‘Not dealing with hypotheticals’: Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk leaves Jackie Trad in the cold, for now
Annastacia Palaszczuk has refused to commit to the recall of former Queensland deputy premier Jackie Trad to state cabinet.
Annastacia Palaszczuk has refused to commit to the recall of former Queensland deputy premier Jackie Trad to state cabinet after the polarising Labor figure was cleared of criminal or corrupt misconduct.
The thorny question of Ms Trad’s future is set to dog the Queensland ALP as it gears up for an October 31 state election that would deliver the Premier a third term if she prevailed.
Ms Palaszczuk immediately reallocated Ms Trad’s portfolios of treasury and indigenous affairs and elevated Health Minister Steven Miles to the deputy premiership on accepting her resignation on May 10 over a Crime and Corruption Commission investigation into alleged interference in the appointment of a high school principal.
With Dr Miles at her side on Friday, Ms Palaszczuk would not say if or when the factionally powerful Ms Trad would return to the ministry.
“I am not dealing with any hypotheticals,” she said. “I have answered that on numerous occasions before. I am focused on dealing with this pandemic, I am focused on getting people back into work.
Asked if she would campaign with Ms Trad, who faces a stern challenge from the Greens in her marginal seat of South Brisbane, Ms Palaszczuk said: “I campaign right across the state … I don’t know where I am going to be.”
The CCC reserved its strongest criticism for the senior public servants alleged to have manipulated the recruitment of a principal for a new multimillion-dollar high school in Ms Trad’s electorate after an inappropriate meeting in March last year between the then minister and the initially successful candidate.
According to text messages obtained by the agency, deputy director-general of education Jeff Hunt and selection panel chair Helen Kenworthy agreed that the “meet and greet” went poorly, with a tired and irritable Ms Trad seeming to take a dislike to the principal designate, Tracey Cook.
“We need to talk I think,” Mr Hunt texted. “I haven’t heard from JT but it will come.”
The CCC found that Ms Cook was not aware that she was the panel’s pick but Ms Trad was, and should have pulled out of the meeting set up by the public servants to “test” her view of Ms Cook. While there was no prima facie case of criminal wrongdoing or that Ms Trad had dishonest or corrupt intent, her involvement in what was supposed to be an independent selection process created a “corruption risk”, the agency reported on Thursday.
Further, Ms Trad’s interaction with University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Peter Hoj over the appointment of the Inner City South State Secondary College principal was “unwise and entirely inappropriate”.
In evidence to the CCC, Education Minister Grace Grace said she had not met one of the 354 state school principals named in 2019 prior to their appointment. But after seeing Ms Cook, Ms Trad spoke in her office to another potential candidate for the readvertised ICSSSC job on May 15 last year while the successful applicant, Kirsten Ferdinands, was told by Mr Hunt on July 25 that the then deputy premier would want to talk to her.
Ms Palaszczuk said both she and Ms Grace had been misled by high-ranked bureaucrats who fabricated data to justify reopening applications after Ms Trad’s meeting with Ms Cook, an issue that had been referred to the Public Service Commissioner for possible disciplinary action.
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