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Qld premier 'comfortable' with email saga

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she's comfortable with how the Mark Bailey email saga has been handled, as the opposition calls for his sacking.

3 min read

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Source: AAP


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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk insists she's comfortable with the hiring of an Energy Queensland director despite his CV sent to the Labor government by the Electrical Trades Union two months after the application deadline.

Under pressure to sack her then energy minister, Mark Bailey, after he received and then forwarded on the resume for Mark Algie, Ms Palaszczuk continued to deny any wrongdoing.

ETU state secreatary Peter Simpson sent Mr Algie's CV to Mr Bailey's private email account in September 21, 2016 - well after the cut-off date of July 25.

Two weeks later, Ms Palaszczuk and Mr Bailey issued a joint statement announcing Mr Algie as one of six board appointments to the newly-formed body.

The premier on Thursday gave conflicting accounts of whether she knew about the appointment, after the email with the CV attached was released to media under a Freedom of Information request with Mr Algie's name blacked out.

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She also said she did not need to ask Mr Bailey who was referred to in the email, however several hours later the government released a statement identifying Mr Algie.

Pressed on the issue on Friday, Ms Palaszczuk could not say when she had found out Mr Algie's identity, or whether Mr Bailey had removed himself from cabinet discussions of the board's appointments.

"I'm not going into cabinet deliberations, I'm very comfortable with the process that was followed," said the premier, before hastily retreating from a disaster management press conference.

Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington said Mr Bailey's cabinet position was now untenable and demanded he be sacked over the saga

"We need to look at the process; the premier is now saying she didn't know this guy, was she asleep in cabinet?" she said.

"The question remains 24 hours after this news broke: why has this premier not sacked this minister?"

Ms Frecklington said she had never passed on a CV in a similar fashion, but even if she had, it didn't compare to a government minister passing on a union-recommended candidate after the cut-off date for a taxpayer-funded position.

"Ministers of the crown, in this case Minister Bailey, dealing with merging of companies worth millions of dollars, these are serious issues."


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