Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk pressured to release emails

Queensland’s opposition wants Annastacia Palaszczuk to do what she did at the height of Minister Mark Bailey’s email scandal.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

Queensland’s state opposition is calling for Annastacia Palaszczuk to do what she did at the height of minister Mark Bailey’s email scandal and hand over her private emails to the state archivist to ­determine whether they could be considered public records.

Mounting pressure from the opposition led to more information emerging in the past week about the Premier’s use of two ­private email accounts at the time Mr Bailey was ­actively using his [e-mail] account.

Ms Palaszczuk’s use of her ­[e-mail] email in 2015 surfaced in December when an email from Mr Bailey to the Premier was tabled by the Liberal National Party opposition during an estimates hearing.

The Premier at the time would not attest to the validity of the document but confirmed the email account was hers.

In the email, Mr Bailey discussed the ideological stance of Paul Simshauser, who later ­became ­director-general of the Department of Energy and Water ­Supply.

Last week, Crime and Corruption Commission chairman Alan MacSporran revealed a second private email account belonging to the Premier had been used to send an email to Mr Bailey’s ­mangocube account.

In 2017, Ms Palaszczuk told parliament she had not used a personal email address for government business, but on Tuesday she said they were a “ministerial ­record” and had been retained under archive laws. She has ­refused to release further emails that are known to exist, saying it should be left to the formal Right To Information process.

The CCC in 2017 investigated Mr Bailey’s use of his private email account for back-channel correspondence, finding he had ­broken ministerial guidelines but no proof of corrupt conduct.