‘Inappropriate use of power’ by Queensland CCC

Emails show the lengths the Queensland integrity watchdog went to help their star witness in her industrial relations dispute with Logan council.

CCC chairman Alan MacSporran has rejected calls to stand aside during the inquiry. Picture: Liam Kidston

Emails between lawyers for Queensland’s Crime and Corruption Commission, whistleblower Sharon Kelsey and charged Logan councillors show the lengths the integrity watchdog went to help its star witness in her industrial relations dispute with the council.

The “inappropriate intervention” of the CCC in the civil proceedings was raised by the Local Government Association of Queensland in a submission to the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee which last week announced an inquiry into the watchdog’s investigation into Logan City Council.

The oversight committee on Wednesday outlined the scope of its inquiry, including the CCC’s involvement in Ms Kelsey’s unfair dismissal case in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission.

The review will also consider the CCC’s decision to lay the charges and correspondence between the CCC and the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

More broadly, the committee will report on the CCC’s use of coercive powers and how information obtained through the use of those powers is shared in other proceedings.

The CCC’s investigation in Logan in 2018 and 2019 led to eight councillors being charged with fraud for voting to sack Ms Kelsey months after she turned whistleblower against former mayor Luke Smith.

It was alleged they had sacked Ms Kelsey out of retribution, but the councillors maintained they had not renewed her probation because she was not up to the job.

The charges were dropped in April and Ms Kelsey lost her unfair dismissal case.

An email chain laid out in affidavits sworn in the QIRC proceeding, obtained by The Australian, shows the councillors attempted to stop the CCC from handing the documents to Commissioner John Thompson after Ms Kelsey served a notice to produce evidence on the CCC.

The councillors’ lawyers described Ms Kelsey’s move as “improper” and a “fishing expedition which seeks to use the extensive coercive powers of the CCC to support (Ms Kelsey’s) case”.

In response, a senior CCC officer denied advising Ms Kelsey or her representatives of the existence of the documents and defended its use in the QIRC matter.

QIRC Commissioner Gary Black ruled the CCC evidence could not be admitted into the hearing because it had been obtained via its coercive powers.

Two months later, CCC agents hand-delivered some of the same documents to Logan council’s acting CEO Silvio Trinca, ostensibly to check whether the ­transcripts of private phone messages within were “council business”.

It again gave Ms Kelsey the ability to apply to access the documents for her case under court disclosure rules.

In his submission to the parliamentary committee, LGAQ boss Greg Hallam accused the CCC of “inappropriate use of power”.

“The LGAQ is gravely concerned by the lengths the CCC went to in a bid to have admitted into evidence at the QIRC, information it gleaned through extraction under its powers of coercion and the apparent knowledge Ms Kelsey had that such material existed,” Mr Hallam said.