Trad to jet away from heat over house on a trade mission

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she still has confidence in her Deputy Jackie Trad amid an integrity scandal.

JACKIE Trad will jet out on a trade mission on Friday to sell Queensland as an investment destination to the world as the integrity scandal involving her Woolloongabba property purchase continues to widen.

The Courier-Mail can reveal the Deputy Premier has been given a green light to travel to London, Paris and New York as part of the annual Queensland Treasury Corporation roadshow despite questions over her own investment decisions.

The revelations last night sparked Opposition demands for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to ground her deputy and send another minister on the week-long trip to represent Queensland.

The investment house owned by Queensland Deputy Premier Jackie Trad.

“Jackie Trad shouldn’t be fleeing the country while she is embroiled in an integrity crisis over an investment property,” Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington said.

“Given the Labor Treasurer’s integrity is in tatters, she is the last person who should be spruiking about investment in Queensland.”

Ms Trad this morning denied reports she was fleeing the state, telling the ABC she was following a three-decade tradition in going overseas to sell the state budget.

“Every state treasurer going back 30 years did an investment road show after bringing down the budget,” she said.

“It is a critical part of the marketing of our state.’’

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she still has confidence in Ms Trad and insisted she should go on the trade mission.

“There’s no one else that can go, they (LNP) know that it’s the Treasurer of this state that does this, it happens every year after the budget is handed down,” the Premier said.

“All of the meetings have been locked in.”

The Premier said she had not phoned the CCC about Ms Trad’s referral.

Ms Trad revealed during yesterday’s Budget estimates hearings that she phoned Crime and Corruption Commission boss Alan MacSporran on Sunday to have a private discussion before forwarding her controversial purchase to the watchdog for investigation the next day.

Queensland Deputy Premier and Treasurer, Jackie Trad is to head overseas on a trade mission. Picture: AAP/Darren England

“I rang the head of the CCC to advise him that I would be providing information in relation to this matter and that I would be fully co-operating with whatever assessment or the outcome of the assessment that the CCC would undertake,” Ms Trad said.

“ In no way shape or form was I suggesting or inferring a particular outcome.”

Ms Trad this morning defended making the call, saying it was a matter of “courtesy”.

“I volunteered this information (and) if I sought to influence Mr MacSporran in any way I don’t think I would be disclosing it in parliament at an estimates committee hearing,” she said.

Ms Trad said the call lasted five minutes, and that she had called the CCC on one previous occasion, on a budget matter.

She said her husband had advised her by text that he was interested in purchasing a property, but said few details were discussed between them.

“It was at a time that a lot of other things were happening,” she said. “I trust my husband - he manages his income in the way that he decides.”

She accepted she was a beneficiary of the trust involved in the purchase.

The scandal involves Ms Trad’s purchase of a three-bedroom house near the proposed Boggo Rd station being built under the Cross River Rail project which she has ministerial responsibility for.

Ms Trad has promised to sell the property but denied impropriety, saying the route for Cross River Rail had been public knowledge for years.

However, The Courier-Mail revealed yesterday a rival project bidder proposed moving the proposed station away from Ms Trad’s investment to a location near the Princess Alexandria hospital to provide a travel solution to staff, patients and visitors and to overcome technical issues.

But the proposal was rejected by the Palaszczuk Government despite being the favoured option of the Cross River Rail Authority and the Department of Transport.

Questions about the alternative station and the Government’s decision were repeatedly thwarted during the Budget estimates hearings with the boss of the project saying the matters were commercial-in-confidence.

Ms Trad said she had failed in just one aspect of the accepted procedues related to disclosure of pecuniary interests.

She had contacted the independent public official who updated MP’s pecuniary interests, but had failed to supply one form

“What I didn’t do was I didn’t sign the final form for it to be uploaded,’’ she said.

“And I have apologised for that and I made that mistake.’’

Ms Trad confirmed the house in question was about to be sold but denied the sale was an admission of any wrong doing, saying it was just part of the “moving on’’ process.

But she said she was concerned about the percpetion the matter had created for the Queensland Government.

“Of course I am concerned about the perception but at the end of the day it is what is is.’’