Extract from ABC News website:
Updated
Queensland Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk
has accused the head of the state's Crime and Misconduct Commission
(CMC) of misleading Parliament.
She renewed a call for Ken Levy to resign and demanded a parliamentary inquiry into his reappointment today as head of the CMC."Queenslanders can no longer have confidence in him remaining as the chair of the independent CMC," she said.
It came after it emerged that Lee Anderson, Premier Campbell Newman's chief media adviser, lobbied for the CMC chief to brief the media on controversial new anti-bikie laws.
On October 31, The Courier-Mail newspaper ran a front-page opinion piece attributed to Dr Levy that supported the Government's controversial laws.
Dr Levy told a parliamentary committee last week he had had no contact with the Government over the laws and the article had been his idea.
But documents emerged today showing the article appeared just days after Mr Anderson, with the blessing of Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie, had called the CMC media unit to suggest Dr Levy "do a sit-down chat (with the media) on the bikie issue".
Key players
- Dr Ken Levy - acting chair of the CMC. Professor of law at Bond University and former director-general in the Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney-General
- Lee Anderson - head of the Premier's media unit and former head of Channel 9 TV News in Queensland
- Annastacia Palaszczuk - ALP state MP for Inala in Brisbane's southwest and Leader of the Opposition
- Phillip Nase - one of three part-time CMC commissioners. Former District Court judge and for 17 years a Crown prosecutor
In a memo tabled in State Parliament, CMC commissioner Phillip Nase states that Mr Anderson had called the CMC media unit on October 22.
Mr Anderson "was keen for people to realise that bikies were not kind old men, and he asked that the issue be raised with Ken", Mr Nase wrote in the memo.
"We understood the call was, in effect, a request the CMC consider undertaking media interviews about the Government's criminal motorcycle gang legislation, and specifically that the Attorney-General would be supportive of the CMC undertaking any media."
His memo also stated that he and fellow commissioners had discussed the call with the CMC's senior media officer.
"He [the media officer] commented to us that there was discussion among some staff at the CMC that the approach ... was like an approach to a department, and not like an approach to an independent office," Mr Nase states in the memo.
He says that when he and two fellow CMC commissioners questioned Dr Levy about it, Dr Levy had denied the call influenced his decision to write the article.
Levy says answer to committee question 'inaccurate'
A letter written by Dr Levy to PCMC chair Liz Cunningham was also tabled in Parliament today.In the letter, Dr Levy explains that one of his answers at a hearing last week had been "inaccurate" in that he had failed to remember the call from the Premier's media adviser.
"I did not honestly have any recollection of the conversation at the time of answering the question," he wrote.
Dr Levy told Ms Cunningham that an acting assistant commissioner had already been willing to "do the media".
I want to assure Queenslanders that I have not lost my independence and I am confident the CMC's independence has not been lost nor has its objectivity on matters been compromised as a result of the opinion piece I wrote.Ken Levy
"But as the press seemed unbalanced on the new laws ... I said I wanted to do the first tranche," Dr Levy stated.
In his letter to Ms Cunningham, he says he had agreed to an interview with a Courier-Mail journalist, but "the main story which I thought was important was not printed".
He had subsequently sent "written notes" by email to the journalist, whose address he had found online.
Dr Levy says two days later, the written work appeared as an exclusive on the front page under his name.
Asked by the ABC whether he had written the article in his personal or official capacity, Dr Levy said it had been in his official capacity.
At the PCMC hearing last week, Dr Levy said it had been in both a private and official capacity.
In a statement late today, Dr Levy said: "I want to assure Queenslanders that I have not lost my independence and I am confident the CMC's independence has not been lost nor has its objectivity on matters been compromised as a result of the opinion piece I wrote."
He said he had not consulted the CMC commissioners, CMC management or its media unit before sending his comments to The Courier-Mail.
The Government, which wants to reform the CMC after a review was highly critical of its operations, today appointed Dr Levy to a further six-month term.
"I look forward to leading the CMC through a period of change," he said.
Levy asked if views indicated change in CMC policy
The ABC earlier asked Dr Levy whether his views represented a change in the CMC's official policy, which has previously not supported proposals to criminalise motorcycle clubs.The CMC chair replied in a statement that he had "been concerned by the increasing visibility of CMGs [criminal motorcycle gangs] in Queensland and their apparent propensity to engage in conflict, often involving firearms, in places frequented by the community".
"The CMC's intelligence assessments have identified that a new generation of CMG members is emerging with different cultures from those traditionally identified with CMGs, and that these new members are being recruited from non-traditional areas such as street gangs, fitness centres and prisons," Dr Levy told the ABC.
In a 2008 submission to a federal inquiry into organised crime policy, the CMC warned of difficulties in enforcing anti-association-type laws, which it did not support.
That submission stated: "Membership of serious and organised crime groups would still need to be proven in court and legal challenges will be expected."
The submission criticised "anti-consorting legislation" because "persons may be sent to gaol not for what they do but for whom they know ... There are also concerns that such legislation may breach fundamental democratic principles such as freedom of association".
The CMC also warned that the policing of anti-consorting laws in Queensland had historically been associated with significant police corruption.
In his statement to the ABC, Dr Levy acknowledged that two issues identified by the CMC in 2008 as needing reform in Queensland - laws on phone intercepts and proceeds of crime - had since been addressed.
Dr Levy said the 2008 submission had not been a statement of official CMC policy.
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