Labor MP Mark Bailey ignored Palaszczuk’s email ban

Labor minister Mark Bailey ignored Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s ban on using his private email account.

Queensland MP Mark Bailey. Picture: AAP

Queensland Labor minister Mark Bailey immediately ignored Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s ban last year on using his private email account, with an emailed plea to GetUp to spruik the government’s renewables target.

New documents reveal Mr Bailey contacted the left-wing ­activist group on his private ­account in a direct snub to Ms Palaszczuk’s order days earlier to conduct ministerial business through official email channels.

Mr Bailey, the then-energy minister who prompted the ban after being caught in private email contact with his former Electrical Trades Union, stopped using his account only after being told the correspondence could be publicly accessed under state Right to Information laws.

The documents, released yesterday under RTI, raise questions about Mr Bailey’s account last year to parliament over his private email use and of Labor’s links to GetUp as the group fights calls for it to be deemed an “associated entity’’ of the political party.

In a January 23 email last year from his “mangocube6’’ private email account, Mr Bailey wrote to Ellen Roberts, the Queensland head of GetUp, pleading for help in selling the government’s 50 per cent renewables target.

It followed a series of state ­opposition attacks on the Palas­zczuk government’s draft renewable energy target panel report, claiming its backing of a 50 per cent target was based on “heroic assumptions’’.

Mr Bailey wrote the email to Ms Roberts on the day Ms Palas­zczuk reiterated her email ban in the year’s first cabinet meeting.

“Hey Ellen … Happy new year! Tory campaign clear in NQ agst 50% target gathering momentum,’’ he said in the email on his private account. “.... Let’s discuss. Wld be great to have envy stakeholders in the space, not just me and our govt. They clearly lying at every op. M.’’

Ms Roberts responded within hours: “Definitely. Give me a call when you get a minute. I heard Barnaby on the radio this morning. Give me a call when you get a minute.’’

Within weeks, Ms Roberts was photographed with other Queens­land environmentalists calling for the public to sign a petition for “the Queensland government to commit to a strong Renewable Energy Target”.

Mr Bailey was last year stood down from cabinet amid a Crime and Corruption Commission investigation when he deleted his private email account after ­receiving an RTI application from The Australian for access to his correspondence.

The CCC found 1200 work-­related emails on his private ­account, many involving correspondence with ETU officials.

Mr Bailey told parliament he had not read a February 3, 2017, email from his top adviser about The Australian’s application that also detailed formal advice that his private account and ­secret correspondence could be accessed under the RTI Act.

Mr Bailey said he hadn’t read the email before deleting the ­account two days later, which blocked the RTI application.

After facing opposition alle­gations of deliberately deleting the account to block access, Mr Bailey reactivated the account.

The latest release of emails under RTI show that despite Ms Palaszczuk’s ban, Mr Bailey stopped using his private email account only on February 3 — the day he received advice that his ­account was publicly accessible under the RTI Act.