Mike Summerell labels Tony Fitzgerald’s Crime and Corruption Commission review a ‘non event’

Tony Fitzgerald’s probe into the corruption watchdog has been labelled a “non event” by Queensland's’s former state archivist.

Queensland’s former state archivist has sensationally labelled Tony Fitzgerald’s review of the corruption watchdog a “non event”.

And in a social media post, Mike Summerell said the CCC review was “deliberately restricted in scope, and suffers greatly for it”.

He said he did not want to criticise the report authors, two former judges Mr Fitzgerald and Alan Wilson.

“The report is largely a report on the internal policies and procedures of the CCC and not much else,” Mr Summerell posted.

“It is certainly not a report that will fundamentally improve the political integrity framework in Queensland.

Queensland’s former state archivist Mike Summerell.

Whilst the report may improve the CCC, it really has done absolutely nothing to address the high-level integrity issues impacting Queensland in any way at all. I am sure when the government established the review and its terms of reference this was exactly the result they hoped for.

“It is a well known trope that governments never agree to any review unless they can guarantee the outcome in advance. Those terms of reference were the means to do that.”

Mr Summerell, who as State Archivist oversaw record-keeping for government agencies and public authorities including MPs, alleged he was pressured to create misleading annual reports to avoid anything embarrassing or damaging to the government, and that his attempts to raise concerns through the draft reports were interfered with.

An independent probe commissioned by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk into his allegations found he was not directed by department officials to make changes to annual reports and that they did not impose “improper pressure”.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's with Tony Fitzgerald following the conclusion of the inquiry relating to the Crime and Corruption Commission. Picture: Instagram.

In his post, Mr Summerell said that “sadly” Fitzgerald Mark 2 continued “the strategy of making the current integrity issues seem a problem about “public servants” and “policies and procedures”.

“The government have successfully moved the debate away from the flaws in the integrity framework which allow clearly unethical, and arguably corrupt, actions and behaviours to go unaddressed and have made it simply an “admin” matter that better training for public servants can solve…..it is simple misdirection … more fool you if you fall for it.

“The internal processes of the CCC are not the cause of the political integrity issues in Queensland.

The CCC is simply the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff trying to help the injured.

“There remain significant flaws in the integrity framework within Queensland, many of which benefit those in positions of power.

“Sadly, nothing has changed to address those issues and there was little hope this review would ever do so.”

Mr Summerell said the legislation the CCC operated within – not its “policies and procedures” – were the “big problem”.

“The report sadly really is addressing the wrong problem. It may well make the CCC a better organisation … but it will not address the political integrity issues of Queensland.

“The CCC is not the source of those problems. The need for the CCC is a symptom of those problems.

“I am sure there are some genuinely sensible “admin” recommendations here, but unfortunately it is really another lost opportunity to address the real political integrity issues of Queensland and instead will be used quite cynically to do nothing at all about them,” he wrote.