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Record of Proceedings, 29 April 2025
This is the CCC bill that Queensland had to have, but it is the CCC bill that Labor refused to back in a timely manner in government. They refused to give the CCC back the reporting powers that Queenslanders always thought they had, even back as far as when the CJC was instituted after the Fitzgerald inquiry. There was an understanding about how the CJC, the CMC and now CCC operated and what their powers were, but the Labor Party refused to back those powers in after a High Court decision in 2023.
Why did they refuse to do this? Why did they allow the CCC to be muzzled and unable to report anything publicly for more than two years? That is how long it has been. In fact, at the end of this week, when I assume this bill will pass, it will be over 1,000 days since the CCC was able to publicly report on corruption allegations—1,000 days since the Court of Appeal decision in Queensland which changed a situation that Queenslanders had understood for more than 30 years. Labor’s failure to fix this through legislation for over two years, from August 2022 when that Court of Appeal decision was handed down until they were booted from office last year, is a stain on the integrity of this parliament—a stain that today the LNP is removing. As a former PCCC chair, I had a close-up view of that entire saga. It was as clear as day from August 2022 that legislation was needed to fix that decision and preserve the understanding of how the CCC worked in Queensland—and the CMC before that and the CJC before that.
I want to acknowledge a couple of people who have been steadfast on this issue throughout that whole time. I firstly want to acknowledge Bruce Barbour, the chairperson of the CCC, because it takes courage to tell the government they have got it wrong. The chairperson of the CCC did that and called for urgent legislative reform from the start. I also want to acknowledge the former shadow attorney-general, the member for Clayfield, for his work in advancing this argument and for the bill that was introduced last year and, of course, the Attorney-General, the member for Nanango, who has brought this bill into the House.
This party on this side of the House will not be lectured to about integrity in government by those Labor MPs opposite who transparently refused to fix this problem because they were covering up for their Labor mates. I think I heard the shadow attorney-general over there claim before that the Labor Party enhanced the CCC. I have rarely heard, in all my time here, such a bald misstatement of fact from a Labor MP. Far from enhancing the CCC, the shadow attorney-general was part of a cabinet that allowed the CCC to remain stripped of their reporting powers for over two years. The hypocrisy of those opposite knows no bounds. We will not stop pointing it out. We will point it out day in and day out because the Labor Party showed, through their actions in failing to remedy this issue around the reporting powers of the CCC, that when the chips are down they will cover for their friends and put political expediency above doing the right thing and enhancing integrity and our chief integrity body in Queensland.
In doing so, they were prepared to muzzle the reporting powers of the CCC—or allow it to remain muzzled—and overturn what we understood the situation to be for 30 years. They brought a bill to the House last year that they said would have done the job and given the CCC its power back, but the reality is that that bill would have still put a straitjacket on the CCC and, importantly, kept the damning reports into their Labor mates secret. Labor was prepared to trash the post-Fitzgerald integrity framework to protect their mates for the two years, two months—nearly 1,000 days—that the CCC has been stripped of its public reporting powers. It is a disgrace. We will not let you forget the shameful episode that has only been remedied because Queenslanders woke up and threw the Labor Party out of government last year.
I have heard the arguments about it being the High Court’s fault—that really, the Labor government could not fix it because the High Court created the problem and the High Court is the highest court in the land. I have news for Queenslanders and the Labor Party: this could have been fixed. The reporting powers could have been enshrined in law and put in place on the grounds that we thought they were for more than 30 years by the end of 2022—just after the Court of Appeal decision. It could have been done but the Labor Party chose not to. It could have been done because this parliament is supreme. If a court decision is made that does not accord with the policies of this
parliament and the government, the parliament can fix it.
Mr McDonald interjected.
Mr KRAUSE: That is what we are doing here today, thank you, member for Lockyer. The Labor Party chose not to do that. Their actions scream far louder than any of their words when it comes to this situation and this bill. They considered, they delayed and they waited for the High Court. They ultimately started the Holmes review that kicked the can down the road again just to get them to the election. If there had been a different result in the election, I have no doubt there is no way those two reports into their Labor mates would have seen the light of day. Shame on you all for denuding the CCC like you did for the basest of political reasons—reasons that were transparent to everyone in Queensland who observed this over a period of time.
I want to also talk to the particular amendments being brought in by the Attorney-General related to the appointment process for commissioners of the CCC. The amendment amends a provision that was amended by the government last year, but when the Labor government amended it last year, they did not do it in the way that the PCCC recommended—that is, for there to be a single, non-renewable term for commissioners, including the chairperson of the CCC, of up to seven years. Instead, the Labor government changed that and said that all commissioners must be appointed for seven years. There is an inherent inflexibility in that because many people cannot commit to serving in a single position for seven years, particularly some of the part-time positions which exist at the CCC. More importantly, it also removed any flexibility for the PCCC to be involved in that appointment process. Maybe not ‘any flexibility’ but a great deal, because the commissioners of the CCC are in a unique position in the way that they are appointed.
This goes back a very long time. Those appointments require bipartisan support of the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee. That is not just for the appointment of a particular person but it also gives the committee the ability to have influence over how long people are appointed for. The provision enacted by the Labor government last year would have taken away the ability of the PCCC to be a part of that. That chips away at the bipartisan support for the CCC as an institution to fight crime and corruption in Queensland. I do not know why the former government went away from the recommendation of the former PCCC in that respect, but I wholly support the amendment being brought in by the Attorney-General to put that right and to legislate those appointment provisions in line with the recommendation made by the PCCC back in 2021.
The member for McConnel had the gall to stand up and make accusations about people being unfit for government. She made some statements around the appointment provisions and the fact there could be two five-year terms of appointment for the CCC chairperson. The member for McConnel does not even know that her government—of which she was a member of cabinet—actually changed that law last year, so who is unfit for government? When the member for McConnel makes comments like that she shows she is completely out of touch. She was a member of the cabinet that signed off on those changes that were legislated in September last year and which we are amending again today. Members opposite in the Labor Party should hang their heads in shame for the dillydallying and muzzling of the CCC in terms of their reporting powers. They have shown today in some of the comments they have made that they are absolutely unfit for office.
I commend the bill to the House and the amendments sought to be made by the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice. We thank you for those efforts in fixing some of the issues which the Labor Party refused to fix for nearly 1,000 days.