step of publishing a report, de-identified as much as it could be, about the incidents we were talking about to simply display how the council had operated significantly undermined public confidence in the local government system.

The councillors dismissed in 2018 by the state government want compensation and a public apology.

“That led, as you know, to the passing of the act of parliament to dissolve Ipswich City Council.

“So it was not a case where people were charged and the numbers on council meant they could not function, which is what happened in Logan; it was simply an act of parliament.

“I gave evidence at the parliamentary inquiry on 30 July 2018.

“I had given evidence on 30 July saying, ‘here is why the proposal to dissolve Ipswich is legitimate and necessary,’ and I quoted the High Court case involving ICAC in New South Wales.

“That ultimately was passed by the parliament.

“Ipswich was dissolved, as you know, and there has been a lot of complaints about that process.”

Mr Wendt, Cr Tully, Ms Bromage, Mr Pahlke, Mr Morrison, Mr Pisasale and Cr Ireland sued the council for unfair dismissal but that case was dismissed by the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission in January last year.

They were ordered to pay the council’s court costs of $40,000.

Read more stories by Lachlan McIvor here.