Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

( Mr Speaker, if you're wondering why many of these colleagues over here sit on this side of the chamber, you don't have to go past four million Queenslanders who back in May made a pretty tough decision, which was that 23 out of 30 seats would support the coalition—you can add in Bob Katter and make that 24. To those Queenslanders, spare a moment for their suffering, because for the next 12 months they have to put up with selfies, they have to put up with the cardboard cheques of state Labor MPs, they have to put up with the fake and artificial press conferences and the MPs basically just trying to hold onto their jobs as that fine state, that diversified economy of Queensland, now has the highest unemployment of any state or jurisdiction in the country at 6.5 per cent—nearly two full points higher than Victoria and New South Wales. Queensland—not the biggest state by population by any means—has more long-term unemployed than any other state in Australia. Queensland has more bankruptcies than any other state in Australia and we are basically held to ransom by the incompetence of the 'Trad-iculous' Labor government.

Imagine our suffering then when we have state MPs who have got very little to do for their own electorates—no new road upgrades, no services being delivered. They have turned themselves to more important tasks. On Australia Day eve this year they decided, in my electorate of Redlands, to fundraise from their parliamentary state email account and see how much money they could make for the ALP. Out went the email with a little innocent button 'Donate to Redlands, who wouldn't?' Sure enough that money was going straight into ALP coffers using the parliamentary accounts.

When confronted by the clerk last week the state member for Redlands blamed spoofing. For those who don't know the term—I had to I look it up myself—it's where, in a computer network, IP addresses are effectively spoofed through the creation of an internet protocol packet with a false source IP address for the purpose of impersonating another computing system. That is what happened to state MP Kim Richards. When you check, of course, they say, 'No, not at all.' She's admitted having two accounts—one parliamentary and the other not—and simply using the wrong account to fundraise money for the ALP. Would we be reasonable in asking that that money be refunded to those who've donated in the first place? Sending that kind of email out from a parliamentary network is absolutely breaching parliamentary protocols, here and there. But we hear nothing from the mute member for Redlands—nothing except blaming it on being spoofed.

So imagine my surprise when last Saturday I started receiving threatening messages from family members of the member for Redlands' staff—and I have forwarded those as well. Why do innuendo, homophobia and physical threats need to be sent from family members of those working in a state MPs' office? Again, we would find that completely unacceptable, but we can't get an answer why that is occurring. It is simply not good enough.

Keeping it in the family is what it is all about up there in Queensland Labor. Just next door, the walking impersonation of a political superannuation system, the member for Capalaba, decided, for some unknown reason, to set up an anonymous Gmail account for the purpose of destroying a political opponent, because that political opponent beat his staff member at the last local government election. So what do you do? You don't campaign harder, you don't deliver more for your community; you set up an anonymous Gmail account and start traducing the elected councillor for the purposes of destroying his reputation. That email was ultimately searched by Queensland Police and led to a visit to the home of the family member working for the member for Capalaba. That led to a confession and no further action being taken except me asking a very simple question: why do we want to, for heaven's sake, in a political democracy, set up fake Gmail accounts circulating information to every club, every society and every P&C in a councillor's area suggesting that that person is a predator?' Is that acceptable conduct politically? Of course it's not acceptable. I don't need to lecture anyone about this. All we're asking for is a confession.

The response from the member for Capalaba has been, 'Well, the police haven't come to talk to me.' Is that where we have come to in democracy? Are those the standards by which we abide? The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. We can do much better than launch those kinds of anonymous attacks. Honestly, we respect other members of parliament and their family and staff. There's a line where you don't get involved in that kind of activity. It's useful to remember that we respect those that have joined us in this political journey. Staff should stay well out of those social media battles. Using the name of their spouse to try and conceal that account because they had a different surname—staff shouldn't be setting up that kind of conduct. Queensland can do better. Queensland Labor can do better and across the nation we will be watching the conduct of these two MPs until the day they seek re-election.