Senate plot to expose Palaszczuk

Annastacia Palaszczuk may have torpedoed the Adani mine but her shock veto move raises more questions than it answers.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk campaigning in Bundaberg. Picture: AAP

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has potentially torpedoed the Adani coalmine and put at risk ­thousands of jobs after unexpectedly vetoing a loan of up to $1 billion to the project in order to eliminate a conflict of interest ­involving her partner.

At the end of the first week of the Premier’s re-election campaign, during which she has been dogged by anti-Adani protesters, Ms Palaszczuk yesterday announced she would withdraw Queensland’s support for any loan.

For constitutional reasons, a loan from the commonwealth’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility can only be made to the Indian conglomerate via the Queensland government.

The $16.5bn project has had ­bipartisan support in the state and Ms ­Palaszczuk has called on the Liberal National Party to support the veto, a move required under caretaker rules during the campaign. The opposition said last night it would not do so.

The Weekend Australian understands the state Greens, Labor’s traditional political allies, were preparing to release a QC’s advice that the government had the power to stop the NAIF loan.

The proposed loan, which will help fund a common-user rail line in the burgeoning Galilee coal province, is critical to Adani, which has turned to Chinese state-owned banks for finance after Australia’s four big banks turned their backs on the project.

Ms Palaszczuk’s shock announcement prompted more questions than it answered. The Premier said she was acting in ­response to an apparent rumour campaign against her partner, Shaun Drabsch — a long-time bureaucrat, lobbyist and political adviser — that was intended to smear them both.

The federal Minister for ­Resources and Northern Australia, Matt Canavan — a Queensland senator — dismissed the Premier’s claim of a smear campaign and said he had been led to believe the Labor government would not stand in the way of the loan.

“But apparently now, because of the Premier’s partner, thousands of jobs in north Queensland are at risk,” he said.

Mr Drabsch has been director of infrastructure advisory with PricewaterhouseCoopers since 2015 and, according to Ms Palaszczuk, the company had vowed to avoid any potential conflicts of interest with her role as Premier.

Ms Palaszczuk learned on Tuesday that Mr Drabsch was helping PwC handle Adani’s ­application for the loan. She ­insisted her partner had only ever said he worked on infrastructure matters and she was not previously aware of the Adani link.

“On Tuesday night, my chief of staff advised me of a rumour circulating among LNP senators about Shaun’s work,” Ms Palaszczuk said. “I am told they planned to use this during the election campaign to impugn my character and suggest something untoward.”

Ms Palaszczuk said she would withdraw Queensland’s support for the NAIF loan to eliminate a conflict of interest and “put ­beyond any doubt that this is nothing more than an LNP smear”.

The Weekend Australian understands a federal Queensland Labor source — identified by the Premier’s office as senator Murray Watt — told state secretary Evan Moorhead of the alleged LNP manoeuvre two weeks ago. It is understood Mr Moorhead was told LNP senators were believed to be in discussions with crossbenchers to use federal parliamentary privilege to expose an allegation that there was a conflict of interest between a ­Queensland minister and Adani. Senator Watt declined to comment last night.

Annastacia Palasczcuk and boyfriend Shaun Drabsch.

In an effort to demonstrate transparency over the matter, Ms Palaszczuk released correspondence between herself, her top ­bureaucrat, and Integrity Commissioner Nikola ­Stepanov. The correspondence does not refer to a proposal to veto an Adani loan.

In her letter to Dr Stepanov on Wednesday, after learning of her partner’s role and the supposed smear campaign, Ms Palaszczuk accepted a perceived or actual conflict of interest and proposed she exclude herself from cabinet budget review committee deliberations on matters where Mr Drabsch or PwC had been ­involved. She asked the Integrity Commissioner for advice on whether that was appropriate and whether other steps should be taken.

Dr Stepanov agreed there was a conflict of interest, and recommended the Premier go further to mitigate the conflict. But, far from proposing a veto, the Integrity Commissioner recommended she exclude herself only from any CBRC meetings about late-stage NAIF projects, of which there are few. (Adani is not at that stage.)

The Queensland government had lobbied for the NAIF loan, if approved, to go directly to Adani, and even yesterday maintained the state’s taxpayers should not have to subsidise the project.

LNP leader Tim Nicholls said: “Thousands of Queenslanders’ jobs depend on the Premier and she’s failed them. I know nothing of the rumours the Premier is referring to. I heard about them through the media just like thousands of other Queenslanders.

“If, as the Premier claims, all necessary conflict of interest measures are correct and above board, why has she put thousands of jobs at risk with this extraordinary backflip?”