Queensland lobbyist given desk, parking space in government building

Queensland Premier defends granting two lobbyists access to government’s inner sanctum to run her re-election campaign.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Josh Woning

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has defended granting two of Queensland’s most in-demand lobbyists access to the government’s inner sanctum to run her re-election campaign and providing one with desk space and a car park at the government offices at 1 William Street.

Lobbyists Cameron Milner and Evan Moorhead, former ALP state secretaries, worked as advisers during the October election campaign, with Mr Milner based in the Premier’s offices on the 40th floor.

Some of the pair’s big business clients scored massive contracts, announced by Labor during the election campaign.

Under grilling by Opposition Leader David Crisafulli during an estimates hearing on Monday, the Premier confirmed Mr Milner was given a car park and desk space alongside public servants in the building.

That came after The Australian revealed Labor’s campaign strategy was outsourced to Mr Moorhead and Mr Milner by Labor state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell.

On Monday, Ms Palaszczuk denied they had been paid by taxpayers for their role or put in charge of government staff.

“My understanding is they were not paid by the taxpayers at any stage during the election campaign,” she said.

The Premier said Mr Milner had been given access to a visitor’s car park, which she said was not unusual. “It was a temporary visit­or carpark and it wasn’t even every single day,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

She also said Mr Milner was “seated next to a couple of staff members” in the office.

A spokesman for Ms Palasz­czuk had previously denied the men were based in the Premier’s offices in 1 William Street.

During the hearing, Department of Premier and Cabinet director­-general Dave Stewart said he had warned Mr Moorhead of his obligations under the Lobbyist Code of Conduct.

Mr Milner’s Next Level Strat­egic Services and Mr Moorhead’s Anacta Strategies are among the state’s most in-demand lobbying firms and actively lobbied senior Palaszczuk government officials ahead of the October 31 election.

Contact logs show Anacta Strategies lobbied the Premier’s senior advisers, Treasurer Cameron Dick and other ministers 22 times during the campaign.

Among them was train builder Downer, which was given a $600m contract to build new trains in Maryborough. Lobbying by the firms continued despite a public warning issued by Crime and Corruption Commission boss Alan MacSporran on October 13 to all election candidates, cautioning about the blurring lines between government and lobbyists.

During estimates, the Premier also came under fire after it was ­revealed that her private email account­, [e-mail], had been used to receive commun­ications from Transport Minister Mark Bailey via his controversial private email account [e-mail].

An email tabled in parliament showed Mr Bailey briefing Ms Palasz­czuk about Paul Simshauser, who later became director-general of the Department of Energy and Water Supply. “We’ll do some more digging to be clearer whether his anti-renewable stance is just an AGL work role or his own professional view,” Mr Bailey said, providing a link to a news article.

Ms Palaszczuk said her use of the email address came before her edict that ministers should not use personal email accounts for ­official business.