Taskforce to implement Coaldrake recommendations

A Taskforce within the Department of Premier and Cabinet will be set up immediately to implement the recommendations of the Coaldrake review into the Queensland public sector.

Professor Peter Coaldrake’s wide ranging report which includes 14 key recommendations was considered and endorsed by Cabinet today.

The Premier said the Taskforce, overseen by David Mackie, Director-General of the Department of Justice and Attorney-General, will commence work immediately.

“The reforms will set a benchmark for the rest of Australia to follow,” the Premier said.

“These reforms will make Queensland the most transparent government in the country.

“Some reforms will be implemented immediately others which require legislative change and stakeholder consultation will take a bit more time.

“That includes the biggest transformational change; releasing Cabinet documents after 30 days, down from the current 30 years.

“David Mackie and the Cabinet Secretary will plan to travel to New Zealand in the next few weeks to look at the model they have already implemented and how that is working.”

Cabinet also agreed that the three lobbyists who worked on Labor’s State Election campaign in substantive roles would be unable to lobby the government for the remainder of this term.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles said this puts an end to a very long-standing practice on both sides of politics to have lobbyists also work as political consultants during campaigns.

“We now call on the LNP to advise us of which lobbyists worked on their last campaign so that we can ban them from engaging with our government and also call on the LNP to stop allowing those political consultants to lobby them as the potential alternative government,” he said.

The Taskforce will report back to Cabinet in September with its first legislative reform package for introduction to parliament.

ENDS