Paul Pisasale subject of explosive claims by MP Rob Pyne in Parliament
LATEST: Independent Cairns MP Rob Pyne is expected to table more documents about local councils on Friday, following explosive claims aired about Paul Pisasale under the protection of parliamentary privilege.
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INDEPENDENT Cairns MP Rob Pyne is expected to table more documents about local councils on Friday, following explosive claims aired about former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale on Wednesday.
“There’ll be more information tabled about systemic concerns about local government,” he said today.
It comes after senior members of the Queensland Government slammed Mr Pyne, who attacked the Ipswich City Council under the protection of parliamentary privilege.
A document tabled by Member for Cairns Rob Pyne yesterday flagged former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale’s alleged links with developers and possible conflicts of interest involving councillors and staff.
By making the allegations in parliament, Mr Pyne is protected from a possible defamation action.
His actions drew strong criticism from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, Treasurer Curtis Pitt and Attorney General Yvette D’Ath.
Ms Palaszczuk encouraged Mr Pyne to make his allegations to the Crime and Corruption Commission, which is currently investigating the 2016 Ipswich, Moreton Bay, Logan and Gold Cold council elections.
“At the moment my understanding is that some of the issues that he has raised are being investigated by the CCC, so I think we need to allow the CCC to do that work,” the Premier said.
“We know that the CCC is doing that current active investigation into the council and I honestly believe that if Rob Pyne has anything that he would like to forward to that CCC, he should do so.”
Ms D’Ath added: “If you put forward those sorts of allegations with the protection of privilege you need to make sure you can substantiate those allegations, because, privilege or not, it does reflect on individuals.”
Mr Pitt said parliamentary privilege gave members the opportunity to raise matters of serious significance to the public, a measure that should only be used where claims were supported by clear evidence.
“I haven’t seen anything that says there was a great deal of credible evidence behind that, but that is a question for Mr Pyne,” he said.
Local Government Association of Queensland chief executive Greg Hallam slammed Mr Pyne’s actions.
“The rejection by the State Government and the Opposition of calls by the Member for Cairns for a special inquiry into local government is welcome and sensible,” Mr Hallam said.
“Such an inquiry is simply not warranted given the ongoing Crime and Corruption Commission’s Operation Belcara and other official inquiries which have established that all of Mr Pyne’s allegations — always made under the cover of parliamentary privilege — are without foundation.
“These inquiries by independent investigators have cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars yet Mr Pyne continues his attacks.”
A woman named in the tabled documents also lashed out at the MP. “Mr Pyne’s comments say more about him than it does about those he is making the allegations about,” said Maxine Norsgaard.
She declined to comment on the specific allegations. The document tabled in Parliament also accused her consultancy of being used to “wash money” from developers and said the relationship between Mr Pisasale and Ms Norsgaard was “more than professional leading to a public altercation between her and the mayoress”.
Ms Norsgaard once worked in Mr Pisasale’s office and later ran a community consultancy company — it was a registered lobbyist that had no website — and The Courier-Mail in 2014 revealed it had won work with major developers in Ipswich.
Developers who responded at the time made statements including that Ms Norsgaard was good at organising events and the hiring of her company was not an attempt to gain favour with the mayor’s office.
OVERNIGHT: FORMER Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale wined and dined public servants to find out departmental secrets, kept election donations for himself and arranged discounted car deals and haircuts for friends, according to explosive allegations tabled in State Parliament last night.
Independent MP Rob Pyne also alleged Mr Pisasale would use Ipswich City Council resources to visit mistresses throughout Queensland by arranging speaking engagements to places such as Cairns, the Gold Coast and Brisbane.
In a four-page attack on Mr Pisasale protected under parliamentary privilege, Mr Pyne also alleges Ipswich City Council would pay out former council staff to cover up “inappropriate behaviour of male staff” and stand over local businesses for anything from free haircuts to free electrical goods.
Mr Pisasale, who last week quit as mayor, leaving his hospital bed to make the announcement in his pyjamas, has been under a cloud since being stopped by the Australian Federal Police while carrying $50,000 in cash at Melbourne Airport.
The move by Mr Pyne is the latest in his crusade against local governments, a policy point that saw him quit the State Government after a falling out with Deputy Premier Jackie Trad.
“Pisasale would help arrange drastically reduced car deals with politicians, with Llewlyn (sic) Motors, Boettcher Motors and other car dealers. Introductions like this helped him build political allegiances and silence,” Mr Pyne wrote.
“Pisasale has been using the Marketing Dept of Council to cover the expenses of dinners, travel, marketing gimmicks, advertising, and other costs not able to be claimed as councillor expenses. He has done this by taking a council officer with him to events who holds a corporate credit card to pay for the expense.
“It is widely known that if residents write disparaging or negative Letters to the Editor to the
Qld Times they are phoned up and abused and/or have councillors turn up on their doorstep very early in the morning intimidating and threatening them to cease.”
Mr Pisasale would pressure community groups into giving him time to speak at events in order for them to receive funding from the Ipswich City Council, Mr Pyne alleges.
“Ipswich Council has a program of funding community groups that is completely haphazard that relies not on any needs analysis or consideration of process but on Councillors patronage,” he wrote.
Mr Pyne alleges Mr Pisasale, along with fellow councillors, would live lavishly, flying in private jets and in first-class overseas for their role in several development companies which Ipswich City Council owned.
“This is done with no transparency and it is unclear whether they are trading insolvent as Ipswich City Council has had to write off funds associated with them,” he said.
“The boards of these companies are made up of mayor Paul Pisasale, Cr Paul Tully, Cr Andrew Antenolli (sic), CEO Jim Lindsay and the CFO.”
Ipswich City Council responded to the allegations with a statement saying there was “full accountability and transparency”.
“All four council-owned companies are audited annually by the Auditor-General,” it said. “Financial information is on the corporate website. The companies report to the council twice a year. No directors are paid for their services.”
Mr Pisasale could not be contacted for comment but acting Ipswich Mayor Paul Tully has called for Mr Pyne to resign, saying the allegations against himself and Mr Pisasale were “despicable” and “disgraceful”.
“This is a very low act from the cowards castle of Parliament,” he said. “There is no evidence that he has provided. It’s just mere innuendo. I think Mr Pyne should consider his position and probably resign.”
Cr Tully said he would make a complaint to the Parliamentary Speaker. “I will be writing a complaint to the Speaker and I will be writing for (Mr Pyne) to apologise to the people he has defamed,” he said.
Llewlyn Motors was contacted for comment today, but has not returned calls.
But Boettcher Motors general manager Marc Caton, whose group bought the business in July 2014, said the idea that Mr Pisasale had helped arrange for drastically reduced prices was simply wrong.
“We have no association with Mr Pisasale whatsoever,” he said.
Attempts to contact previous owner Ian Boettcher have been unsuccessful.
Other claims levelled by Mr Pyne included that Mr Pisasale had been using police communications centre staff member Cate Carter, who later ran in council elections, “as a trusted leak to provide information on activities including police raids, arrests and accidents over a number of years”.
“He used this information to advise media outlets, to discuss crimes and get footage from Safe City Cameras for publicity,” said the tabled document.
Calls to Ms Carter have not been returned, but she has reportedly rejected the allegations.
Some claims in the document contain misspellings of names. Some lack any detail, such as a one allegation that it was “well known that Pisasale, and other councillors, pressure local businesses for freebies from hair cuts to meals, drinks to electrical goods”.
Some repeat stories from The Courier-Mail. That includes how Mr Pisasale had bought a Brisbane unit with the wife of a developer of Sekisui House Australia, which was building a development in Ipswich.
Mr Pisasale, who advocated Sekisui’s project while co-owning the $1.15 million unit, at the time said the property was “100 per cent” separate to his dealings with the development.
Developer Stephen Williams, who confirmed the purchase again today, at the time also said he had gone to council to confirm this would not be an issue. The apartment was sold in late 2013 for the same $1.15 million cost.
Mr Pyne’s tabled document also referred to developer George Cheihk buying a restaurant site that Mr Pisasale had owned himself, and then it being sold to Ipswich council later.
When The Courier-Mail revealed those dealings in 2014, both Mr Cheihk and Mr Pisasale insisted neither side had known the other was buyer or seller in the initial property sale. Council also said Mr Pisasale did not have a conflict of interest when he voted on council becoming involved in acquiring the property because he no longer owned the site.
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