‘Disturbing’ email culture by Queensland ministers, shelved report says

An explosive report, shelved by the Palaszczuk government, found a ‘disturbing’ culture among cabinet ministers and senior staffers using private email accounts for official business | READ THE REPORT

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Dan Peled

An explosive report, shelved by the Palaszczuk government, found a “disturbing” culture among cabinet ministers and senior staffers using private email accounts for official business that undermined transparency and accountability.

The 2017 report by then-state archivist Mike Summerell into the so-called “Mangocube” affair warned the practice was “widespread” and involved at least four cabinet ministers – including now Deputy Premier Steven Miles – and senior political staffers, one of whom was later promoted to be deputy chief of staff to Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Mr Summerell, who claims he was pushed out of his job last year, has accused the government of burying the report and ignoring his recommendations to stop the use of back-channel correspondence and destruction of records.

Since his comments earlier this month, Ms Palaszczuk has resisted calls to release the damning report.

On Thursday, she told reporters she had asked the Crime and Corruption Commission to determine if it should be made public in a move that Mr Summerell labelled as unnecessary and “BS”.

Mr Summerell’s report follows his investigation into revelations by The Australian in 2017 that then-energy minister Mark Bailey was using his private email account to correspond with Electrical Trade Union bosses over the running of state-owned electricity companies and later a scuttled superannuation funds merger in the sector.

After refusing to release the emails, Mr Bailey – a longtime ETU member – deleted his [e-mail] account after a Right to Information request from The Australian to hand over the email exchanges.

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Mr Summerell found Mr Bailey, now Transport Minister, had potentially broken the law in using the private emails and deleting the account in destroying public records.

Mr Bailey was stood aside in 2017 after the CCC issued a statement saying there was a “reasonable suspicion of corrupt conduct”.

But the CCC did not lay charges, largely because Mr Bailey reactivated the account and retrieved the records on the orders of the watchdog after the newspaper’s revelations.

The 33-page report, obtained by The Australian, was one of two authored by Mr Summerell and directed to his then minister Leeanne Enoch.

The other report – a comprehensive 100 page-plus document into the investigation – was sent to the CCC to consider prosecution.

In the report to Ms Enoch, Mr Summerell said he found the use of private email accounts by ministers for official purposes was “widespread” and “disturbing”.

His investigation confirmed reports that among the Palaszczuk government frontbenchers using their private email accounts for official business included Mr Miles, then Treasurer, and current Speaker Curtis Pitt and now Energy Minister Mick de Brenni.

The practice was banned by the Premier in 2018 after she reinstated Mr Bailey to cabinet.

“Whilst the investigation focused on the private email account of Minister Bailey it was extremely clear that the receipt and creation of public records in the private email accounts of other Ministers and ministerial staff was widespread,” the report says.

Mr Bailey’s then political staffers Denise Spinks, later promoted to Ms Palaszczuk’s office and now working for a Labor-aligned lobbyist firm Anacta, and David Shankey, now deputy director-general of Department of Energy and Public Works, were also using private emails for official business.

“The widespread nature and frequency of this practice was disturbing,’’ Mr Summerell said.

“The Minister’s staff, Spinks and Shankey, are very experienced public officials; they clearly would have known that this practice was against the official policy as outlined in the Ministerial Information Security Policy and elsewhere.”

In the report, Mr Summerell raised the importance of maintaining accurate public records and its role in ensuring government accountability and transparency.

There were 1199 public records on Mr Bailey’s private email account at the time it was deleted.

While some records were administrative and trivial, others were significant.

“These records document factors in decisions the Minister has made, the decisions made, attempts to influence those decisions, how he made those decisions and how these decisions were implemented,” Mr Summerell wrote in his report.

“Public records are a cornerstone of accountable government and allow scrutiny from the public on the decisions of those who were elected to act on their behalf, the failure to manage them effectively is of significant concern.

“The volume of public records deleted is such that it cannot be explained through simple mistake or ignorance.’

Of the more than a thousand emails deleted, 69 were considered to have permanent value to the state and a further 355 records should have been retained for more than seven years.

“These are not trivial or minor records. Their loss would certainly undermine key principles of the Right to Information Act which the Public Records Act seeks to support.”

The report made 15 recommendations in total including better independence protections for the state archivist, law changes to ensure all official business discussed on private emails or social media were forwarded to official accounts within 20 days and a new strikeforce to monitor compliance.

“The ability for the state archivist to undertake his statutory functions without interference must be enhanced,” he wrote.

In a statement to The Australian, Mr Summerell said he was asked to provide a hard copy of the report to the department a week before the 2017 state election was called.

“I was told no electronic copy, I was required to hand deliver a hard copy of the report to the director-general,” he said.

After the November election, Mr de Brenni became the minister responsible for the state archives and Mr Summerell provided him with a detailed summary of the report and its recommendations.

“I have no idea what happened to that report,” Mr Summerell said,

“Key recommendations did not progress and were either stopped by department officials or due to decisions of the minister, which he has the ability to do.”

The CCC publicly supported Mr Summerell’s recommendations in 2017.

Ms Palaszczuk this week said all recommendations had been implemented or were in progress, but has not said which have been completed.

The ministers and senior political staffers have previously denied any wrongdoing.