Stewart told the CCC he did not mislead the premier, and had earlier come to the conclusion that while the candidate was “by far the least meritorious candidate”, he would be a better organisational fit than Murphy.
The CCC found Trad and Stewart exchanged 11 phone calls and two messages in the days before the panel’s report was finalised for Palaszczuk.
Then director-general of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet Dave Stewart with then premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in 2018. Credit: AAP
“I can’t remember the exact nature of the calls, other than any phone call I had with Jackie Trad was never a pleasant occasion,” Stewart told the CCC.
“They were quite confrontational, they were aggressive and, you know, at the end of the day, what I didn’t want to happen was what happened to Murphy.”
Murphy later returned to the government as Palaszczuk’s chief of staff.
Trad told the CCC she and the candidate had “become friends over a period of time” and had “a good working relationship” in a previous portfolio.
“In that time, I found him an incredibly effective, hard-working, ah smart, ah public servant, ah who was very good at ensuring um, that information flow was um, was brought to my attention in a way where I could respond and I could do my duties on behalf of Queensland,” she told the CCC.
The commission concluded that while Trad “made no secret” that she wanted the candidate to be appointed under treasurer, and pressured Stewart to achieve her goal, there were other people on the panel who seemingly signed off on the final report.
“Mr Stewart’s amendments of the final report did not simply reflect his own change of heart, it purported to represent the unanimous conclusion of the entire panel without having ever sought to confirm with them that that was so,” the CCC found.
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“Mr Stewart’s conduct in this respect falls well below that to be expected of the state’s most senior public servant, given it resulted in a materially misleading report.”
The CCC report reveals some of the evidence it gathered would not be admissible in any criminal trial as some of the “high-ranking Queensland public servants” interviewed had breached confidentiality by discussing the case with others, and legislation prevented telephone intercepts being used in such cases.
The CCC also found “some matters, such as any dishonesty on Ms Trad’s part, are unlikely to be proved beyond reasonable doubt”.
In a foreword to the report, then CCC chairman Bruce Barbour suggested that “possibly the issue of greatest concern to the community is the abrogation of responsibility by senior public servants”.
“Whatever level of influence, intervention or aggression exerted upon him, the director-general demonstrated that he was unable to act appropriately as the chair of an independent selection panel charged with the responsibility of recommending the most meritorious candidate for appointment,” Barbour wrote.
The year after the report was completed, Stewart was appointed Queensland’s agent-general for the United Kingdom and Europe, a role he held until last year.
The report was tabled in parliament on Wednesday night, along with a separate CCC report into former public guardian Peter Carne.
The LNP has yet to honour its election commitment to release the former government’s probity report on Chow Tai Fook, a partner in the Destination Brisbane Consortium behind Queen’s Wharf and its casino.
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