Twist in Jackie Trad’s fight to keep report under wraps

Former Queensland deputy premier Jackie Trad. Picture: Richard Gosling

G’day readers, welcome to the latest instalment of Feeding the Chooks, where too much Queensland politics (and business, and bureaucracy, and sport) is never enough. It’s a stacked edition this week. Enjoy.

SECRET REPORT

The fate of Jackie Trad’s secretive taxpayer-funded Supreme Court bid to stop the release of a Crime and Corruption Commission report just got tougher.

The CCC report into Trad stemmed from an investi­gation of allegations she improperly interfered in the 2019 appointment of a senior public servant that widened into a probe of recruitment across the ­bureaucracy since Annas­tacia Palaszczuk came to power in 2015.

After losing her inner Brisbane seat to the Greens in 2020, Queensland’s former deputy premier and treasurer quietly secured the sign-off from her friend and Left factional ally, Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman, for the state to cover the bill of her team of well-heeled legal eagles running the extraordinary legal action.

Fentiman repeatedly refuses to say how much taxpayers have had to fork-out, so far, for the year-long exercise, which has included Trad’s lawyers issuing a legal letter to Chooks when we tried to report on Trad’s court effort to keep the report out of the public domain.

This from a government that is forever touting its commitment to transparency.

Trad’s case followed hot on the heels of a similar court action launched by former Public Trustee Peter Carne, who faced a CCC probe into allegations against him and launched a legal bid to suppress the watchdog’s subsequent report.

This month, Carne won the backing of the Court of Appeals to suppress the CCC report – a victory that would have emboldened Trad’s team and possibly used as a precedent.

But on Friday, CCC chair Bruce Barbour said there were “major concerns” about the Carne decision and confirmed the watchdog would appeal to the High Court.

“The CCC and its predecessors have regularly reported on the outcomes of, and lessons learned from corruption investigations,” he said.

“Clearly, there are very significant ramifications, and that decision is inconsistent with the way we and our predecessors have practised business in the corruption area for a long time.

“That‘s why it’s important for us to seek a review.”

TREATY LEGACY

The legal action and political heat around her Supreme Court action probably explains Trad’s absence at parliament on Tuesday for the release of the Path to Treaty report.

Or it could by that the premier didn’t extend an invitation.

Mick Gooda, a co-author of the report and its recommendations which have been embraced by the state government, was among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who personally expressed their disappointment that Trad wasn’t at the ceremony.

Chooks has been told that the premier wants the treaty – and its “Truth Telling” inquiry – to be seen as one her legacies.

But the truth is that a whole raft of the government’s social reforms – legalising abortion and assisted suicide, and moves to treaty with First Nations people – was instigated and championed through the party room and parliament by Trad.

GRACE UNDER FIRE

If Covid has taught us one thing, hindsight is 20/20. PerhapsIndustrial Relations Minister Grace Grace is feeling the sting of it this week.

On Monday, this paper revealed that beef baron Trevor Lee had underpaid workers at his Australian Country Choice business by more than $5m over 11 years. While $3.28m has already been put back into the hands of abattoir workers and cleaners at the meatworks, $2.5m is now tied up in an enforceable undertakings agreement with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Lee hosted a party in June stacked with Labor luminaries at his Ascot mansion, in leafy inner Brisbane, to honour his wife, Australian fashion icon, Keri Craig-Lee.

Guests at the flashy party included Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her surgeon boyfriend Reza Adib, recruitment mogul Sarina Russo, and Grace.

Annastacia Palaszczuk, Reza Adib, Grace Grace and Sarina Russo among guests at the Keri Craig-Lee function. Picture: Damien Anthony Rossi / Instagram

It came after Lee hosted a Labor fundraiser in May, attended by Anthony Albanese and Palaszczuk.

Awkwardly, in 2020, Grace championed reform to criminalise wage theft and to streamline the recovery of entitlements.

“It continues the proud record of the Palaszczuk government in protecting and advancing the rights of Queensland workers,” Grace said.

Something to chat about at the next glitzy party, perhaps?

SQUATTING IN THE HENHOUSE

Have you ever wondered how to find a vacant home to squat in?

If so, you are in luck, with Brisbane City Council’s lone Greens councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan giving a step-by-step guide on Facebook using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data to identify homes that were left vacant in the last census to help locals facing the city’s rental crisis get a temporary roof over their heads.

“This is a helpful way of identifying the neighbourhoods that might have particularly high numbers of empty dwellings and where you‘re more likely to be able to find a suitable place to squat,” he posted.

“It would be far better if these homes were occupied by people who need housing, rather than left empty.”

At the bottom of his Facebook post, Sriranganathan gave a disclaimer: “Note: Obviously I would NEVER encourage anyone to break the law and this is just hypothetical advice.”

Greens Councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan. Picture: Jono Searle

Finding a rental anywhere in Australia at the moment is incredibly tough, with national vacancy at 1 per cent. But Brisbane has recorded the biggest change in weekly costs, up more than 20 per cent annually.

Brisbane City Council’s Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner was quick to denounce any action on his fellow councillor’s advice by advocating for the rights of … hypothetical Diggers?

“Everyone has a right to safe and secure housing but, by the same token, no one should have to worry about the security of their home while they’re away visiting family, in hospital or working overseas – like many in our Defence Forces.”

If we look at the numbers, there were a million vacant homes on last year’s census night nationally, with almost one in ten (around 8490) of the current service members were away from home.

Sriranganathan returned fire.

“It’s pretty funny watching people in positions of comparative privilege frothing with confected outrage about the suggestion that someone might repeatedly visit a vacant home to double-check that it’s vacant, but not being similarly outraged about the fact that the home has been left vacant long-term in the first place.”

“Why are you more angry about homeless people breaking into empty homes than you are about the fact that thousands of people are homeless while houses sit empty?”

PALASZCZUK’S ‘MR FIX-IT’ RETURNS

One of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s most trusted advisers is making a surprise return to Queensland.

Chris Taylor, a close confidante of Ms Palaszczuk who has worked for her on-and-off since 2012, will return as her principal media adviser next month.

Known as ‘Mr Fix-it’, Taylor will be tasked with mending the strained relationship between Palaszczuk and the media.

Chris Taylor with Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

A veteran Labor adviser, Taylor was first poached from the Sunday Mail newsroom in 2004 by then-education Minister Anna Bligh.

He is well-regarded by other ministerial staffers and was central to Palaszczuk’s success at the 2015 and 2020 elections.

Taylor has been with the Tasmanian Labor Opposition for the past two years.

THOSE IN PINK HOUSES SHOULDN’T THROW STONES

LNP deputy leader Jarrod Bleijie, renowned for his parliamentary sprays, put his foot in it this week during his slapdown of fellow Sunshine Coast MP, Labor’s Jason Hunt.

The pair have been in a long-running spat over a proposed youth remand centre in former prison officer Hunt’s Caloundra electorate.

Labor abandoned plans for the centre in January after a sustained community backlash.

Reading from Right to Information documents Bleijie told parliament Hunt emailed the minister’s office and said: “I have a strong feeling that some of the angst can be relieved through some simple architectural tweaks”.

“The member for Caloundra wanted to architecturally tweak the jail so it did not look like a jail! What was he going to do? Put up a pink wall on the outside of it or something!” Bleijie said.

A pink wall? That sounds surprisingly similar to the infamous – and failed – LNP plan to dress bikies in pink prison jumpsuits, spruiked by then-Newman government Attorney-General Bleijie.

FEEL THE BURN

Anyone who regularly tunes into question time in Queensland would be well aware of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s favourite burn.

Palaszczuk can barely contain her smile when reminding LNP integrity spokeswoman Fiona Simpson that she has never been a minister.

Simpson, the parliament’s longest serving MP with 30 years of service, was elected speaker in the brief three years the LNP held power and missed out on a frontbench role.

But Palaszczuk got a taste of her own medicine from former foe Deb Frecklington during sittings this week.

Answering a question from Freckles about former Labor deputy premier Jackie Trad’s taxpayer-funded legal fight, Palaszczuk said: “As the member is a former lawyer, the member may wish to look at the legal indemnity guidelines which the Attorney-General followed in full”.

Frecklington – a practising solicitor before she became a politician – shot back: “I actually practised”.

Ouch.

Palaszczuk graduated from law at the University of Queensland, was the national president of Labor Lawyers, and was studying for admission as a solicitor when she was elected to parliament in 2006.

DADDY’S BOY

While we are on the topic of cutting insults. Greens MP Michael Berkman might have taken the cake this week.

Fed up with Dorothy Dixers (aren’t we all?) Berkman launched a savage assault on Labor backbencher Jimmy Sullivan.

Sullivan, son of former Labor MP Terry Sullivan, was preselected to the seat of Stafford in 2020 after the resignation of Mines Minister and surgeon Anthony Lynham.

He happened to be the government MP seated closest to Berkman during his Dixer speech and was smacked down when he tried to interrupt.

Couldn't help but remember all the Dorothy Dixers the Labor MP for Stafford asked during Estimates, when he was heckling me in the chamber yesterday.

Nepotism aside, Dixers in Estimates are a joke & should be scrapped. Hold a press conference instead. #auspol#qldpolpic.twitter.com/3IkCyMOou5

— Michael Berkman (@mcberkman) August 18, 2022

“Perhaps the member for Stafford is himself actually the embodiment, the personification, of everything that is busted about the Labor Party,” Berkman said.

“Let’s face it. This bloke would not be here were it not for his daddy’s time here.

“The kind of sycophancy and subservience that he puts forward particularly in the estimates hearings is just extraordinary.”

Sullivan is one of many MPs who followed their fathers into state parliament. Annastacia Palaszczuk, Curtis Pitt, Robbie Katter, Fiona Simpson and Tony Perrett are also legacies.

BACON AND EGGS

Breaking news: the lightposts in Kingaroy are adorned with banners of bacon.

Yes, you read it here, the town probably most famous as the home of former Queensland Nationals premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen (originator of the ‘feeding the chooks’ phrase) is currently beset by BACON.

The current local MP is the aforementioned Frecklington, the erstwhile leader of the LNP Opposition, who took great pleasure in telling parliament on Thursday about the wonders of this weekend’s Kingaroy BaconFest.

Frecklington and her husband Jason will be at the “Wine and Swine” drinks tonight, and a long table breakfast on Sunday morning with yet more bacon.

And so Deb addressed the “couple of people actually watching (Queensland parliament) online”: “They should come along to Kingaroy, to the mighty BaconFest! People may not realise that BaconFest also hosts the Australasian BBQ Alliance sanctioned SunPork Smoke Off competition. It is huge. It is a massive event.”

What’s heartening is there appears to be bipartisan support for bacon.

Industrial Relations Minister Grace Grace cheerily interjected twice while Frecklington was addressing parliament: “We are talking bacon! We all love bacon.”