Queensland Parliament: Estimates hearing

ROLLING UPDATES: Jo-Ann Miller has quizzed a fellow Labor MP over a $100 million project that was the centrepiece of their Government’s Budget.

Jo-Ann Miller at Estimates at Parliament today. Pic: Annette Dew

• Public service numbers balloon
• Billy Gordon’s strange request

LABOR MP Jo-Ann Miller has raised serious concerns about the $100 million Back to Work program that formed the centrepiece of her own Government’s Budget.

Ms Miller grilled Employment Minister Grace Grace about the program, aimed at helping people in regional areas find work.

The two interrupted each other at times, with Ms Grace eventually having to take Ms Miller’s pointed question on notice.

At one point, the former police minister noted: “Minister, the devil’s always in the detail.”

Ms Miller raised concerns about the prospect of job-seekers having to fork out cash to help pay for some component of the training they receive through the Back to Work program.

“Minister, what I’m getting at here is that there are other areas of regional Queensland where the ordinary person who is out of work simply cannot afford to co-contribute to this type of training,” she told Ms Grace.

“That’s what I’m concerned about. I’m not being critical of you, Minister. What I’m saying is that that could turn people off from even applying for this.”

Member for Bundamba Ms Miller had also asked the Employment Minister to “please reconsider Ipswich in relation to this program”.

Ms Grace responded that the Government had “unashamedly” targeted the program at regional Queensland, where people were doing it tough.

“They’re not doing it any tougher than my punters, I can tell you,” Ms Miller shot back.

Ms Grace initially questioned whether Ms Miller had “misinterpreted” a section of the Queensland Government website for the program and whether she had encountered a “wrong wording that is confusing or whatever”.

But the Employment Minister eventually conceded that “a student contribution fee may be required, depending on the situation”.

“It was based upon the assessment of whether they’ve already done a Cert III and the money’s there to assist them to get one in the first place,” she said.

“After the assessment, if they need a particular one it could be subsidised. The rates, of course, will be dependent on what the Certificate III is that they will be required and they vary them.”

She promised to come to Ms Miller with details about the amounts people could expect to contribute.

LABOR MP Jo-Ann Miller will refer former health minister Lawrence Springborg to police over allegations he lied to an estimates hearing about the closure of the Barrett Adolescent Centre.

The centre, which was the only facility providing long-term inpatient treatment for young people with complex mental illnesses, was controversially shut down in January 2014 under the former Liberal National Party government.

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Within eight months of the decision, three former patients had taken their own lives.

A commission of inquiry report into the matter, released publicly on Monday, found serious flaws in the decision-making process and said warnings about the risk associated with transitional arrangements for patients had been ignored.

Ms Miller used the opening day of the 2016 budget estimates process on Tuesday to also highlight the inquiry concluded the Barrett decision was made on July 15, 2013, by then-health minister Mr Springborg and a West Moreton health board head.

Lawrence Springborg.

Nine days later, Ms Miller asked Mr Springborg at an estimates hearing: “Would you guarantee that the Barrett Adolescent Centre will not be closed, downsized or privatised in any way?” “In his response, the minister said ‘It is true that the Barrett Centre is under review’,” she said.

“For the benefit of the members of this committee, that the report proves, in fact, that the then-minister for health Lawrence Springborg lied - oh, I’m sorry, fibbed or told untruths - to the estimates committee and because that is a breach of the criminal code I’ll be writing to the appropriate authorities.”

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said there were “very key flaws” in the decision-making process, including questionable record keeping “It also shows in the report there was a lack of communication in that decision making,” she said.

“I still firmly believe the centre should not have been closed down without a way forward for the families.”

Earlier, Ms Miller demanded the Parliament ditch the current practice of expecting MPs to cover the cost of replacing electorate staff on holidays out of their allowances.

Ms Miller, who has applied to participate in every estimated hearing session, used her first question of the week to grill Speaker Peter Wellington and Clerk Neil Laurie about the issue, saying her office is like “Grand Central Station with people coming in and out all the time”.

“So the Parliament expects members of Parliament to wear the cost of replacing electorate officers when they’re on holidays — I’m not talking about sick leave — through their electorate and communications allowance,” she said.

“Which means that there is less money, in effect, that the MP can spend in their community. For example, supporting Meals on Wheels or other community organisations like the scouts etc.”

Ms Miller said she was not worried about sick leave, but wanted a rethink when it came to holiday leave.

“I can assure the Speaker and yourself as Clerk that when one of my electorate officers is off on holiday leave — which comes to eight weeks per year — my office is like Grand Central Station with people coming in and out all the time and we find it very difficult,” she said.

“I’m asking again for you to consider this — I’m not so much concerned about sick leave — but I’m certainly concerned about eight weeks per year where the Parliament expects one electorate officer to undertake this work.”

Ms Miller also raised concerns about the “paltry amount” allocated to MPs for electorate office cleaning, saying the current $1500 amount was “nowhere near the amount required for electorate offices”.

The former police minister also questioned why the Parliament did not audit MPs’ cleaning invoices to ensure they were paying cleaning contractors award wages.

She said the Parliament needed to be a “model employer” but expressed concern about the fact that there was currently “no mechanism” to ensure that was the case.

With respect to the holiday leave issue raised by Ms Miller, Mr Laurie said he was “not unsympathetic” but stressed that the “reality” was that such a change would need the support of Government.

Mr Wellington suggested the money was not there to support the change at the moment.

PUBLIC SERVICE NUMBERS BALLOON

MORE than 4000 extra public servants were hired by the Palaszczuk Government in the three months to the end of March.

The Queensland Public Service Commission’s latest quarterly report has revealed the state’s bureaucracy ballooned to 209,588 full-time equivalent staff.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk defended the hiring spree, insisting most of the additional staff were in health and education.

“We made a promise to Queenslanders to put extra teachers in our classrooms and more nurses, doctors and allied health workers and that’s exactly what we are delivering,” she said.

However, it is unclear how many of the additional staff are actually “frontline” workers.

The Commission’s report groups frontline and frontline support categories together.

Frontline support can mean anything from school and hospital cleaners, road workers and groundskeepers.

While the Government hired an extra 275 full-time equivalent corporate staff in the March quarter, the overall percentage remained steady at about nine per cent.

ANGER OVER TOLLS

BUNDAMBA MP Jo-Ann Miller has declared Queenslanders are “angry” about being slugged with enormous toll fines.

Ms Miller has continually asked questions of ministers and senior public servants throughout the first day of estimates hearings, focusing at times on cost of living issues.

She questioned Treasurer Curtis Pitt about concerns about toll fines after earlier grilling him about registration payment options.

“Right across southeast Queensland, Treasurer, people are getting pretty cranky - in fact angry - about the excessive fines and fees being charged by toll companies,” Ms Miller said.

“For example, for a $5 toll, they may be hit with $140 in fines and $10 in fees.

Some people don’t have access to computers. Certainly, in my area, some people don’t even have credit cards.

“So I’m just wondering whether you’d consider, in association with other ministers, capping the total fines and fees that are able to be charged by toll companies for non-payment of tolls to actually reasonable amounts - not gouging, which is what they’re currently doing.”

Mr Pitt answered briefly, saying it was up to companies to set tolls.

“The tolling arrangements, in terms of what tolls are charged, is a matter for those companies, they are private companies,” he said.

Mr Pitt went on to blame the former Newman government for the rapid referring of toll fines to SPER by the Department of Transport and Main Roads.

POLICE ATTEND EIGHT PARLIAMENT CALLS

QUEENSLAND police attended eight serious incidents at the parliamentary precinct in the last financial year, an estimates hearing has been told.

Clerk of the Parliament Neil Laurie told the hearing the matters ranged from backpacks being dumped, a dog being locked in a car, the destruction of CCTV cameras and a “sand-like substance” being posted to a member.

“I don’t think there was any malicious intent in that one, just someone being a little bit silly with what they’d put in an envelope,” he said about the latter incident.

BIG CHANGE FOR POLITICAL DONATIONS

QUEENSLAND’S political parties will have to start disclosing donations in real-time by the end of next February.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced during an estimates hearing that real-time donation disclosure rules would soon be enforced, meaning voters would no longer have to wait for annual disclosures to find out who has poured cash into political war chests.

“These new measures will add the extra layer of transparency we committed to during the 2015 election campaign,” she said.

“An implementation plan is currently being considered but I envisage the electronic system will be in place by the 1st of January next year and will go live by the end of February 2017.

“It means that instead of waiting months to see who is donating to a political party, people will be able to see who is donating and how much they are donating before an election takes place.”

Ms Palaszczuk said that Cabinet had this week endorsed the plan and the Government would be working closely with the Electoral Commission of Queensland.

“It is something I fully believe in,” she said.

The Premier added: “The public expects this.”

BILLY GORDON’S ACCOMMODATION ‘TOO ACCESSIBLE’

COOK MP Billy Gordon asked to have his parliamentary accommodation shifted from the Annexe building to the Old House because he felt he was “too accessible”.

Billy Gordon asked to move. Pic: AAP/Dan Peled

Clerk Neil Laurie suggested to an estimates hearing on Tuesday morning that Mr Gordon asked to be moved because other MPs were bothering him too frequently.

“The Member for Cook had requested to be relocated because he was not enjoying the quiet amenity that he would otherwise desire, if you like,” Mr Laurie said.

“In other words, he felt he was too accessible to other members in the circumstances of the current Parliament. The only room that we could find that was available for relocation for him was a room located on the bottom level of Parliament House that was not being utilised at that point in time.”

The Old House is typically reserved for ministers and office holders.

PARLIAMENT’S $300,000 ASBESTOS BILL

ASBESTOS removal in Queensland’s parliamentary annexe has cost the state $300,000, a budget estimates hearing has been told.

Renovations on the seventh level of the 40-year-old building have been delayed due to unexpected heavy rain that has stalled progress because its bedding cannot dry out.

Clerk of the Parliament Neil Laurie told an estimates hearing there were unforeseen issues with asbestos within the building’s 24-tonne pool, squash court and plant boxes.

“Quite frankly, there was just asbestos everywhere we went and turned over things,” he said.

Construction has had to be halted because it was excessively noisy, while the building of a new government tower across the road has also interfered with the work.

“A contributing cause has been actually the establishment of 1 William Street because it’s put a shadow over us and we’re not getting much sunlight on level seven,” Mr Laurie said.

But the $300,000 cost of removing asbestos was similar to an amount spent in the NSW parliament, he added.

Speaker Peter Wellington said there would always be a requirement for further work.

“We will work within the budget that we have as best we can,” he said.

Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls, the former LNP treasurer, acknowledged treasurers were “notoriously tight with these things”.