Gordon Nuttall fined for contempt after pleading his innocence in Queensland parliament

JAILED former Labor minister Gordon Nuttall has been found guilty of contempt and fined $82,000 after an historic appearance before Queensland's parliament.

Nuttall

JAILED former Labor minister Gordon Nuttall has been found guilty of contempt and fined $82,000 after an historic appearance before Queensland's parliament.

The convicted former minister - the first prisoner to face the bar of parliament - was allowed out of prison to personally challenge an $82,000 fine from parliament's ethics committee for failing to disclose $360,000 in secret commissions from jailed barrister Harold Shand and the late mining magnate Ken Talbot.

But MPs voted later to find him in contempt of parliament, and ordered he pay the $82,000 fine in the next 12 months.

Nuttall had earlier refused to admit any wrongdoing over his conviction for corruption, telling MPs he was a victim of a “revenge” attack by the state's Crime and Misconduct Commission.

The gaunt-looking former Beattie government minister, serving 12 years in prison for accepting secret commissions and perjury, called for an inquiry into the CMC and claimed prosecutors had attempted to intimidate a defence witness from giving evidence.

In a 36-minute address to a silent Legislative Assembly, Nuttall also accused former Labor colleagues of abandoning him in his moment of need.

Nuttall was at times emotional, and his voice broke as he thanked his family and few loyal friends for their support during his two trials.

But Nuttall failed to live up to expectations that he may use parliamentary privilege to expand on a taped jailhouse interview in which he claimed widespread corruption, and that former premier Peter Beattie had only retired in exchange for his appointment as Queensland's trade commission in Los Angeles.

He made no specific allegations of corruption against any current or former Queensland politicians.

Speaker John Mickel repeatedly interrupted Nuttall during his address to MPs, warning him that he was straying from his defence on the parliamentary charges.

One warning came when Nuttall called for a judicial inquiry into the Crime and Misconduct Commssion and the Director of Public Prosecutions, and accused the CMC of “a savage desire for revenge” against him.

Nuttall said the two agencies, which investigated and successfully prosecuted the corruption allegations against him, had run a targeted campaign.

He said the bodies ensured he was “demonised, abandoned, ridiculed, cheated and made a fool of”.

A defiant Nuttall referred to the corrupt payments as “loans” and claimed he was targeted by the CMC because he had questioned their authority in parliament.

Nuttall revealed the DPP had originally offered him a deal that he serve 18 months on all of the charges if he pleaded guilty.

“I couldn't plead guilty to something I didn't do,” he said.

Nuttall said his punishment was excessive.

“I respectfully submit that I have been punished in a court of law with a significant sentence......greater than anyone received in the Watergate....Al Capone only got 11 years.”

Nuttall later said other MPs could have attracted the same attention from the CMC, but had not attacked the anti-corruption body.

While refusing to admit guilt on the criminal charges, he offered a qualified apology on the charges of parliamentary contempt.

He said he taken advice from his solicitor, before accepting the money, that he did not have to declare it on parliament's register of pecuniary interests.

“I have never knowingly or wrongfully set out to do wrong.

“If the house chooses not to accept my defence, then accept my sincere unqualified apology to the house for the non-disclosure of the matters raised in the report by the ethics committee,” he said.

“And that this unqualified apology be accepted by the house as a suitable penalty.

“I do not have the financial capacity to pay the money.”

Nuttall said his former close friends and colleagues in the “Labor family” had cast him adrift after the allegations came to light.

“Some members of this parliament ... have chosen to judge me from afar,” he said, adding that some colleagues hadl also turned their backs on him.

“When I needed you most, you chose to desert me. Not one phone call, not one visit, not one voice of support,” he said.

Finally he thanked his family and those friends who had stuck by him.

“I am bound but I am not beaten, I am bloodied but not broken,” he said.

Nuttall was jailed in 2009 for accepting bribes from Mr Talbot, who died in an African plane crash before he could face charges, and Shand, who himself was jailed this year.

Nuttall is also serving time for corruption and perjury, stemming from his relationship with another Brisbane businessman, Brendan McKennariey.