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Forget me not: Taxpayers fund Jackie Trad’s legal bid to suppress report

Former Queensland deputy premier Jackie Trad’s legal bid to have a corruption watchdog report into her suppressed is being bankrolled by taxpayers.

Mar 18, 2022, updated Mar 18, 2022
Former deputy premier Jackie Trad. (Photo: AAP Image/Glenn Hunt)

Former deputy premier Jackie Trad. (Photo: AAP Image/Glenn Hunt)

Premier Annastacia Palasazczuk says the government is funding the former deputy premier and treasurer’s Supreme Court bid to prevent the Crime and Corruption Commission from publishing the report.

She says as the CCC report involves Trad’s ministerial duties she’s allowed to claim legal fees under state indemnity laws.

“I can confirm that yes, she is,” the premier told reporters on Friday.

Palaszczuk said the total cost to taxpayers of Trad’s legal fees will only be known at a later date.

“Those costs aren’t worked out until the end of the court case,” the premier added.

“So as you can appreciate, as you can appreciate, there is a court case that has been confirmed now by the court.

“I cannot comment on that court case.”

Justice Martin Burns lifted a suppression order on the case on Thursday after Liberal National Party deputy leader Jarrod Bleijie named Trad and spoke about the case under parliamentary privilege last month.

Bleijie said the CCC’s probe related to Trad allegedly overruling an independent selection panel to ensure her own pick, Frankie Carroll, was installed as under-treasurer in 2019.

He said the watchdog’s probe had been completed and the reason its report hadn’t been published was because of the former treasurer’s legal action.

“Jackie Trad is so determined to hide the report from the public eye that she has applied to the

Supreme Court of Queensland to have the report suppressed from being made public,” Bleijie told parliament on February 22.

A spokeperson for Supreme Court Chief Justice Catherine Holmes said on Thursday that Bleijie naming Trad in parliament had rendered the non-publication order futile.

They said “someone unknown” had disseminated Trad’s identity and the existence of the proceedings, but it would be premature to assume it was deliberate.

“Of course, if the individual or individuals who disclosed that information did so in wilful breach of the order, questions of contempt of court would be raised,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

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