Watchdog ‘aired secret papers’ to aid witness case

Queensland’s integrity watchdog repeatedly attempted to circumvent industrial court orders with the botched airing of secret documents.

Former Logan City Council chief executive Sharon Kelsey. Picture: Dan Peled

Queensland’s integrity watchdog repeatedly attempted to circumvent industrial commission orders with the botched airing of secret documents in a bid to assist the unfair dismissal case of a witness in a council corruption probe.

The Crime and Corruption Commission delivered the purported explosive evidence without warning to Logan City Council just weeks after some of the same material led to an industrial commissioner stepping down from the case, citing their secrecy.

Affidavits obtained by The Australian show the extraordinary lengths, now being reviewed, the CCC took to help self-declared whistleblower, former Logan CEO Sharon Kelsey, in her unfair dismissal case.

In one sworn affidavit, her successor, interim CEO Silvio Trinca, says he was “taken by surprise” when CCC agents arrived at the council offices and asked him to consider classifying a bundle of documents as “council business”.

Mr Trinca, who later sent the documents back to the CCC on legal advice, said the agents didn’t give a reason for their request and he immediately became uneasy.

“I did not feel that I was qualified to provide such advice to the CCC and I felt that it was very unusual that, given the very sensitive nature of the material the CCC would suddenly arrive with such sensitive material,” he said.

Mr Trinca said the material included a conversation between former Logan mayor Luke Smith and his lawyer, which he suspected could be “subject to legal professional privilege”.

The documents, which included transcripts of private group messages between some Logan councillors, had already twice been ruled inadmissable in Ms Kelsey’s reinstatement case because they had been obtained under the CCC’s “coercive” powers, which also tightly restrict the use of the evidence.

The move gave Ms Kelsey the ability to apply to access the documents for her case under court disclosure rules. The CCC manoeuvres, and complaints of collusion between the watchdog and Ms Kelsey, are at the centre of a parliamentary inquiry, called last week, into its investigation in Logan, south of Brisbane.

It was ordered over the CCC charging eight councillors with fraud in 2019 for sacking Ms Kelsey, allegedly in retribution for her giving evidence against then mayor Luke Smith.

The Palaszczuk government then disbanded the entire council, the third-largest in the state.

Ms Kelsey’s bid for reinstatement was dismissed by the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission and fraud charges against the councillors were dropped in April. “The manner in which Ms Kelsey gave her evidence was such that it was difficult to determine whether the response to a question was a matter of reconstruction or recollection,” Commissioner Daniel O’Connor said in his decision.

CCC chair Alan MacSporran has since faced calls to stand aside while the parliamentary committee probes the investigation. Mr MacSporran, who also asked the government to help fund Ms Kelsey’s case, has remained defiant over the CCC’s actions. Since becoming CCC chair, the former ex-prosecutor has claimed the scalp of longtime Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale – jailed for corruption – and charged Logan’s Mr Smith and former Moreton mayor Allan Sutherland; both await trial.

The former Logan mayor is facing two sets of corruption charges – with Ms Kelsey an expected witness at one trial. But the Logan case has put him under pressure.

Senior government ministers have privately expressed anger about the case.

Mr MacSporran on Tuesday declined to answer specific questions about the CCC’s handling of the sensitive documents.

The councillors — Russell Lutton, Cherie Dalley, Phil Pidgeon, Steve Swenson, Laurie Smith, Trevina Schwarz and Jennie Breene — have lost their careers.

For them, the trouble began when Luke Smith, Ms Dalley and Ms Schwarz raised concerns about Ms Kelsey’s performance on October 10, 2017.

Two days later, Ms Kelsey – still on probation – made a public interest disclosure about Mr Smith to the CCC. She later launched the QIRC proceeding, initially to prevent Mr Smith from being involved in decision-making about her continued role.

In February 2018, the seven councillors voted to sack Ms Kelsey, claiming she was not up to the job. The dismissal came despite Mr MacSporran, in a rare move, warning them it would be illegal if their decision was based on Ms Kelsey’s whistleblowing. The CCC continued to attempt to involve itself in her QIRC case, culminating in the councillors being charged in April 2019, less than a week before they were due to make oral closing submissions.

Affidavits reveal the CCC’s move to give the confidential evidence to Mr Trinca came months after Commissioner John Thompson, sent the documents by the CCC following a request from Ms Kelsey, recused himself from the case. “The CCC had plainly entered into the fray (civil proceedings) in the most partisan way and in circumstances where they were not a party to those proceedings,” he wrote in his decision. Commissioner Gary Black later ruled the CCC evidence could not be admitted into the hearing because it had been obtained via its coercive powers and star chamber hearings.

After Mr Trinca was given the documents by the CCC in October 2018, the council’s lawyer, Tim Fynes-Clinton, quickly ruled the “vast majority” of them were “obviously not” public records.

He returned the documents to the CCC; however, Ms Kelsey’s lawyers requested it send them back to Mr Trinca so the material could be covered under disclosure obligations and provided to her. Again, the CCC obliged.

The WhatsApp messages between the councillors were later admitted into evidence but ultimately proved not to be the smoking gun Ms Kelsey’s lawyers or the CCC believed.