Allegations against a former Queensland councillor were aired in the state’s parliament on Tuesday by an MP pushing for a new agency to weed out “systemic corruption” in local government.
The documents tabled under parliamentary privilege contain allegations ranging from misusing council resources for overseas junkets and to benefit the former councillor’s lovers, to trying to leverage a personal association with the federal immigration minister, Peter Dutton, to lobby his office on visas for “young Asian women”.
The claims are detailed by anonymous whistleblowers among documents tabled on Tuesday by the independent MP Rob Pyne, who is pushing for a new anti-corruption agency to combat what he says is widespread wrongdoing in local government.
Several of the documents, which had names and some claims redacted at the behest of Speaker Peter Wellington to avoid influencing a current court case, focus on alleged misconduct at a Queensland city council.
They include claims that a councillor would frequent an unnamed location with a “former treasurer” and “the federal member for Dickson and the minister for immigration”.
“It is known that [a councillor] would often telephone the immigration minister’s office or department to make representations seeking assistance with immigration processing for young Asian women,” one document alleges.
It alleges the councillor once arranged for a council staffer to buy a bed out of council funds and have it delivered to the home of one of his lovers, an “Asian woman” at Goodna.
A number of council officeholders had “unfettered [and] inappropriate access and influence” within the city’s CCTV surveillance centre and would “put plate id [sic] on additional vehicles without having to give any reason at all”.
Perhaps the most extraordinary of the claims was that the councillor secured “back door” access to the surveillance centre to gain forewarning of “any raid on him, associates or the … city council”.
“It is known that some … police officers were stating these facts and notifying senior officials,” the document says.
The councillor lobbied against a proposed new centre because a digital upgrade “would not have allowed this information flow to continue and [redacted] would not have been allowed this access.
“This can be proven with documentation that is contained within the Qld police service.”
The councillor allegedly had a personal assistant hastily arrange a meeting with the mayor of Shanghai to “legitimise” a trip to coincide with a visit to China by a business associate. Another reported “junket” involved taking family members of staff to Japan.
The whistleblower claims the councillor used “three mobile phones to avoid information being detected” by right to information or freedom-of-information requests.
The councillor allegedly had a close friendship with a developer who escorted him in his council vehicle to a Brisbane massage parlour that was raided in 2015.
The pair had spent that evening with two “Asian women”, one who was “one of the [councillor’s] former mistresses” and another who was “an agent or go-between for prospective Asian investors and/or developers and ICC”.
“Setting aside the inappropriate use of council resources, the [councillor’s] visits to massage parlours and mistresses and other inappropriate secretive business meetings on some occasions, the [councillor] made no attempt to hide or cover his inappropriate behaviour especially once alcohol had become involved,” the document says.
His “extracurricular adventures were well and truly known” to other senior council figures, including that he had “intermittent personal relationships with a number of women who had a direct relationship with council, councils [sic] various business entities and the [councillor’s] business interests”.
The councillor gave another of his lovers, who worked for a firm “that does conduct works for [the council] and other associated entities” a Rolex watch from a “his and her’s boxed set” which he dispatched with a council staffer to a jeweller to have altered, the document claims.
Other documents related to three other councils, with allegations ranging from rorting of national disaster recovery funding through substandard and unnecessary roadworks to accounting irregularities and planning scheme breaches.
Pyne in a statement said there was “much more to be exposed”.
“This is why I believe that a Queensland Icac is the only legislative structure for a real watchdog that has the power and resources to deal with this systemic corruption in government administration,” he said.
Pyne and others have argued Queensland’s Crime and Corruption Commission lacks the investigative powers and record of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales.
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said Pyne should be approaching the Crime and Corruption Commission with the allegations.
“Pre-Fitzgerald [inquiry], members of parliament used parliamentary privilege to expose issues in this state because there was no anti-corruption watchdog,” Palaszczuk said on Wednesday. “We now have [the CCC] with the powers of a standing royal commission, and any serious allegations should be referred there.”
The chief executive of the Local Government Association of Queensland, Greg Hallam, also took Pyne to task for airing the allegations, accusing him of acting out of self-interest rather than conviction.
