Sacked Logan City councillors welcome new probe

The completion of a scheduled five-year review into Queensland’s corruption watchdog has cleared the way for the parliament’s inquiry into the investigation into Logan City Council.

Former Logan City councillor Trevina Schwarz. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The completion of a five-year ­review into Queensland’s corruption watchdog has cleared the way for the parliament’s inquiry into the integrity body’s handling of an investigation into Logan City Council.

Scrutiny of the investigative and prosecutorial practices of the Crime and Corruption Commission was left out of the review this week but will be included in the inquiry into the Logan matter.

The inquiry, to be finished by November, has been welcomed by the eight Logan councillors sacked under controversial Palaszczuk government legislation after they were charged with fraud by the CCC two years ago.

Their charges were dropped in April, prompting the parliamentary review, which some of the councillors say should include an examination of the laws used to sack them. Several of the charges against former Ipswich City Council employees from an earlier investigation into that council have also been dropped.

Of the elected Ipswich councillors, only mayor Paul Pisasale and his successor Andrew Antoniolli had been charged when the government brought in the new laws to sack the entire council in 2018.

Mr Pisasale was jailed for corruption and Mr Antoniolli was found guilty of fraud charges but later acquitted. Prosecutors have appealed the acquittal.

Logan’s council was dismissed under similar laws that mandated anyone charged with a serious ­offence should be suspended.

The council could not form a quorum, and despite the councillors’ lawyers alerting Local Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe to the flaws in the CCC’s case, he sacked them.

Former Logan mayor Luke Smith is still facing charges for a matter unrelated to the fraud case.

Former Logan councillor Trevina Schwarz criticised the laws that led to her dismissal and said they needed to be reviewed.

“I do not seek revenge, but what I do ask for the wrong to be righted,” Ms Schwarz said.

“We were sacked by a special act of parliament. The presumption of innocence was lost.”

A two-term councillor who spent most of her working life as an accountant, Ms Schwarz said her job representing her community had been “stripped away”.

“Yes, both justice systems have found us innocent, and rightfully so, but the scars are going to ­remain,” she said.

Ms Schwarz said she had ­always held high ethical and professional standards and was devastated by the charges.

“To be charged with such a scandalous crime completely broke and shattered my inner strength,” she said.

Former Ipswich councillor of 27 years David Pahlke said the laws should be examined in the parliamentary review.

“The government has got a lot to answer for,” he said. “They sacked 10 councillors in Ipswich who had not been charged and now we see the case falling apart.”

University of Queensland political law expert Graeme Orr said the legislation brought in by the Palaszczuk government at a time when several councillors in Queensland were facing charges but still representing their communities, was aimed at putting some level of control around local government.

He said the size of Queensland’s local governments, particularly in fast-growing regions, meant there was need for extra scrutiny, particularly in a shrinking local media landscape.

“But on the other side you’ve got this risk, without any constitutional legal protection, the councils become the playthings of government. You could have a state parliament interfering,” Professor Orr said.