Feeding the Chooks: Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov loses job opportunity

Integrity Commissioner Dr Nikola Stepanov, Parliament, Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston

Labor-aligned law firm Holding Redlich has pulled the parachute it had given Queensland’s outgoing Integrity Commissioner.

Two months ago, Chooks revealed Nikola Stepanov had tendered her resignation and turned whistleblower over alleged high-level interference in her role policing lobbyists and advising MPs and public servants.

What wasn’t publicly known was that Holding Redlich, which regularly hosts ALP fundraisers in their Brisbane CBD offices, approached Stepanov last year with an offer of a partnership.

It came around the time she first made a complaint to the Crime and Corruption Commission, with allegations that included a laptop and phone being seized from her office and wiped by the Public Service Commission.

Stepanov had been dealing with allegations of unlawful lobbying and revelations about the close ties of some Labor-aligned lobbyists, including Anacta, with the inner-circle of the Palaszczuk cabinet.

Anacta co-founder Evan Moorhead, a former state ALP secretary, helped run Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s re-election campaign, literally out of her office.

Chooks revealed a while ago that Holding Redlich had given Anacta free office space when it first started and then hosted its 2019 launch party, attended by the Premier.

It’s all a bit cozy, but that’s the mate’s state of Queensland politics.

Stepanov was going to join the law firm in July, but last week asked the Premier if she could stay on as Integrity Commissioner until December to see out the various investigations and reviews surrounding the issues she has raised.

Palaszczuk refused to allow her to delay her departure and now Holding Redlich has withdrawn its job offer.

Paul Venus, managing partner in Brisbane – who has been given two government board appointments under Palaszczuk – didn’t return calls.

Secrecy wins

It’s been three weeks since Labor backbencher Linus Power, chair of the parliamentary Economics and Governance Committee, said he’d seek legal advice on the release of documents relating to Palaszczuk’s referral of Stepanov to the committee.

Stepanov was referred to the committee for investigation by the Premier last year over allegations that had already been looked at and dismissed by the CCC.

Apparently, the committee also dismissed the referral.

Linus Power. Picture: Liam Kidston

The Premier has repeatedly refused to comment on her referral of Stepanov to the body because it was apparently “before the committee”.

The committee’s deputy chair, LNP MP Ray Stevens, and Stepanov wanted the material released to the public.

But a cryptic statement by Stevens at the opening of parliament on Thursday seemed to suggest the committee won't be releasing the documents.

“The three LNP members of the Economics and Governance Committee boycotted this morning’s scheduled meeting,’’ Stevens said.

“We do not take this action lightly. However, we will not be silenced or allow our silence to become misrepresented by the failing of the portfolio system which allows four votes of government members to three votes of non-government members.”

MPs are bound not to discuss committee business outside of committees, so exactly what happened, Stevens could not say, but Chooks have been told it relates to a vote on whether to release the documents.

Bailey’s can-do attitude

Treasurer Cameron Dick was bemoaning the opposition being “obsessed with the past” on Thursday when another relic of political history popped up on Minister Mark Bailey’s desk in parliament.

Dick was in full flight at the end of a Dorothy Dixer, which he managed to twist into an attack on the opposition for its pursuit of Bailey after the release of the 2017 investigation report into the Mangocube private email scandal.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey. Picture: Sarah Marshall

The report of the investigation – triggered by an expose in The Australian – raised concerns about union leaders leaning on Bailey over what should have been secret cabinet discussions, the destruction of official documents and targeting of public servants.

More emails on Bailey’s [e-mail] email account – contained in the report tabled by a parliamentary committee on Wednesday – has given new fodder for the LNP leader David Crisafulli.

But Dick was having none of that.

“The Leader of the Opposition is obsessed by the past,” Dick said. “He is stuck in the past and living in the past.”

It was at about that point that two seats away from Dick a staffer delivered to Bailey’s desk a copy of Can Do, the biography of former premier Campbell Newman, replete with dozens of pink post-it notes marking his favourite segments.

The Palaszczuk government has regularly referred to the tenure of the Newman government from 2012-15 when looking to deflect heat.

Talk about living in the past.

Boisterous boilermaker boils over

He’s already put Scott Morrison on notice that he will campaign against the Coalition’s net zero pledge, now Flynn candidate Colin Boyce has rejected his party’s stance on farming regulations aimed at protecting the Great Barrier Reef.

LNP MP Colin Boyce. Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

Boyce has been no stranger to crossing the floor of parliament to vote against the consensus of his Liberal National Party colleagues.

And the grazier and boilermaker turned MP has made clear he intends to do the same when the time comes to vote on a Katter’s Australian Party bill intended to undo regulations on sugarcane farmers in the reef catchment area.

“Since reliable records began, the amount of coral on the reef and coral growth rate has not declined despite the fearmongering and alarmism promoted by environmental groups and the Labor government,” Boyce said in parliament.

“The Labor government has deliberately targeted agriculture with its misguided and badly thought out reef legislation.

“The Labor government has made no attempt at recognising the vast changes and huge leaps forward the agricultural sector has made in its management and farming practices over recent years.”

Crossing the floor will likely be one of Boyce’s final acts in the Queensland parliament.

He’s contesting Flynn for the Coalition in the federal election and will give up his state seat as soon as the election is called.

Given that the Queensland parliament is not sitting in April, the next sitting week will likely be his last. 

Katter among the pigeons

KAP leader Robbie Katter says he is thankful to have Boyce’s backing but was bemused by the lack of LNP support for the party’s reef regulations bill.

Robbie Katter. Picture: Liam Kidston.

He said the LNP’s current stance on farming regulations was completely different to that espoused by LNP senators during a federal senate inquiry into the health of the reef last year, in which senators grilled scientists and bureaucrats about reef science and for the restrictions placed on farmers to prevent run-off of fertiliser nutrients into the reef.

“You cannot reconcile the LNP position pre-election and particularly with reference to the effort made on the senate inquiry into the reef,” Katter told Chooks.

“This inquiry was based on proving that the farmers’ activities don’t in fact impact on the reef.”

While Labor MPs have been licking their lips at seeing the LNP split over supporting farmers, Katter said he just wanted to see the bill debated seriously.

He referred to data showing reduced output from cane farms since restrictions on fertilised were introduced in 2010 and worried about whether mills would continue to have enough cane to run at capacity.

“New reef regulations represent further restrictions,” Katter said.

“Curiously, the LNP members from cane farming areas have completely exited the debate on the reef science.

“In fact there position is predicated on there being a problem and farmers need to respond.”

Vale Bob Dollin
Among the name calling and sheer juvenile carry-on on the floor of parliament this week, there was a particularly touching moment in the form of a heartfelt tribute by Maryborough MP Bruce Saunders to his predecessor Bob Dollin, who died in November aged 92.

Bob Dollin in 1998.

Palaszczuk, David Crisafulli and acting leader of the house Stirling Hinchliffe all rose to acknowledge Dollin’s passing, but it was Saunders who made the most impact.

In a profound, funny and moving speech, Saunders recalled his “mentor”, who held the seat of Maryborough from 1989 to 1998.

“Bob was one of the best men you will ever meet,” Saunders said.

“He was a man of his word. You did not have to have a contract or write anything down. Bob shook your hand and told you that was it.”

Saunders made particular mention of Dollin’s well-known love of the timber industry.

“On one occasion I thought I would have a talk to Bob about timber. Four days later I was still there talking about timber,” Saunders said.

“There is not a man I know who knew about timber like Bob Dollin.

“Bob Dollin was a fine man and Maryborough will miss him.”