Murray Watt denies breach in $50k election printing mostly by union-owned company
A federal minister has denied any rules were breached when taxpayers were slugged over $50,000 for election ads printed mostly by a union-owned company.
QLD News
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Federal minister Murray Watt denies any rules were breached when taxpayers were slugged more than $50,000 for printing to promote ALP candidates at the 2020 Queensland state election, with most of the money going to a company owned by a union to which he belongs.
Documents obtained under Freedom of Information by The Sunday Mail show that in the month leading up to the October 2020 election Senator Watt charged the federal government for letters he wrote promoting Labor candidates to voters in four state seats.
The letters from Senator Watt, who has been Agriculture Minister since May 2022, were sent weeks after the Palaszczuk government’s laws capping spending by state election candidates came into effect in August 2020.
Spending by members of the federal parliament is not covered by this spending cap.
Federal legislation says senators are only allowed to charge printing to the Commonwealth if it was done for the “dominant purpose” of conducting federal parliamentary business.
Letters sent by Senator Watt all contained two copies of the Electoral Commission of Queensland’s postal vote applications and featured pictures of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and the Labor candidate in each of the seats.
Headed “STATE ELECTION – POSTAL ELECTION VOTING INFORMATION”, the letters all spruiked the achievements of the state Labor government. None of them made any mention of the senator’s work as a member of the federal parliament.
Senator Watt also charged the Commonwealth for DL-sized material warning voters to “Never forget, as Campbell Newman’s Assistant Treasurer Deb Frecklington CUT more than 4400 health care workers and over 500 teachers” and “Now is not the time to risk the LNP”.
The state seats targeted by Senator Watt were Bundaberg, Currumbin, Theodore and Pumicestone. He also produced material promoting Labor’s Bill Redpath in Kawana and Danielle Shankey in Everton.
Department of Finance rules impose strict tests for who MPs can give printing work, requiring them to ask themselves if “there any real or perceived favouritism or conflict of interest if you select a particular provider of goods or services?” and “Is the provider related to you in some way, presenting a risk of a conflict of interest?”
More than $35,000 of the money Senator Watt spent in the lead-up to the Queensland state election went to Poll Printing, owned by the United Workers Union, formerly known as United Voice, of which he has been a longstanding member.
A spokeswoman for Senator Watt said the printing had been done inside the rules. “All use of parliamentary work expenses, including printing and communications, is conducted in accordance with the Parliamentary Business Resources Framework and associated rules and guidelines,” she said.
Originally published as Murray Watt denies breach in $50k election printing mostly by union-owned company
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