Water Minister Stephen Robertson faces fresh grilling over Wivenhoe Dam releases

SENIOR Queensland cabinet minister Stephen Robertson has been recalled to the state's floods inquiry.

SENIOR Queensland cabinet minister Stephen Robertson has been recalled to the state's floods inquiry as it zeroes in on evidence that Brisbane's main dam was mismanaged in the days before the city went under water.

The Water Utilities Minister could be on the stand as early as today to face tough questioning under oath about his knowledge of what went on at Wivenhoe Dam in the lead-up to the disaster 13 months ago.

Premier Anna Bligh further distanced herself from the dam operations, telling the inquiry in a sworn statement released yesterday that she had no involvement in the "choice or timing" of water releases into the Brisbane River at the height of the flood crisis.

"The documents that I have attached to this statement show that the choices and timing of dam operations were taken by the operators of the dam, in consultation with (the) Bureau of Meteorology and each of the local government authorities in the catchment areas," Ms Bligh said.

She confirmed she had, on January 11 last year, asked the then director-general of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Ken Smith, to seek an independent review of the impact of the planned water releases.

"I formed the view that further advice should be sought, by way of a second opinion, on whether or not the proposed releases were appropriate," Ms Bligh said in her statement to the inquiry.

She told reporters yesterday the report by consultant Brian Cooper was "in no way definitive".

"It was a report done within a 24-hour timeline and you treat it exactly that way: something that was done in an emergency as a second opinion, in no way a definitive explanation," Ms Bligh said.

"It doesn't present itself as a definitive explanation. I never accepted it as such, it is in many respects quite irrelevant to the determinations that will be made by the commission." Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman said the Wivenhoe affair was "lapping at the door of the Premier's office".

Mr Newman questioned Ms Bligh's repeated assertions that she knew nothing of the operation of the dam during the floods.

"Clearly that has now been blown out of the water," the LNP leader said. "We know now that she has been involved -- in fact a year ago -- in detailed discussions about the operation of the dam.

"All I can say is it is a murky issue -- that is this whole commission it seems that is now lapping at the door of the Premier's office."

After appearing before the inquiry last April, Mr Robertson was criticised in its interim report for failing to resolve confusion in 2010 on whether the level of Wivenhoe Dam should have been lowered with precautionary water releases, given predictions of a La Nina bringing above-average rain to the region during the summer.

Mr Robertson is likely to be questioned, when recalled to the inquiry this week, over his passive performance in a crucial phone hookup on January 10 last year -- two days before Brisbane flooded -- with senior officials from dam management agency SEQWater, Brisbane and Ipswich city councils, the weather bureau and Mr Smith.

A transcript of the teleconference shows that Mr Robertson was informed that Wivenhoe was 52 per cent above full supply level and filling with more water. However, the 17-page transcript does not record the minister saying a single word.

In a supplementary statement to the inquiry, released last night, Mr Robertson said he only recalled the teleconference when the transcript was forwarded to him by SEQWater last week.

"Although I do not have a record of the meeting-teleconference in my diary, upon reviewing the transcript I do recall participating," he said in the statement, sworn last Thursday.

"As the transcript reflects, I did not actively participate in the meeting other than by listening to what was being said by others."

Separately yesterday, Ms Bligh was forced to backtrack after she dismissed a report that a number of the dam engineers who had appeared at the inquiry had been given personal protection.

In fact, she later said, clarifying her remarks, the police had been called in over claims by a media outlet that death threats had been made against the men.

The Queensland government security service was approached by SEQWater to provide protection for the engineers, and private security guards were put on for a short time at a "number of properties". Police had been unable to verify the threats, Ms Bligh said.

Additional reporting: Rosanne Barrett, Jared Owens