Deputy hits back over tourism intervention
By Mitch Gaynor
DEPUTY Premier Jarrod Bleijie has used Question Time to hit back at Labor after the Opposition referred him to the Crime and Corruption Commission over his involvement in a controversial hinterland luxury accommodation project.
The broadside followed a request by Maleny Manor owner and LNP donor, Geoffrey Thomas, for the government’s support in a $24m 38-unit project after it was rejected by the Sunshine Coast Council.
Mr Thomas’s company, Presidential Capital Pty Ltd, appealed the council’s decision in the Planning and Environment Court in March.
Presidential’s lawyers then requested the State Government call in the project on the grounds it was of state interest in encouraging tourism.
While the Government did not call in the project, Tourism Minister, Andrew Powell, wrote to Mr Bleijie on April 28, seeking his support for the project, arguing there was a critical need for more accommodation in the hinterland.
Two days later Department of State Development Director-General, John Sosso, agreed to the department becoming a party to proceedings.
Following that decision Opposition Deputy Leader, Cameron Dick, announced he was referring Mr Bleijie and Mr Powell to the CCC.
“On a very basic reading of the facts, it would appear the LNP donor, in this case, is a prohibited donor under the law of Queensland,” Mr Dick alleged.
Hitting back against the allegations, Mr Bleijie told Parliament last week that Mr Dick, as a previous planning minister, held “the record of the most interventions by a planning department in the last 10 years”.
“During his period as planning minister from 2017 to 2020 his department intervened in court matters 88 times,” Mr Bleijie said.
Mr Bleijie used the example of the $1.2bn Pacificus project near Gladstone that had been rejected by council in 2018 before Mr Dick overturned the decision.
“Planning Minister … Dick said he was making that order because, as a state-prescribed project, the Pacificus development had the potential to transform the central Queensland region,” Mr Bleijie said.
“(Mr Dick) went on to say ‘I don’t exercise this sort of power very often, but I think [this project is] critical to the region and the state’.”
“Ministers for planning have intervened in matters since the dawn of time, since the Planning Act was enacted.”
Mr Dick earlier said that he “rarely used call-in powers as the planning minister in Queensland”.
“But I can tell you this: I never used the call-in power … to appeal in relation to a donor,” he said.
A spokesperson for Minister Bleijie had previously dismissed the Opposition’s claims: “This is a desperate attempt from a desperate Labor Opposition to muckrake and use the CCC for their political games.”
