CCC executive questioned over release of high-level documents

A parliamentary inquiry has heard of a CCC release of high-level documents which included WhatsApp conversations, obtained under coercion.

CCC executive of corruption Paul Alsbury was questioned during day 2 of an inquiry into the charging of eight Logan City councillors with fraud.

A parliamentary inquiry has heard that high-ranked Crime and Corruption Commission officers allegedly bungled the release of top-level documents obtained under coercion.

In a second explosive day of the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee inquiry into the charging of eight former Logan City councillors, the state’s second top CCC officer Paul Alsbury was questioned.

He gave his recollection of a delivery of material obtained under coercive investigations to the Logan City Council.

Mr Alsbury took the stand after his boss CCC chairman Alan MacSporran was reprimanded for reading out swear words in a presented affidavit.

All witnesses were reminded by PCCC chairman Jon Krause that using profanities was breaching parliamentary standing orders.

CCC executive of corruption Paul Alsbury.

QC Jonathan Horton questioned Mr Alsbury’s role in the delivery of materials obtained under coercion to Logan City Council.

The material included WhatsApp phone calls between eight councillors and was requested by lawyers for the council’s sacked CEO Sharon Kelsey.

Mr Kelsey had lodged a civil court case against the council and eight councillors.

Mr Horton said the material was sent to Logan City Council “under an extremely odd set of circumstances”.

He said the documents were released from the CCC without adequate authorisation and in conflict with the Crime and Corruption Act, which forbids information obtained by coercion to be used in civil court cases.

Law firm Minter Ellison, which was representing Ms Kelsey in her civil QIRC case, asked the CCC to send the documents to Logan council on October 3, 2018.

Once the documents were in the council domain, it was possible they could be obtained under the Right to Information Act.

The inquiry heard the material was delivered to the council initially without a covering letter or any approval for them to be released from the CCC.

CCC sent officers to retrieve the material, which was redelivered to Logan chambers weeks later in November after Minter Ellison contacted the CCC and asked for the documents to be resent to the council.

The documents were released back to the council after a QIRC ruling forbidding them to be used in Ms Kelsey’s QIRC case.

QC Jonathan Horton during the PCCC hearing.

Mr Horton said the series of events should have raised red flags with Mr Alsbury.

“ … The true purpose, I want to suggest to you is to put these documents back in the hands of Logan City Council so that they might be susceptible to disclosure in the QIRC proceedings,” Mr Horton said.

But Mr Alsbury claimed he authorised the second return of the documents to the council because he did not want the CCC to be accused of frustrating disclosure obligations by keeping them.

He also said he did not think there was any possibility of the documents being given to the QIRC.

But Mr Horton said those claims were false and Mr Alsbury had written to Logan’s acting CEO Silvio Trinca asking for information to be disclosed in February 2019.

Mr Alsbury stood by his claims and said he did not believe it had been improper conduct and believed the documents could be sent back to the council after an assessment and review by the State Archivist.

During his testimony, Mr Alsbury said the CCC had guidelines to follow but “our legislation is not a rule book”.

He said the Crime and Corruption Act and the QIRC ruling, which both prohibit the use of materials obtained using coercive investigations, “were not on his mind”.

“I knew that this would not result in anything being disclosed but we were still concerned about public record issues.”