Corrupt former minister Gordan Nuttall dies at 71

Former corrupt Queensland Labor minister Gordon Nuttall, jailed over $500,000 in bribes, has died aged 71 after being diagnosed with kidney cancer.

Former convicted Queensland state minister Gordon Nuttall after his parole period has ended, south of Bundaberg in 2023. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

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Corrupt former Queensland Labor minister Gordon Nuttall has died aged 71.

The former health and industrial relations minister in Peter Beattie’s government was jailed in 2009 for accepting more than $500,000 bribes from a mining magnate, a barrister, and a businessman.

Nuttall was sentenced to 14 years in jail and served six, before being released on parole in 2015.

Shortly before his parole finished in 2023, he was diagnosed with stage-four kidney cancer, although that has not been confirmed as the cause of death.

“The family confirmed that Gordon passed away on Friday May 2,” a statement from his relatives read.

“The family is devastated, they have been through enough and will not be providing any further comment to the media.

“Now is the time he should be left to rest in peace.”

The former MP for the bayside seat of Sandgate between 1992 and 2006 was found guilty of accepting $360,000 in bribes from mining rich-lister Ken Talbot and barrister and businessman Harold Shand.

Talbot died in a plane crash in Africa before he could face charges. Shand was jailed in 2011.

Disgraced former Labor government minister Gordon Nuttall, watched over by parliament’s Sergeant of Arms, defends himself on contempt of parliament charges, as the first prisoner to appear before the house, in 2011. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Nuttall was later sentenced to seven years jail after being found guilty of corruption and perjury, after accepting payments from another Brisbane businessman, Brendan McKennariey, to help him secure government contracts for his companies.

That second tranche of charges was laid after The Australian’s Michael McKenna revealed that state prosecutors had failed to act on a recommendation of the then Crime and Corruption Commission to charge him over the McKennariey bribery.

The CMC probe into the bribery was not publicly known, and an investigation by The Australian reported Nuttall had received more than $180,000 in cash from the businessman while he was health and industrial relations minister.

Several contracts had been awarded to companies linked to McKennariey, including one worth $2.1m just days before Nuttall was sacked as health minister, between 2001 and 2005.

Gordon Nuttall in 2023 after his parole period had ended. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

In an explosive interview with McKenna during his first trial, Nuttall claimed that the CMC had investigated him as payback after he had earlier criticised the integrity watchdog in parliament. Nuttall was also found in contempt of the Queensland parliament in 2011 and fined $82,000 by parliament’s ethics committee for failing to disclose the payments to Shand and Talbot.

He was allowed out of prison in 2011 to face the bar of parliament, delivering a 36-minute address during which he refused to admit any wrongdoing, claimed he was a victim of a “revenge” ­attack by the state’s corruption watchdog, and accused his former Labor colleagues of abandoning him.

In 2016, the Palaszczuk Labor government pursued Nuttall’s taxpayer-funded superannuation contributions, worth nearly $3m. He was eventually ordered to pay back about $375,000.

Nuttall told a podcast in 2023 that his actions were “an error of judgment” but again insisted he was not a criminal.

“If I was going to be crooked, why would I buggerise around with 300 grand,” he told The Man Behind the Rose podcast, hosted by former journalist and Brisbane mayoral candidate Patrick Condren.