Premier in firing line after CCC backdown on Logan councillors

Charges against seven former Logan councillors have been dropped two years after they were accused of fraudulently sacking the council’s chief executive.

Former Logan mayor Luke Smith and Logan City Council chief executive Sharon Kelsey.

Fraud charges against seven former Logan councillors have been dropped two years after they were accused of fraudulently sacking the council’s chief executive.

The charges were withdrawn in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Wednesday morning by the Director of Public Prosecutions, citing “insufficient evidence”.

The embarrassing backdown has led to calls for Crime and Corruption Commission chair Alan MacSporran to stand aside while an independent inquiry into the processes that led to the CCC laying charges takes place.

Magistrate Stephen Courtney, who presided over the committal hearing in November, said the withdrawal of the charges was apt.

“From what I saw and heard in November, that’s a proper decision,” he said.

A cheer went up in the courtroom as the charges were dismissed and the magistrate did not object to the disturbance.

 

“I can understand why these people are the way they are, so I won’t be critical of them,” Mr Courtney said.

The fraud charge against former mayor Luke Smith was also dropped, although he still stands accused of interfering in a recruitment process and instigating a dishonest recruitment process relating to Ms Kelsey.

Mr Smith was committed to stand trial in the District Court.

Outside court, the councillors spoke of the sense of vindication they felt from the decision.

“Almost two years ago to the day I was arrested by the CCC, fingerprinted and had my photograph taken and charged with fraud because I voted not to extend the probation of then Logan CEO Sharon Kelsey because I thought she was not up to her $500,000 a year job,” former councillor Trevina Schwartz said.

“Because I was charged with a criminal offence I was automatically sacked under new Queensland legislation which had just been brought in which said that any councillor charged with a criminal offence could no longer keep their job, just because they were charged, not convicted.

“The death of the presumption of innocence which has occurred with me and my fellow accused and now acquitted councillors is appalling.

“It is even more appalling that those councillors who were aligned with Sharon Kelsey not only kept their jobs but were appointed to the administrators team which ran the Logan council up until the March 2020 local government elections.”

Local Government Association of Queensland chief executive Greg Hallam called for an investigation into the process leading to the charges and for the councillors to be compensated.

“Careers, lives and reputations were ruined and a democratically elected council wrongly sacked before these erroneously laid charges could be properly tested by the courts,” Mr Hallam said.

“There must be an independent review to ensure this is not allowed to happen again.

“The LGAQ has always maintained the CCC overstepped the mark by wading into an industrial relations dispute – an area over which it does not have jurisdiction – and charging each of these councillors with a serious criminal offence.

“The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission and the Industrial Court are the forums for which these matters are independently adjudicated, not the CCC.

“The unprecedented actions of the CCC in this case set about a chain of events that irreparably damaged the lives and reputations of those involved and disenfranchised the Logan community as a consequence of the sacking of the entire council in May 2019.

“There should be compensation and a public apology for this egregious misuse of the justice system.”

Premier in firing line after CCC backdown

The backdown will heap pressure on the Crime and Corruption Commission and the Palaszczuk government, which introduced legislation in 2018 to immediately suspend any councillor or mayor charged with a crime.

In the case of Logan, the council lacked a quorum after the councillors were suspended and then-local government minister Stirling Hinchliffe dismissed the entire council and appointed an administrator in their place.

The action destroyed the political careers of the seven councillors — Russell Lutton, Cherie Dalley, Phil Pidgeon, Steve Swenson, Laurie Smith, Trevina Schwarz and Jennie Breene — and left them unemployed while facing possible jail time.

The Director of Public Prosecutions briefed lawyers acting for the councillors on Friday that the case would be discontinued at a hearing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

The councillors were charged with fraud in 2019 for their dismissal of council chief executive Sharon Kelsey in early 2018.

The CCC alleged her dismissal had been influenced by Ms Kelsey making a public interest disclosure about alleged corruption by former Logan mayor Luke Smith, with whom they were politically aligned.

Mr Smith was also charged over Ms Kelsey’s dismissal and is facing separate corruption and perjury charges.

Sources close to the councillors said they were considering legal action against the Palas­zczuk government.

The legislation used to sack the council was introduced in 2018 to dismiss Ipswich council after former mayor Paul Pisasale and his successor, Andrew Antoniolli, were charged.

While Pisasale has been jailed, Mr Antoniolli, whose charges were the catalyst for the sackings, was acquitted on appeal.

Former long-term Ipswich councillor David Pahlke, one of 11 councillors dismissed with two years left on their term despite not being charged with a crime, called for a review of the legislation and the CCC’s powers.

“That’s two councils dismissed at the whim of the state government,” Mr Pahlke told The Australian. “For us in Ipswich, we had no charges against us.

“I just feel anger whenever I see the state government now.

“I live in hope that one day we will get justice.”

Mr Pahlke, who had served as a councillor for 28 years, said many potential candidates would shy away from local ­government because of the saga.

Local Government Association of Queensland chief executive Greg Hallam has been critical of the charges since they were first laid, saying the matter was an industrial relations dispute and should not have been treated as a criminal matter.

On the day the councillors were sacked, Mr Hallam said the councillors had been denied “natural justice” when they were sacked from their jobs in actions he said appeared to be driven by “political expediency rather than good governance”.

At the time of the charges, CCC chairman Alan MacSporran described the investigation as one of the “most extensive” ever undertaken by the watchdog.