Peter Coaldrake has given the Queensland Premier a golden opportunity to arrest the southward trajectory of her government and show she has the will to restore the shopworn outfit before it is too late.
Annastacia Palaszczuk must read this measured report closely, embrace the findings in deed and spirit, then go even further to stop the rot on integrity. A good start would be to ban outright access by all politically aligned lobbyists to ministers and MPs – not just for “dual hat”-wearing individuals seeking to capitalise on recent campaign experience, but for anyone who has worked for the state or a political party within the four-year timeframe nominated by Coaldrake.
This would send a powerful message she is serious about tackling the festering problems uncovered by this newspaper and affirmed by the former university chief in his review of culture and accountability in the Queensland public sector.
As Coaldrake writes: “The growth of lobbying activity reveals what this review believes is a market failure: the failure of government itself to be able to deal with business and community interests without the involvement of a paid intermediary.”
At the heart of the malaise is a third-term Premier who too often seems distracted or uninterested in the grind of governing to aggressively assert control. The light-touch approach that once worked a treat for Palaszczuk now threatens to be her undoing.
Coaldrake recounts how this impacts on the governance of the Sunshine State: the unseemly exit of outgoing Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov over her unresolved claims she was bullied and harassed for doing the job; allegations by former state archivist Mike Summerell that supposedly protected records were doctored to spare the government’s political blushes; “overreach” by ministerial staff and their lack of accountability; the erosion of checks and balances to bring to book the executive; the pervasive view among senior public servants that the “price for frank and fearless advice can be too high, sometimes devastatingly so, and the rewards too low”.
As Coaldrake acknowledges, the issues are by no means unique to Queensland. Part of the problem, he writes, identifiable in other jurisdictions as well as at the federal level, is a loss of capacity in the bureaucracy, accelerated by an over-reliance on external contractors and consultants.
“All of these matters are compounded by a culture too tolerant of bullying, unwilling to give life to unfashionable points of view and dominated by the occupational hazard of all governments – short-term political thinking,” he warns.
“This has become ever more frustrating for the community.”
This is the story of a government that has become lazy and complacent, of a state where one side of politics – Labor – has spent all but five of 32 years in power and should be read as a wake-up call to the nation at this time of intensifying economic and geopolitical challenges.
Coaldrake has done a fine job in bringing it out and Palaszczuk was right to immediately accept his recommendations lock, stock and barrel – to borrow a phrase from the Fitzgerald era of Queensland politics they would both be familiar with.
But if she intends to run for a fourth term at the 2024 state election – let alone persuade voters her heart is still in the job – the Premier must do more.
As the professor says, let the sunshine in.
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