Queensland to keep its disputed stake in cruise track app

The Queensland government will hang on to its stake in CruiseTraka, a company tied to the Premier’s chief of staff.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk with her chief of staff David Barbagallo. Picture: AAP

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will not order her government’s business development fund to sell its $267,500 investment in a cruise-tracking app part-owned and directed by her chief of staff.

The Premier has been forced to order an audit into last year’s decision by the $80m fund to co-invest in CruiseTraka, an app made by Fortress Capital Pty Ltd, in which Ms Palaszczuk’s chief of staff, David Barbagallo, and his wife own more than $300,000 in shares.

Shark Tank presenter and tech investor Steve Baxter, then the government’s chief entrepreneur, was also an indirect shareholder in the company when the investment decision was made, through a family company.

Despite the LNP opposition labelling the matter as an “integrity crisis” and demanding an ­independent ­investigation by the Auditor-General, the government will not be ordering its fund to sell its stake in CruiseTraka.

Last night, a government spokesman said: “The investments of the independent business development fund are a matter for the fund.”

Opposition deputy leader Tim Mander said it was not good enough for Ms Palaszczuk to ask her own director-general to audit the decision.

“Annastacia Palaszczuk needs to appoint the independent Auditor-General to investigate the claims that her chief of staff received a government grant,” Mr Mander said. “The opposition does not think it is appropriate that somebody so close to the Premier, somebody internal, would do this investigation.”

Ms Palaszczuk’s office has said the investment decision last year was made by the fund’s independent panel, with no government involvement. A spokesman said this week that the panel members were “aware of the directors and shareholders”.

The Premier says Mr Barbagallo told her last year that the company had been successful in receiving the funding, and he had declared it on his pecuniary interest register — that is not publicly available. He also received the Integrity Commissioner’s advice.

But mystery still surrounds exactly who knew what and when, what Mr Barbagallo’s register contains, and what the Integrity Commissioner advised.

Yesterday, two of the business development fund’s panel members declined to say whether or not they knew of Mr Barbagallo’s involvement in the company or senior role as Ms Palaszczuk’s chief of staff when they made the decision to invest taxpayer money in the company.

Panel member Patrick Silvey told The Australian that all applications were assessed “on their merits”. But he referred all questions about Mr Barbagallo to QIC, the government’s investment arm, which administers the fund.

QIC also stonewalled on questions about Mr Barbagallo, refusing to say whether it was aware of Mr Barbagallo’s stake or whether it communicated the information to its shareholding ministers, Ms Palaszczuk and state Treasurer Jackie Trad.

“The Business Development Fund is administered by QIC, but all investment decisions are made by an independent investment panel,” a QIC spokeswoman said. “All investments are assessed in accordance with the publicly available criteria for the Business Development Fund.”

CruiseTraka is a free smartphone app, allowing passengers to share the location of their trips with their social media followers.