Premier didn’t read audit report she commissioned into chief of staff
Annastacia Palaszczuk says she never read a report she requested that found her former chief of staff had not followed integrity rules because the state’s corruption watchdog had begun its assessment.
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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk did not read a report she commissioned at taxpayer expense that found her right-hand man had not followed integrity rules before publicly declaring he hadn’t done anything wrong.
And she still hasn’t read it, despite being the one person responsible for ensuring he complied with the rules.
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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she will not apologise for Barbagallo statements
A $27,200 audit requested by Ms Palaszczuk found no evidence former chief of staff David Barbagallo had declared applying for and receiving a $267,500 taxpayer investment in his business Fortress Capstone as a potential conflict of interest, even though it was one.
Neither was there evidence he had received Integrity Commissioner advice, despite him saying he had.
Yet six days after the Ernst & Young report was handed to her director-general Dave Stewart on August 30 last year, an ignorant Ms Palaszczuk publicly thanked and defended Mr Barbagallo as she announced his departure.
“I want to thank David for the work that he has done in my office ... I have accepted that resignation but I also just want to put on the public record that by no means says that he has done anything wrong,” she said on September 6.
Ms Palaszczuk requested the audit after she was blindsided by questions about the lucrative investment to develop a cruise app at an estimates hearing in July last year.
Asked yesterday why the Premier had not acted on the report at the time, a spokesman said: “The Premier has not seen the EY report.”
Today, Ms Palaszczuk said she did not read the report because the state’s corruption watchdog had begun it’s assessment.
And the Premier said she never asked her director-general, who was handed the report, what was in it.
“It is very clear that when the CCC started an assessment which turned into an investigation the director-general forwarded that report to them and did not forward it to me,” the Premier said today.
“I was not given the report, it was forwarded to the CCC, it is completely inappropriate for that report to be forwarded to me while there was an assessment which then turned into an investigation.”
Ms Palaszczuk said she would always take responsibility for what happens in her office and for Government.
The Premier also stood by what she told parliament last year when she said Mr Barbagallo had complied with integrity provisions.
“I always tell parliament exactly to the best of my knowledge information at the time,” she said.
Asked whether she would be correcting what she said, Ms Palaszczuk said the information had come out through the CCC report.
“I can only update parliament to the best of my knowledge at that particular point in time,” she said.
She said she had been misled by Mr Barbagallo and that he left his position because he was “unwell”.
The long-awaited release of the EY report came a day after a Crime and Corruption Commission investigation found Mr Barbagallo had not declared his directorship of Fortress Capstone and would have likely been disciplined had he not already resigned.
It also uncovered emails between Mr Barbagallo and Fortress Capstone’s chief executive that “clearly create the perception” Mr Barbagallo intended to use his position to assist Fortress Capstone advance their agenda.
But Ms Palaszczuk said “there was no finding that he did influence me”, nor any finding of corruption.
“I hold integrity very dearly to my government and I’m very, very extremely disappointed. I feel let down,” she said in Rockhampton.
“I mean, staff members have to abide by their obligations and some of those obligations in this circumstance were not met.”
She said she had not misled parliament by saying her chief of staff had complied with integrity provisions because she had believed it to be true at the time.
The Premier also told parliament Mr Barbagallo had informed her of his successful application, but later told the CCC she had no recollection of being told by him.
Asked why she didn’t sign Mr Barbagallo’s declaration of interests to note she had read them, she said: “We have accepted all of the recommendations.”