The Acting Director-General of the Department of Transport has sensationally admitted an email from Minister Mark Bailey's office asked the department to consider deleting ongoing reference to a massive cost blowout. ESTIMATES RECAP
Transport Minister Mark Bailey is being grilled in budget estimates following the train building blowout fiasco.
Mr Bailey has faced repeated calls for his resignation after the $2.4 billion budget blowout of the train manufacturing program in Maryborough followed by revelations his office asked for the final $9.5 billion figure to be removed from a press release despite knowing of the significant cost increase.
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What an absolute time to be alive. Budget estimates has wrapped up for the day.
But it's not over yet, there's still two more days of fun to go.
We return tomorrow, bright eyed and bushy tailed, at 9am for Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath esimates session.
Later in the afternoon Police Minister Mark Ryan will take the stand.
It's Law & Order: State Budget Estimates (dun dun)
Resources Minister Scott Stewart has managed to fit in a Barbie reference into budget estimates.
The Department of Resources has spent nearly $32m to address public safety and health and environmental risks at abandoned mine sites in 2022/23.
“Just like the $1bn box office success of the recently released Barbie movie, we’re taking assets from the past and recommercialising them,” Mr Stewart said.
Warrego MP Ann Leahy has made a quick appearance in estimates to ask questions about the ongoing gravel pit situation, which is a major concern of rural and regional councils as they fear losing access to these quarries.
Ms Leahy wanted to know if the Department of Resources is the lead agency in the working group (the Quarry Material Native Title working group) dealing with the gravel pit issue.
Gravel, logically, sounds like a resource.
But Director-General Warwick Agnew informs her rocks fall under the Forestry Act so it’s technically the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Anyway, he did confirm a number of resource staff had been seconded to the ag and fisheries department to help them sort this all out.
The Department of Resources does ultimately hold responsibility for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land interests and titles and land management.
A total of 45.5kg of illegal fireworks were seized at Queensland’s border with the Northern Territory this year as part of the state government’s annual July crackdown.
Resources Minister Scott Stewart, who happens to be a former school principal, had previously announced the random checks would take place at the border after Territory Day on July 1.
At budget estimates he confirmed a total of 394 vehicles were stopped over a three day period, with 16 motorists surrendering 45.5kg of fireworks.
And several of the vehicles were headed for New South Wales and South Australia, meaning Queensland has done them a solid (you’re both welcome).
Mr Stewart, ramming home the message that fireworks are dangerous, said Territory Day resulted in 100 fires and two major injuries—including a young man who had to have his arm amputated.
The critical mineral strategy recently launched by the state government was prepared by disgraced consulting firm PwC.
Resources Director-General Warwick Agnew, under questioning from the Opposition, confirmed PwC was engaged to prepare the critical minerals strategy—which was launched in late June by the Premier at the World Mining Congress held in Brisbane.
The contract was paid for by the Department of State development, Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning so there are no further details out of this session.
Mr Agnew did reveal in the aftermath of the PwC tax leak scandal—where the consultancy firm used knowledge gained from a government contract on multinational tax to help private sector clients circumvent them—the department undertook a review of its consultancy contracts.
PwC was also commissioned to estimate the economic potential of Australia’s critical minerals and energy transition metals for the federal government’s own strategy, which was published a week before Queensland’s.
We have to draw your attention away from budget estimates for a hot minute because the final report looking into the state's whistleblower laws has been published (as of 5.30pm which is totally fine, I'm not mad at all)
Laws protecting Queensland’s public service whistleblowers should be ripped up and redrawn in a bid to provide more protections a major review has concluded.
Retired Supreme Court judge Alan Wilson KC was tasked with reviewing the state’s Public Interest Disclosure laws in late 2022, with the state government releasing the comprehensive report late on Tuesday afternoon.
The 107 recommendations centre on a complete rewrite of the laws.
Changes include increasing the threshold for disclosure to “better situate whistleblowing in the broader integrity landscape and enable administrative resourcing to be directed where it will have the most value”
Mr Wilson noted the reforms would undoubtedly cost the government money but the additional funding needing to be directed to the Ombudsman, the CCC and other agencies would not be “excessive”.
The report also outlined how the changes to whistleblowing laws would advance a “clearer and more efficient method for managing” disclosures to promote “procedural fairness and administrative efficiencies”.
“It advocates for stronger and more proactive oversight by, in particular, the Ombudsman – whose greater involvement, the Review believes, offers an avenue for inspiring confidence in the new scheme and, in the longer run, ensuring the enduring success of the reformed legislation,” Mr Wilson noted.
Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath described the review as “game-changing” and said whistleblowers would be given more protections.
“Understandably, being so comprehensive and broad, and with more than 100 recommendations, the Government will consider all of the recommendations and reasonings,” she said.
Queensland Health’s submission to the Public Interest Disclosure review, signed off by Director-General Shaun Drummond, put the now-former executive in hot water.
The department had called for the government to consider penalties when “inappropriate” information is released in a submission to a review of Public Interest Disclosure laws.
The review did not recommend any new penalties, only for existing penalties—such as for breaching confidentiality—be brought in line with comparable consequences in other pieces of state legislation.
Resources Minister Scott Stewart's budget estimates session has begun.
And it's a common misconception that his only responsibilities are around mines and mining.
Technically this portfolio is also in charge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land interests and titles and land management.
It's also this department that deals with the leases of Queensland's islands.
The sites of Queensland’s two major pumped hydro projects were picked after expert advice discounted other options that had “problematic environmental or ecological impacts” according to Energy Minister Mick de Brenni.
“We have analysed literally every site across the state and narrowed that down to a process to determine the two most favourable (with) the least impacts across considerations including environmental impacts on water, impacts on the energy system, local economic impacts,” he said.
“We've looked at constructability. Now these are the most easily constructible sites. We are very confident across all the bases that these projects have been assessed. We've looked at social impacts as well around the particular projects.”
Queensland’s building and construction body forwarded seven complaints to the state’s corruption watchdog in the last 12 months, with one relating to the former board.
QBCC chief executive Anissa Levy confirmed the figures during budget estimates.
She revealed she had personally referred one complaint on the CCC herself, which did relate to a former board member.
She said the complaint did not relate to undue influence or a code of conduct breach.
But Ms Levy said she did not believe the QBCC has a systemic issue with integrity, confirming she had contacted the CCC after last year’s estimates to understand if they had any concerns about the organisation.
They indicated there were no concerns about systemic integrity issues at the QBCC.
Maintenance backlogs are “a normal part of managing work” when it comes to power plants CS Energy’s chief executive Darren Busine has said.
It comes as he confirmed the government-owned company had recently undertaken a review by an external firm to “assist” in understanding the state of the beleaguered plant and where priorities should be.
The Callide coal-fired power station is Queensland’s second largest energy plant, with two of four generators currently offline after two separate issues
An explosion at the turbine hall in May 2021 knocked out the C4 generation unit. 18 months later a cooling tower at C3 catastrophically failed and will have to be rebuilt.
Mr Busine was questioned on the state of Callide’s maintenance backlog when the incidents occurred.
He said backlogs were a normal part of managing the work and priority was given to the highest risk areas and “particularly the statutory requirements to ensure they’re maintained”.
“The work gets done on a regular basis, prioritised to ensure that we’re giving the highest priority to the work,” he said.
Mr Busine later confirmed CS Energy had recently undertaken an independent review.
“We have increased our levels of particularly technical expertise to ensure that we're able to continue the work that’s required on the plant,” he said.
“We have budgets in the year ahead, which gives us the full scope that we required to do the work so we're obviously seeking to ensure that we have the plants as reliable as we can.”
Laws to make the Queensland Academy of Sport an independent body are set to be introduced into State Parliament.
Encouraging public transport use through more heavily subsidised fares can help the economy in all sorts of ways, writes the editor.