Paul Pisasale was planning to quit as Ipswich mayor due to ill health, says Paul Tully

IPSWICH’S acting mayor says former leader Paul Pisasale confided in him he was planning to quit due to ill health and is disappointed the legacy of his prosperous career has been left in tatters.

Former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale announced his resignation in his dressing gown while in hospital. Picture: Tim Marsden

• Ipswich mayor quits amid corruption probe
• Script change in Pisasale cash case
• Race for mayor to get dirty
• Fugitive gave $50,000 to Pisasale

PAUL Pisasale planned to announce his resignation as Ipswich mayor due to ill health yesterday, but a police raid on his home and office forced his hand as he struggled to keep control of the situation and his legacy.

Ultimately, he resigned on Tuesday morning from St Andrew’s Hospital in Ipswich, wearing a dressing gown and bright red pyjamas.

As details of the Crime and Corruption Commission raid emerged along with the revelation that the colourful mayor had been stopped at Melbourne Airport with $50,000 in cash, Pisasale’s hopes that the news would not distract from the legacy of his prosperous career were left in tatters.

Dejected Ipswich residents jumped to the defence of the popular mayor, and Pisasale’s friends came forward to defend his reputation.

Dejected Ipswich residents have jumped to the defence of Queensland’s most popular politician.

Among them was Brisbane barrister Sam Di Carlo, who offered an elaborate explanation for the $50,000 Pisasale was caught with.

Pisasale, he said, had agreed to bring a package back to Brisbane for him as a favour. That package contained 500 $100 notes wrapped in black tissue paper, inside a white plastic bag and within a black suitcase.

Di Carlo said the money had been brought into Australia by a Chinese man and given to his fugitive son, to be used as part of a settlement in a case in the Supreme Court of Queensland.

Pisasale had to be reassured that it was not illegal to carry the money interstate.

Di Carlo agrees the story is complex and might be difficult for the public to believe.

“The best argument is this: it’s so unusual, we couldn’t make up a lie to that,” he says.

Queensland Law Society president Christine Smyth said Di Carlo’s actions were unusual for a barrister.

Di Carlo agreed it was unusual for a barrister to act as an intermediary in these matters, but said it was part of building trust with Chinese clients.

“The clients are Chinese and there is a situation with the Chinese that it doesn’t matter who you introduce them to, they want personal attention,” he said.

“I’m the face they met in the first place and I’m the face they want to deal with 90 per cent of the time, no matter how much you encourage them to deal with the solicitor.

“Anyone who’s dealt with the Chinese knows that 90 per cent of the time they deal in cash.

“It didn’t have to be cash, but that’s what they had.”

Long-time Ipswich deputy mayor, now acting mayor, Paul Tully, said he had become aware of “these other investigative issues” last Saturday.

It was then the mayor reaffirmed something he’d said to Tully a few times earlier: that he might not see out his four-year term.

But it was his ongoing battle with multiple sclerosis, Pisasale said, not the looming investigation, that was to blame. “He was planning to quit on Friday (yesterday),” Tully told The Courier-Mail.

“On Monday he was in a very poor way and he was going to be checking into hospital that afternoon.

“Around about that same time the CCC turned up at the office and his home.”

Acting mayor Paul Tully says Paul Pisasale’s resignation was planned before his office and home were raided by the corruption watchdog. Picture: Peter Wallis

Hoping for a “dignified departure” that would focus on his spectacular achievements over a 26-year council career, “Mr Ipswich” would have to act before news of the raids, and subsequent speculation, spread.

“As late as Monday afternoon, at about 3pm, I said the media hadn’t put anything out about the CCC at that stage,” Tully says.

“I said: ‘Paul, this story could break in the next hour or so and if it does I will advise all the councillors directly what’s happening but if it breaks at 6pm on the news, you will have to do what you have to do’.”

The next morning at 8am Pisasale called a press conference, but word of the CCC raids spread, along with talk of the $50,000 cash. “From 8am, it exploded,” Tully says. “He didn’t have the privilege of doing it (resigning) on his own terms.

“He thought originally he’d be in hospital for a week and he could do it on Friday.

“The moment the CCC rocked up they locked the place down, it overtook him.

“I think he was really disappointed that it was all rolled into one.”

Pisasale has been afflicted with multiple sclerosis – which causes muscular and nervous issues – for 20 years.

The illness has previously left him “listless and not himself”.

“People speculated, I think unfairly, that it was very convenient that he just happened to be crook when problems emerged this week,” Tully says.

“I think it got to a point where the medical advice to him was ‘you’re going to burn yourself out’.”

The CCC declined to comment on the ongoing investigation this week. Despite the controversy surrounding his colourful political career, specifically the end of it, Paul Pisasale is almost universally loved in Ipswich.

He is Queensland’s most popular politician, winning more than 83 per cent of the vote at the 2016 election.

He is also likely Queensland’s best-known mayor, his passion for Ipswich rising beyond anything else.

“Paul has brought the business community with him and the wider community,” Tully says.

“You only have to see some issue on TV and talking in the street, they love him.

“He has harmonised the community and they see him as Mr Ipswich.”

Email Charlie Peel