James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk about the dustbin fire that is ethics and honesty in Queensland under the state Labor government there. We've got a state Labor government—hear this, everybody!—that sent goons from the Premier's office to raid the office of the Queensland Integrity Commissioner. In Queensland, in 2021-22, the Premier's office sent goons to raid the office of the Integrity Commissioner. They sent the Integrity Commissioner home, they went into her office and they got the laptop; there was a secret laptop in her office. And you know what they did to this laptop? They went and wiped it. They wiped the laptop. So we don't know what was on the laptop. It could have been photos of a prominent politician with a footballer. It could have been photos of a prominent ex-politician getting wads of cash in a car park. It could have been the conscience of Steven Miles! It could have been the taxpayer funded polling that Labor has used to run Queensland over the last 30 or so years.

These goons raided the Integrity Commissioner's office, got the laptop and then wiped it. This sounds like a page that has fallen out of a draft of a script for a Jason Bourne movie, and I wish it was. But it's not. This is public governance in Queensland in the 21st century, where we effectively have a one-party state where the dominant Labor Party have entrenched themselves in the bureaucracy and in the judiciary. And anyone who dares raise issues about the governance of that state is ostracised.

We've had the Integrity Commissioner chased out the door. The state archivist has been chased back to New Zealand, and the state archivist has become a whistleblower. And for this person's efforts they are effectively treated as a criminal, with the Premier, and the henchmen and henchwomen of her cabinet, continually attacking him and attacking what he is saying. And this is quite interesting: the state archivist has said that his annual reports, when he submitted them, were edited by the minister's office. These reports were put in, and he had raised concerns about issues to do with public governance, the public keeping of records, in Queensland. And the minister's office would get the Tipp-Ex out and black it out, or they would just redact what they didn't like and send it back. This isn't the beacon of a liberal democracy; this is something that you would see in some despotic South American regime where public servants who do not agree with the ruling dictator are sent off to camps. Well, welcome to Queensland, where goons raid the office of the Integrity Commissioner.

The other issue that I'm concerned about in Queensland comes down to what we need to do with our economy, and, in particular, how we ensure the resource sector and the agriculture sector are droughtproofed. That means the building of more dams. It is the building of Urannah. It is the building of Hells Gate. It is also the rebuilding, hopefully, of Paradise Dam. I have spoken about Paradise Dam in this place for every sitting fortnight. Paradise Dam is the worst infrastructure fail in the history of this country. Yesterday we saw the Premier of Queensland come out and say: 'Oh, whoops-a-daisy, we made a bit of a mistake here. We've built a billion-dollar dam but we didn't do it properly; we used clay and glue instead of cement. We've got to do something here. Oh, by the way, federal government, we need $600 million.' Welcome to Queensland in the 21st century, where it is being run as a one-party state, where ethics have left the building, got in a taxi and gone over the border, and where we've got the greatest infrastructure fail in the history of Federation. Welcome to Queensland. I will be doing everything possible to ensure that we get Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce returned in the coming election and that David Crisafulli becomes Premier in three years time. (Time expired)