David Crisafulli says he ‘met obligations’ over insolvent trading claim

Nearly a decade after David Crisafulli was the sole director of a taxpayer-funded training company, he is still being dogged by questions about whether it traded while insolvent.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli denies misleading Queenslanders. Picture: Lachie Millard

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Premier David Crisafulli says he did not mislead Queenslanders before last year’s state election when he denied a company he ran had not traded while insolvent.

The Liberal National Party leader’s denial in September appears at odds with an unredacted liquidators’ report released in April under Right to Information laws, giving more information about Mr Crisafulli’s conduct before and after Southern Edge Training’s 2016 collapse.

Mr Crisafulli was the sole director and chief executive of the company between December 1, 2015 and April 1, 2016, after he lost his Townsville-based seat of Mundingburra at the January 2015 election.

The company had been in fin­ancial distress before Mr Crisafulli took the reins, and collapsed into liquidation two months after he left.

Released to the Labor opposition, the unredacted liquidators’ report shows PwC issued Mr Crisafulli with an “insolvent trading claim” in relation to “compensation for the loss resulting from insolvent trading for the period 1 December, 2015 to 1 April, 2016”.

“Following subsequent confidential ‘without prejudice’ negotiations, I have received an offer from (Mr Crisafulli) to settle the claim for $200,000 without admission of liability (the settlement offer), payable by way of instalments as follows: $80,000, $60,000, $60,000,” the 2019 report – released this year – says.

By the time Mr Crisafulli repaid those debts in March and July of 2020 and July of 2021, he was back in parliament as a senior opposition frontbencher and then opposition leader.

Premier David Crisafulli at Emerson Park in Grange on Sunday, announcing the expansion of taxpayer-funded sport vouchers for children. Picture: Lachie Millard

He is now facing a parliamentary ethics committee investi­gation because he did not publicly declare the debts or payments on his pecuniary interests register, which at the time required liabilities over $19,000 to be declared within one month.

Ahead of the October 26 state election – when the LNP defeated Labor to hold power in Queensland for the first time in nearly a decade – Mr Crisafulli was asked by a reporter: “Was SET Solutions trading insolvent while you were a director?”

He answered: “No.”

Asked on Sunday whether he had misled Queenslanders in that exchange, given the information contained in the now-released liquidators’ report, Mr Crisafulli said: “No, I didn’t.”

He would not explain how that tallied with his settlement of the insolvent trading claim, or the liquidators’ statement that the payment was for “compensation for the loss resulting from insolvent trading” while he was the company’s only director.

“I’ve explained it many times before, and you know I met my obligations … there were no findings against me,” Mr Crisafulli said.

Asked whether he had sought advice from the state’s integrity commissioner or the clerk of the parliament about whether he needed to publicly declare the payments or debts on his pecuniary interests register, Mr Crisafulli did not answer and would only say: “I met my obligations.”

When asked whether he was confident he would be cleared by the ethics committee, he repeated: “I met my obligations.”

Days out from the election, then deputy premier Cameron Dick wrote to parliamentary clerk Neil Laurie asking for Mr Crisafulli to be referred to the committee.

“It is my view that the liability – either in full or the part-payments – should have been disclosed by the member for Broadwater pursuant to … standing orders,” Mr Dick wrote