Disgraced ex-minister Gordon Nuttall to repay $400,000 super

Corrupt former Labor minister Gordon Nuttall has been ordered to repay nearly $400,000 of his taxpayer-funded pension.

Former Queensland minister Gordon Nuttall leaves Brisbane Supreme Court.

A Supreme Court judge has ruled as “irrelevant” the fact that corrupt former Labor minister Gordon Nuttall’s life was ruined by his imprisonment, before ordering the ex-politician to repay nearly $400,000 of his taxpayer-funded pension.

Judge James Douglas yesterday ordered Nuttall to repay one-quarter of his $1.5 million publicly funded nest egg, after an application to the court by current Queensland Labor Treasurer Curtis Pitt.

Nuttall was released from jail on parole in 2015 after serving six years of a 14-year sentence for corruption offences committed during his time as a minister in Peter Beattie’s Labor government.

Nuttall’s legal team had argued that Justice Douglas should take into consideration “the destruction of his career, reputation and marriage as well as the public humiliation he has suffered” when calculating how much superannuation should be repaid.

But in a written judgment published yesterday, Justice Douglas ruled those factors were “irrelevant” to his task. Under Queensland law, the government can claw back a “just and equitable” amount of publicly funded superannuation paid to people who committed certain offences during their public service.

Mark Hinson QC, for Mr Pitt, said Nuttall was an MP for 11 years; his first relevant corruption offence was committed in December 2001, nine years and three months after he was elected. Nuttall had served 111 months of his total service of 168 months before the first offence was committed.

Nuttall was found guilty of receiving secret commissions from businessman Ken Talbot and Brisbane lawyer Harold Shand. He was also separately convicted of official corruption for using his power as a minister to influence departmental business dealings to benefit men who had paid him nearly $150,000.

“It was serious offending,” Justice Douglas said.