STUCK IN FIRST GEAR
Premier’s M1 ‘plan’: More political gridlock
PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk has an answer to M1 traffic – make it someone else’s problem.
Ms Palaszczuk has rejected calls for a duplicate highway demanded by fed-up Gold Coast motorists.
Instead the Premier proposed widening the M1 south of Varsity Lakes – and teed up another tiresome row with Canberra by suggesting the Federal Government pay 80 per cent of the estimated $1 billion cost.
Federal Instructure Minister Paul Fletcher last night predictably rejected Ms Palaszczuk’s plan.
JESSICA MARSZALEK, MATT KILLORAN, JOHN MCCARTHY
ANNASTACIA Palaszczuk’s campaign has been thrown into chaos by more revelations that her partner had worked on some of Queensland’s biggest projects – including stage 3 of the light rail.
Ms Palaszczuk was yesterday forced to seek urgent advice over whether Shaun Drabsch’s work on the proposed third stage of the Gold Coast’s tram line had caused more conflicts of interest as former Adani lobbyist Cameron Milner was rushed in to get Labor’s shaky campaign back on track.
While Ms Palaszczuk claimed to be unaware of her partner’s “commercial-in-confidence” work at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), his input on the $600 million rail project was publicly available on his LinkedIn profile.
She said she would look into the issue after Mr Drabsch’s six-page curriculum vitae surfaced, stating he “drafted a strategic business case for the Gold Coast Light Rail stage 3”, “advised commercial options for (Rockhampton Regional Council) to participate in the development of the Rookwood Weir” and worked as a consultant for Aurizon.
The CV was last night deleted from the internet as a spokesman for Ms Palaszczuk said Mr Drabsch’s work on those projects was only to advise councils and that PwC had no direct involvement with proposals to the state government.
Ms Palaszczuk earlier walked from a fiery press conference following her continued defence of her shock decision on Friday to veto Adani’s $1 billion loan application to the Commonwealth Government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) for construction of a rail line for its mine. LNP LEADER TIM NICHOLLS
The move was in defiance of advice from Integrity Commissioner Dr Nikola Stepanov that she have no involvement in decision making because Mr Drabsch worked on the proposal.
The Premier admitted she did not seek the integrity commissioner’s advice on vetoing Adani’s loan application, despite her partner’s involvement.
She said she did not need the advice, adding: “I am the Premier of this state. I make decisions. I’ve been sick and tired of people saying you don’t make decisions. I have made a decision. I make decisions every day.”
Despite using the integrity commissioner’s advice to announce the veto, Ms Palaszczuk yesterday said the veto was keeping a 2015 election commitment that no taxpayer money would go to Adani.
But federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan questioned how her decision did not give rise to another conflict of interest involving Aurizon’s NAIF application to build a rail line in the Galilee Basin.
“Aurizon has a proposal with NAIF to build a rail line and I would have thought that by vetoing the Adani proposal there was a conflict of interest, because the Queensland Government has shares in Aurizon,” he said.
LNP Leader Tim Nicholls said Ms Palaszczuk had needed only to follow the integrity commissioner’s advice, but had instead bent to the anti-Adani campaign that has dogged her election campaigning.
“She just wants to make a problem that she has go away and that problem is coming from the left wing of the Labor Party and the inner-city Greens that are threatening Labor and their vote,” he said.
He said her decision was overkill.
SHE JUST WANTS TO MAKE A PROBLEM THAT SHE HAS GO AWAY AND THAT PROBLEM IS COMING FROM THE LEFT WING OF THE LABOR PARTY AND THE INNER-CITY GREENS