Please attribute the following to Shadow Integrity Minister Fiona Simpson:
I’m deeply concerned by more reports surrounding the actions of the Office of Independent Assessor.
All Queenslanders should know this is a very serious issue.
Elected officials should be able to freely express their views in their own local communities without fear of prosecution.
I fear there is a genuine risk being posed to our democracy.
I fear the Office of the Independent Assessor is being used to strong-arm elected officials who hold contrary views to the current Queensland Government.
I fear the actions of the OIA are authoritarian which doesn’t represent who we are as a society.
As I understand, the Mayor was pointing out some realities about the logistical difficulties of how to get vaccinations to his community.
He was speaking as a local who knows and cares for his community.
His job isn’t to follow the script from the central government casting, it’s to represent his community.
As Queensland’s Shadow Integrity Minister my job is to call out overreach and political bullying when I see it.
Please attribute the following to Shadow Local Government Minister Ann Leahy:
PCCC hearings into the Logan Council sacking, Supreme Court Cases against journalists, now potential misconduct for highlighting failures of the vaccine rollout.
There is starting to be a pattern of overreach in Queensland by this third-term State Government.
This is deeply concerning.
The abilities of elected mayors and councillors to represent their communities is being made impossible by the overreach of State Government and the ‘independent’ bodies it oversees.
Cr Sean Dillion’s case, is one of many, and again highlights how mayors and councillors are being prevented from doing the job they were elected to do.
It is obscene that a Brisbane-based bureaucrat can use their powerful State Government funded office to strong-arm the elected councillors of a small local government.
The State Government must rein in the overreach of the OIA.
These bodies are ultimately answerable to Queenslanders and right now I fear the OIA is not working in the best interests of Queensland’s great local communities.
