Queensland Corruption Fighter Slams Palaszczuk Government’s Cash-for-Access Fundraising
ABC News: Scott Kyle
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ONE OF Queensland’s most respected corruption busters has accused the Palaszczuk Government of “prostituting” itself by selling access to ministers.
Former Fitzgerald Inquiry senior counsel and National Crime Authority chairman Gary Crooke has slammed Labor for charging business thousands of dollars for meetings with Cabinet ministers at last year’s state conference.
Jo-Ann Miller, a former police minister in the Palaszczuk Government, has also criticised the practice, saying she does not believe in these types of access arrangements.
“I’m uncomfortable with it, many other people are uncomfortable with it as well. But it’s the leader of the Labor Party in Queensland that has to make that call,” she said.
The ABC can reveal that one minister refused to do a lunch with a representative of Indian mining giant Adani.
It is understood the party machine later handed back the $10,000 the company paid for the lunch meeting.
Some Cabinet ministers want Labor to reimpose the cash-for-access ban instituted by former premier Anna Bligh, who barred her MPs from attending fundraising events.
Ministerial diaries show nearly 60 companies paid at least $5,000 each for meetings with members of the Cabinet as part of Labor’s “Business Observers Program”.