Qld integrity report: Premier fails to apologise to bullied staff

Annastacia Palaszczuk has refused to take personal responsibility for her Government’s culture, and failed to apologise to bullied public servants.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has failed to apologise to bullied public servants while claiming everyone in government was responsible for its culture – not just her – in the wake of Professor Peter Coaldrake’s damning integrity report.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the report was released, Ms Palaszczuk insisted training was what was needed to fix a broken culture, as she said the report provided a “great refresh” and “great blueprint” for her Government.

She repeatedly said she embraced the “health check” she had asked for, and that it was revolutionary for her Government to accept the recommendation to publish cabinet documents after 30 days.

Prof Coaldrake’s review was reluctantly called in response to coverage by The Courier-Mail highlighting complaints by independent bodies of political interference and questionable ­ethics and came after Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the Government couldn’t launch an inquiry into “the vibe” of poor government ­integrity.

“It (report) is groundbreaking … it is revolutionary and government embraces this,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“It is absolutely healthy for government to have a health check from time to time, and I think it’s actually something that all governments should do.

“So we embrace it, we’re going to implement it and we’ve already hit the ground running.”

Ms Palaszczuk on Thursday initially insisted she wasn’t troubled by Prof Coaldrake’s findings which revealed a cover-up culture where bureaucrats were ­bullied by ministerial staffers and recommended lobbying rules be tightened.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk faces the media yesterday. Picture: Sarah Marshall/NCA NewsWire

But she later said she was shocked and surprised by “some things” and the Government needed to do better.

“I think there’s concerns about how people can make complaints,” she said.

“I think people need to be able to be sure how they make complaints through the processes and of course we need to improve the culture within the public service and within ministerial offices.”

Ms Palaszczuk said to address the cultural issues, she would be speaking with the public service leadership board and making it clear to her ministers training was “absolutely critical” for staff.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli slammed Ms Palaszczuk, saying she needed to outline how she would “stop the rot” and fix a raft of areas, including the “broken” Right to Information process, the estimates process and commercial-in-confidence “being used as a transparency shield”.
“The Coaldrake review was more than just a ‘health check’,” he said.

“This was about alarm bells over integrity.”

Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie claimed Ms Palaszczuk didn’t take responsibility and took aim at her for not apologising to public servants who were bullied.

Amid Opposition criticism that she had overseen a “rotten culture”, Ms Palaszczuk said Queenslanders could trust her to lead the reform as they had elected her.

“This is the same Opposition that embedded Crosby Textor in Tim Nicholls’ office when he was treasurer for a period of six months to sell off the assets,” she said.

Ms Palaszczuk described the release of cabinet papers after 30 days as “revolutionary” and that Department of Justice and Attorney-General Director-General David Mackie would lead that implementation.

Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie

She also said the capacity of staff needed to be increased so the Government wasn’t using as many external consultants.

This followed comments by Prof Coaldrake that there was an “increased hollowing out” of the public sector by the use of external consultants.

Prof Coaldrake was expected to address the public service leadership board on Thursday afternoon.

Ms Palaszczuk said that there were more than 200,000 people in the public service when asked whether she wanted to give an apology on behalf of herself or ministerial staff to people who had been belittled or bullied. “I think everyone needs to be treated with respect,” she said.

“I said that from day one when I came in that I respect the public service. “If people are not doing their job and they’ve got time to belittle and have a go at other public servants, then it’s time for them to move on.”

Ms Palaszczuk said bullying was unacceptable and that there was the ability to move people on.

She also said regular training would be fundamental to improving this. Asked whether she took any responsibility for the culture, she said: “I think we all need to take responsibility and we will get this fixed, but what I do want to say is that our public servants work incredibly hard.

“What is needed is more training and that is exactly what we will do,” she said.

Some recommendations require legislation, but Ms Palaszczuk said she expected all 14 to be implemented by the end of the year.