Jackie Trad in clear but no recall to cabinet

Jackie Trad will not return to cabinet ahead of the state election after being cleared.

Former Queensland deputy premier Jackie Trad. Picture: AAP

Queensland’s former deputy premier and treasurer Jackie Trad will not return to cabinet ahead of the state election after being cleared by the corruption watchdog of deliberating trying to intervene in the selection of a school principal in the electorate.

Just over a month after being forced to quit cabinet, the Crime and Corruption Commission announced on Thursday there was no criminal case against Ms Trad although her involvement in the process had created a “corruption risk’’.

Ms Trad is understood to have accepted she will remain a Labor backbencher until at least the October 31 election, when she faces an uphill battle to hold her marginal inner city seat of South Brisbane against a surging Greens vote.

After a six month probe, the CCC was damning about the behaviour of senior public servants in wanting to satisfy the “perceived wishes of their political masters’’.

Despite the report’s criticism of Ms Trad, in her involvement in the selection process for the school’s principal, the parliamentary leader of the dominate Left faction said she felt vindicated with the CCC findings.

“Unfortunately, this matter was turned into a political witch-hunt by the LNP (Liberal National Party),’’ she said.

“This has been an ongoing smear campaign that has had a detrimental impact on myself, my family and sadly, on the South Brisbane community.”

CCC chair Alan MacSporran QC said the probe unearthed “several practices” in the higher echelons of the public service that should of “concern to all Queenslanders”

Mr MacSporran said the process of senior bureaucrats changing when new governments came in did not “breed the sort of independent bureaucracy that we need”.

CCC Chair Alan MacSporran. Picture: Annette Dew

The CCC has recommended senior public servants be guaranteed tenure so they are not on contracts influenced by ministers “as they often are”.

Senior bureaucrats were found to have manufactured school enrolment figures, gave instructions to delete public records and allowed false assertions to be made in media statements.

Department of Education deputy director-general Jeff Hunt has stood aside in May over the scandal, with another senior bureaucrat taking leave last week amid the investigation.

The probe was launched last December after an anonymous tip-off over the recruitment of Tracey Cook, selected by an Education Department panel to be principal of the Inner City South Secondary College, which is currently being built in Ms Trad’s seat of South Brisbane.

Ms Cook was dumped soon after a meeting with Ms Trad and the job readvertised. Ms Cook was later replaced by …. with the government saying it was because new enrolment projections had warranted the appointment of an executive principal position.,

The report found that Ms Trad last year wrongly took the meeting with Ms Cook – set-up as a “test” of the candidate – despite being told she had been selected as the principal by a selection panel.

But the CCC said despite a perception of attendees at the meeting that Ms Trad was not impressed with Ms Cook, it found no evidence the then deputy premier “intentionally influenced the decision-making’’.

“There is no prima facie case that the Deputy Premier has committed a criminal offence or that she was motivated by any dishonest or corrupt intent,’’ the report said.

“Notwithstanding this, the nature of her involvement in DoE (Department of Education) decision-making created a corruption risk.”

Mr MacSporran said a confidential report about the behaviour of bureaucrats had had been prepared for the public service commission.

“The CCC identified some very worrying and disappointing practices during this investigation,” Mr MacSporran said.

An artist's impression of the Inner City South State Secondary College.

“The CCC found that department officers and some selection panel members had very poor or no records of key decisions, we recovered an email that was the subject of an instruction to delete a public record, a recruitment process was interfered with by people not on the selection panel, a candidate was misled by department officers and false information was published or used to make decisions,” Mr MacSporran said.

The CCC’s report found in Ms Trad’s meeting with Ms Cook and the then-Deputy Premier’s mood was described as “lacking in warmth, brusque, curt or terse, cold, unhappy … in a bad mood”.

Ms Frecklington said the system had been corrupted if Ms Trad’s mood had stopped the right person getting a principal’s job.

“The mood of the deputy premier shouldn’t decide whether you get a job in the Queensland public service or not. The mood of the Deputy Premier certainly shouldn’t derail a recruitment process … the person who should have got the job, didn’t get the job.”

Ms Frecklington said Ms Palaszczuk should rule out Ms Trad ever returning to her Cabinet.

Additional reporting: Mackenzie Scott