Des Houghton: The Labor witch-hunt against John Sosso is strange

A public outcry has been manufactured against a man whose work was so admired that he was promoted by the Premier at the time, writes Des Houghton.

John Sosso. Photo: Philip Norrish

I cannot for the life of me understand the Labor witch-hunt against John Sosso, the senior public servant appointed to the Queensland Redistribution Commission.

A public outcry has been manufactured against a man whose work was so admired by Wayne Goss that he promoted Sosso when he became premier in 1989.

Sosso understands the ethical imperatives of good government better than many of his accusers. His forebears, he says, were from a long line of northern Italian communists who disavowed Catholicism and went to Ingham in the 30s.

Sosso’s exemplary 41-year record is in many public service roles for governments of all political persuasions.

Yes, he admired Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, he told the Queensland Speaks blog.

Joh ran a “benign” public service and had had no problems with Sosso and briefing the Labor Party on legislation they were asked to frame.

“I knew Joh personally and had a lot of respect for him – but I didn’t have much respect for his politics at the time, but I had a lot of respect for him as a person.”

“He was a very kindly man.”

Sosso has also spoken about what he saw were serious shortcomings of the Fitzgerald Inquiry.

He was made secretary of the inquiry in 1987 and openly praises Tony Fitzgerald’s work but says, “it didn’t achieve its goal”.

“If you wanted a PhD or a master’s thesis about how a government should operate it was a fantastic report.”

“If you are looking at something dealing with organised crime in Queensland it was a dud.”

To understand Sosso you need to go back further to his time as a young solicitor at Gilshenan & Luton spending two or three days a week at Boggo Road prison defending murderers, rapists and druggies. He crossed paths with corrupt cops and the infamous police Rat Pack and despised them. He is currently the Queensland Director-General of the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning and Jarrod Bleijie is lucky to have someone of his experience guiding his ship. It’s time for the Labor Party to leave him alone so he can get on with thejob.

Tribute to Peter Cameron

Peter Cameron was a master of the one liner.

A beer should be as cold as a mother-in-law’s welcome, he would say. Or a sheila was so ugly she would haunt a house or scare a dog off a butcher’s truck.

Plenty of stories were told about Peter’s colourful repartee at his funeral at Holy Spirit Catholic Church at New Farm on Tuesday and the wake that followed.

“His joke I liked most was one of his most recent,” said his son David.

“He would tell me, ‘At my age I don’t even buy green bananas’.”

David said his father died in Cairns hospital on April 4 aged 76 after suffering a heart attack three days earlier while gardening at Mission Beach.

Peter Cameron, who was born in Ipswich on June 1, 1948, to Colin and Doreen Cameron, was a towering figure in Queensland journalism.

Peter Cameron in his journalism days. Pic Mark Cranitch.

He excelled as a racing writer at The Courier-Mail, and, later, as a talk-of-the-town columnist for the Sunday Mail and the Gold Coast Bulletin. Cameron had a great disrespect for authority, including some of his editors. This was to be admired.

About 30 past and present scribes from The Courier-Mail and The Australian filled the church.

Of all the earnest plodders, literary giants and rogues who worked at The Courier-Mail in the past 50 years, Cameron stood out. In the newsroom he was often boisterous but always fun to be around. Liam Tansey, who had known him since they were at school together at St Mary’s and St Edmund’s in Ipswich delivered the eulogy. It was superb. Father Leo Coote, the former distance runner and Cameron’s spiritual adviser, told the packed house that Peter was a person of faith who recently asked him about the hereafter. Peter decided that this life was a curtain raiser for the main event, Coote said. Retired priest and former Lord Mayor Jim Soorley, a Cameron confidant, made the sign of the cross. Cameron would have put that in his column.

Originally published as Des Houghton: The Labor witch-hunt against John Sosso is strange