Coaldrake Review of culture and accountability in the Queensland Public Sector Complaint. Non Investigation of DNRME (Now RSHQ) Queensland Public Servants accused of misleading Black Lung White Lies Parliamentary Committee
Emailed on the 17th March 2022
Coaldrake Review of culture and accountability in the Queensland public sector
Non Investigation of DNRME (Now RSHQ) Queensland Public Servants accused of misleading Black Lung White Lies Parliamentary Committee
In May 2017 the 55th Parliament Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis Select Committee delivered Report No. 2,
Recommendation 67
The committee recommends that the Public Service Commissioner review the transcripts of public and private hearings of the committee involving Queensland public servants and consider the extent to which those officers cooperated with and assisted the committee, including whether or not any public servant misled the committee or otherwise breached the Code of Practice for Public Service Employees Assisting or Appearing Before Parliamentary Committees.
There has never been any investigation ever of any of the evidence provided and lack of assistance by these public servants.
The problem I have is that those accused are now likely the same people overseeing RSHQ and all its internal processes.
On 21 August 2017, the Public Service Commission issued a formal response to the Parliament, “advising that the Committee is best placed to identify and assess whether there are sufficient grounds to recommend that matters be referred to the Assembly’s Ethics Committee as a possible contempt of the Parliament.
The problem then is that despite the Information being sent back to Parliament by the Public Service Commission, it does not seem to ever be referred either back to either the Black Lung Committee or the Ethics Committee.
The Resources Minister Lynham, in a Statement to Parliament on 17th September, tabled the Queensland Government response to Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis Select Committee report no. 2—Inquiry into the re-identification of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis in Queensland.
It states that Recommendation 67 had been Actioned. That is by referral to Public Service Commission
https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/tableOffice/TabledPapers/2017/5517T815.pdf
It appears from the information, that the Minister has misled Parliament about the status of the Recommendation.
These referred to Public Servants who were accused of misinforming and misleading a Parliamentary Committee about
- the information they possessed about the level and numbers of workers being exposed to illegal dust concentrations and
- the numbers of people diagnosed with Black Lung and Silicosis going back more than 30 years
Information is several of those accused have in fact been given promotions since and hold the most Senior positions in RSHQ
My understanding is that it was the office of the Clerk of the Parliament who advised the Black Lung White Lies Committee to refer the matter to the PSC.
The Clerk of the Parliament himself after the tabling of the Report and Referral to the PSC advises the PSC it should not deal with the matter.
There has been formal correspondence between myself the Committee of the Legislative Assembly, the Speaker of Parliament, and lastly the Clerk of the Parliament who I have also spoken to me on the phone several times.
I have not included for the sake of brevity.
Among the answers via phone is “I have received is that I can understand why you are upset”, “Its personally embarrassing for me”, “it just all got overlooked.”
However, the official correspondence includes
- It was all the Black Lung White Lies Committee fault for referring it to the PSC
- It should have gone to the Ethics Committee
- It is now the 56th Parliament and it should have been dealt with in the 55th, now we are legally prevented.
- It would all be to hard after all this time.
It is completely unfathomable how Public Servants who are supposed to be in charge of Regulating Mine Workers Safety can be accused of such actions and not be investigated.
Can the Coaldrake Inquiry investigate how this occurred?
