Integrity blunder: Jackie Trad loses Queensland rail project

Deputy Premier punished, stripped of responsibility for major infrastructure project­.

Queensland Deputy Premier Jackie Trad. Picture: Peter Wallis

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has stripped her deputy of responsibility for the state’s largest infrastructure project­ as punishment for breaking integrity rules, and promised to shake up her government after weeks of bruising integrity woes.

However, Ms Palaszczuk will allow Jackie Trad to remain in cabinet and lead the state as acting premier from tomorrow, despite a Crime and Corruption Commission ruling clearing the Deputy Premier of corruption and dishonesty but finding she breached ministerial and cabinet rules.

The CCC found ministers who failed to properly declare and manage conflicts of interest could not currently be hit with criminal sanctions but should be, forcing the Premier to agree to a dramatic toughening of state laws governing ministerial misbehaviour.

Ms Palaszczuk also revealed she had accepted the resignation of her chief of staff, David Barbagallo, who is under assessment by the CCC over separate integrity allegations, but insisted it was not an admission he had done anything­ wrong.

Mr Barbagallo’s exit means the CCC no longer has the option of deciding he should be sacked, if it makes adverse findings against him in relation to $267,500 in state government ­financing awarded to a company he co-owns.

A defiant Ms Trad apologised on Friday for making “a mistake” in failing to declare on her pecun­iary interest register and in a key cabinet meeting that her husband had bought an investment property on March 27 through their family trust, near a proposed station for her signature infrastructure project, the Cross River Rail. The three-bedroom Woolloon­gabba house stands to rise in value thanks to its proximity to the $5.4bn project, the state’s largest.

The CCC found Ms Trad’s ­husband, lawyer Damien Van Brunschot, only texted his wife to advise of the $700,000 “property to be purchased and location” on March 29, two days after he signed the contract to buy it.

Ms Trad revealed ­on Friday ­ Integrity Commissioner advice that she should have ­declared the conflict and absented herself from a cabinet budget review committee meeting on April 3, when she helped decide to keep the Boggo Road station as part of the railway’s route.

“I’m glad the CCC has found no evidence of dishonesty or corruption, but that doesn’t change the fact that I made a mistake,” Ms Trad said. “I failed to complete a disclosure process, that’s what happened.”

Ms Trad and her husband will now sell the house for the price Mr Van Brunschot paid.

Ms Palaszczuk defended her decision not to dump Ms Trad from cabinet and insisted she was acting appropriately by stripping responsibility for the rail project from the Deputy Premier and giving­ it to Tourism Industry Developm­ent Minister Kate Jones. Ms Trad had already temp­orarily ­relinquished the job after the scandal broke.

The breaches have not stopped Ms Palaszczuk from leaving Ms Trad as acting premier for a week from Sunday, when the Premier leaves to meet the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland to discuss southeast Queensland’s 2032 Olympics bid.

Ms Palaszczuk said the integrity allegations had been damaging for her government, along with the seven-week wait for the CCC to rule on Ms Trad’s investment property. “I want to say that I have been just as frustrated as everyone else out there awaiting this decision,” she said. “And yes, I believe it has also had an impact on my government. I want to reassure Queenslanders here today that everyone on my team will absolute­ly redouble their efforts.”

Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington criticised Ms Palaszczuk for failing to relegate Ms Trad to the backbench, signalling the polit­ical attacks on the government were unlikely to subside.

“Annastacia Palaszczuk needed to sack Jackie Trad today and she failed,” Ms Frecklington said.

“Jackie Trad has clearly broken both the cabinet handbook and the ministerial handbook and weak Annastacia Palaszczuk did absolutely nothing about it.”

After weeks of assessing the allega­tions against Ms Trad, the CCC decided not to launch a full corruption investigation.

But it did identify corruption risks in the way cabinet works. “The CCC is of the view the current process for declaring actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest in matters before cabinet is not consistent with best governance practice and should be improve­d,” the watchdog said.