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July 12th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda A Liberal National Party heavyweight was appointed to review a second Queensland government agency but Premier Campbell Newman says he was kept in the dark about this until today.
Housing and Public Works Minister Bruce Flegg confirmed yesterday LNP treasurer Barry O’Sullivan had been sent in to examine the books of government publisher GoPrint, but insisted the party organisational wing official was not paid.
Mr Newman told Parliament yesterday he had “expressed some concerns” to Dr Flegg about the choice of Mr O’Sullivan and had been “reassured by the minister that a more appropriate approach will be taken in the future”.
The Labor opposition kept up the attack in question time this morning, asking Mr Newman when he became aware that Dr Flegg had also engaged Mr O’Sullivan to review the government plant hire company GoPlants.
“I was not aware that that had occurred. I only became aware of that this morning,” Mr Newman told Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk.
The opposition had asked Dr Flegg in question time yesterday “whether any LNP members or other organisations have conducted or will conduct similar reviews of government work units identified for privatisation in the Costello audit”.
GoPlants was not specifically mentioned in the Costello audit report, but the document did refer to examples of commercial business units within the Department of Housing and Public Works.
Yesterday, Dr Flegg kept the focus on GoPrint and did not mention Mr O’Sullivan’s appointment in relation to GoPlants, another commercial business unit within the department.
Pressed today on whether Dr Flegg’s conduct met the Premier’s ethical standards, Mr Newman said he could not “shed too much more on this” and he had “made it very, very clear yesterday how I felt about this matter”.
While Mr Newman said Dr Flegg was doing a “great job” in sorting out the mess left by Labor, he was concerned about the choice of Mr O’Sullivan to both roles.
The issue dominated question time, with Dr Flegg asked what measures had been taken to protect commercial-in-confidence information.
Dr Flegg said Labor should raise specific matters if it had concerns about legal obligations or commercial-in-confidence issues.
“I’m certainly not aware of any problem in relation to these matters,” he said.
In the face of repeated questions, Dr Flegg said the opposition seemed to be fascinated by the issue but he accepted Mr Newman’s comments.
Labor’s Jackie Trad said given the government accepted the appointment was inappropriate, it should make clear what value would be placed on Mr O’Sullivan’s report and whether it would be publicly released.
“This is really very much a repeat of the same questions and I can inform the member she’s going to get pretty much the same answer,” Dr Flegg said.
“In relation to what we do with these failed businesses that Labor ran into the ground, that will not be a matter for Mr O’Sullivan and it will not be a matter exclusively for me [to decide].”
Dr Flegg said no written report had been prepared and he lashed out at the opposition, saying the Labor party had chosen to focus on the matter in a bid to “score a few cheap political points”.
“Quite frankly, those opposite have a very large staff of taxpayer-funded support in the opposition office and they haven’t been able to find one matter that actually means something to the people of Queensland,” he said.
Mr Newman said no money was provided to Mr O’Sullivan when asked whether he would refer the matter to the Crime and Misconduct Commission, and accused the “discredited” Labor party of continuing its pre-election smear campaign.
Mr Newman urged the opposition to “put up or shut up” with specific allegations.
“In relation to the Crime and Misconduct sort of sleaze that’s going on, what is it please? Tell me, write to me. They can write to me, please put on the table what the allegation is,” he said.
Labor’s Jo Ann Miller said Dr Flegg had responsibility for whole-of-government procurement practices and should explain what provisions of those procurement policy applied to the appointment of Mr O’Sullivan.
Dr Flegg said the question was “ludicrous” and to equate analysing government businesses with the procurement policies of the government was “bizarre at the least”.
Ms Palaszczuk called yesterday on Mr Newman to sack Dr Flegg, saying she was concerned a party heavyweight, rather than an accounting firm, had been allowed into a government agency to look at the books.
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