Annastacia Palaszczuk says one thing, the evidence says quite another

Annastacia Palaszczuk has insisted the state’s business community does not need to engage lobbyists. But an examination of the state’s lobbyist register has confirmed that is not the case.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: AAP

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has insisted the state’s business community does not need to engage lobbyists to secure a meeting with her government.

But an examination of the state’s lobbyist register – and the painstaking review conducted by Professor Peter Coaldrake – has confirmed that is not the case.

In fact, public declarations of lobbyist contacts with Ms Palaszczuk’s government reveal her top staffers, including her chief of staff Jim Murphy and deputy chief of staff Jon Persley, fielded at least 24 meetings with lobbyists since March, on behalf of 17 different businesses.

Gaming giant Tabcorp used top Labor lobbyist Anacta Strategies, whose co-founder Evan Moorhead helped run Ms Palaszczuk’s re-election campaign in 2020, to meet an unnamed principal adviser of the Premier on May 16 for “commercial in confidence” reasons.

It was one of more than 40 meetings Anacta had with the government for Tabcorp in the months before Treasurer Cameron Dick and Racing Minister Grace Grace announced a favourable reshuffle of the gambling tax system on June 6.

The approaches to Ms Palaszczuk’s office are only a tiny proportion of the hundreds of contacts from lobbyists with senior levels of the Queensland government every month.

In May, a dozen lobbying firms representing 38 businesses held 74 meetings with Ms Palaszczuk’s government; Anacta had the largest share of meetings at 18.

On Thursday, Ms Palaszczuk told the business community: “You do not need to employ a lobbyist to have a meeting with my government.”

Professor Coaldrake’s report said the growth of lobbying activity in Queensland represented a failure by government “itself to be able to deal with business and community interests without the involvement of a paid intermediary”.

During her press conference on Thursday, Ms Palaszczuk said she was not “troubled” by the report’s scathing findings, and said six times she had “embraced” the recommendations.

“I asked for this … it’s a health check,” she said. But Ms Palaszczuk had a different attitude at the start of the year, when she repeatedly denied the government needed to call an inquiry into integrity issues.

In late January, the Premier castigated Opposition Leader David Crisafulli as needing a “serious reality check” for suggesting the state needed a royal commission into government integrity.

“We have a very robust system in Queensland. We have the (Crime and Corruption Commission) which is essentially a standing royal commission,” Ms Palaszczuk said at the time.

Professor Coaldrake found the culture and tone of her government was suffering a culture “too tolerant of bullying, unwilling to give life to unfashionable points of view and dominated by the occupational hazard of all governments, short-term political thinking”.

He said it was a “culture that, from the top down, is not meeting public expectations”.