Annastacia Palaszczuk seeks advice from Solicitor General on private emails

Annastacia Palaszczuk has sought advice from the state’s chief legal counsel after months of questioning around her use of her private email accounts.

Four emails sent to and from Annastacia Palaszczuk’s private email accounts are not public records, according to the state’s chief legal counsel.

But Solicitor General Gavin Thompson has revealed the State Archivist did identify the emails as public records in 2017 that needed to be retained.

The Premier today revealed she had sought advice from the Solicitor General following months of questioning around her use of the accounts and repeated calls for her to release the emails.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has asked the state’s chief legal counsel to determine if four emails sent to and from her personal accounts were public records. Picture: Dan Peled

Ms Palaszczuk asked Mr Thompson to determine whether the four emails were public records.

According to Mr Thompson’s advice, tabled in parliament this morning, Minister Mark Bailey sent three emails to the Premier’s private account from his personal account, which have been identified as ‘Paul Simshauser Background’ dated April 22, 2015; ‘An autonomous vehicle future’ dated January 17, 2016 (Email 2); and ‘Tesla Announcement’ dated May 3, 2015 (Email 3).

“At the relevant time, the Premier held the portfolio of Minister for the Arts,” Mr Thompson wrote in his advice.

“Although the Premier has an overarching role as Chief Minister and Chair of Cabinet, and has responsibilities for the allocation of portfolios, in my view, Email 2 and Email 3 do not satisfy the requirement of a record ‘received by a Minister in the course of carrying out the Minister’s portfolio responsibilities”.

The Solicitor General wrote the Premier “briefly” responded to the email about autonomous vehicles from her [e-mail] – however determined her response, “was not created by the Premier in the course of carrying out her portfolio responsibilities”.

He found the email about Mr Simshauser was “more problematical” but does not consider it to be a record received by the Premier while carrying out portfolio responsibilities.

“Moreover, I consider that there is a substantial argument that it would fall within exception … to the definition of ‘Ministerial record’,” he wrote.

Ms Palaszczuk told parliament today the emails she received were “unsolicited”.

“They have been examined by CCC,” she said.

“They found no impropriety.

“Nothing of interest whatsoever in any of them.”

It comes after the Premier last week said the emails had been “retained as records so ministerial record under the state archives act is retained.”