Kate Jones’s former top adviser in possible Queensland lobbying ‘breach’
Jones’s former adviser lobbied Steven Miles to revamp a Gold Coast site soon after an expansion plan had been killed off by his one-time boss.
Kate Jones’s former top adviser repeatedly lobbied Steven Miles and government officials on behalf of entertainment giant Harvey Lister to revamp the Gold Coast convention centre, just months after his former boss had killed off a proposal by Star casino to expand the same building.
Matt Jutsum – Ms Jones’s long-time chief of staff and friend – was hired as a lobbyist by events tsar Mr Lister in March 2021, three months after Mr Jutsum had quit the government and five days after he had set up his lobbying firm.
Mr Jutsum followed Ms Jones into the private sector soon after she quit politics. When the then state development, tourism and innovation minister announced her retirement from parliament at the 2020 election, Mr Lister issued a public statement describing her as “perhaps the best tourism minister in the state’s history”.
Under Queensland law, former senior government representatives who become lobbyists are banned for two years from carrying out lobbying relating to “official dealings” they had in the previous two years while working in government.
An investigation by The Australian has uncovered a possible breach of this ban by Mr Jutsum, who lobbied his former colleagues in the government – including then deputy premier and state development minister Mr Miles – on Mr Lister’s behalf nine times in the two years after he left government. Mr Jutsum took Mr Lister along to a meeting with Mr Miles on June 16, 2021.
The revelation will increase pressure on Mr Miles, who has already made a referral to the state’s Integrity Commissioner about his interactions with Ms Jones since she left parliament, after it was revealed she was a “specialist consultant” for a different lobbying firm.
Lobbying regulator Linda Waugh’s assessment will be limited after she confirmed on Monday that although she had concerns about undeclared lobbying, she had no powers to investigate.
Mr Jutsum denied breaking any rules and said he has been advocating on Mr Lister’s behalf to convince government to spend $750m for his plan to redevelop the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Mr Jutsum said “as a former senior government officer, I have always observed the two-year exclusion for lobbying for matters on which I had official dealings”.
“The ASM Global proposal for a new arena on the Gold Coast was never conceived during my time in government and therefore I had no official dealings with that matter,” he said.
He said the two-year exclusion was “not (about) who you’ve met in government, it’s issues that you’ve dealt with, it’s matters that you’ve dealt with officially”.
While Mr Jutsum said he was confident he hadn’t done anything wrong, he said on Wednesday that he had sought advice from the Integrity Commissioner after The Australian’s inquiry.
It can be revealed that during Mr Jutsum’s final two years in government, he and Ms Jones had been involved in months of assessment and negotiations about the future of the government-owned convention centre.
The two were responsible for examining the government response to a submission from Star Entertainment, which manages the convention centre next to its Gold Coast casino, to spend $100m expanding and upgrading the centre in an attempt to maintain its casino monopoly on the coast.
Then-Star boss John O’Neill made the offer to government in October 2019, but negotiations between Ms Jones and Star broke down in mid-2020 and Star’s redevelopment did not happen. Some nine months later, Mr Jutsum was lobbying for Mr Lister’s redevelopment of the same site.
Mr Lister’s ASM Global already manages the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, ultimately owned by the state government, and the state-owned Cairns Convention Centre.
Under Mr Lister’s plan for the Gold Coast venue – as published in the Gold Coast Bulletin in November 2021 – it would be “funded on the same model” as his Brisbane Live project, “with the state government underwriting the $750m project”.
In Mr Lister’s vision for the Brisbane Live project, which is also being considered as a Brisbane 2032 Olympics venue, taxpayers would pay for the infrastructure and construction and ASM Global would manage the venue.
Jutsum Advisory has 23 clients, and Mr Jutsum said he sought Integrity Commissioner advice about starting his lobbying firm, and was referred to the code of conduct.
Ms Jones was this week forced to quit her job as a specialist consultant with Akin Agency, which registered as a lobbying firm in Queensland in December.
Both she and Akin denied any wrongdoing and said they complied with all government regulations, including lobbying rules.