Crime and Misconduct Commission Chairperson Martin Moynihan AO QC says today’s second conviction of former Minister of the Crown Gordon Nuttall — already serving seven years’ imprisonment — echoes the wider public’s zero tolerance of corruption in the public sector.
‘Misconduct, and in the worst instances, official corruption, will not be tolerated,’ said Mr Moynihan. ‘Entrenched integrity should be the minimum benchmark for all politicians and public sector managers, leading by example.
‘Not only is it a betrayal of the community’s trust for an elected Minister of the Crown to commit such gross corruption, but a betrayal of the public sector itself and the majority of good officers.’
Mr Moynihan’s comments follow a Brisbane District Court jury’s guilty verdict against Mr Nuttall, 57, on five counts of official corruption and five counts of perjury.
The evidence presented at Mr Nuttall’s second trial showed that between 10 December 2001 and 1 April 2006, he corruptly received payments totalling $152,700 from businessman and close friend, Brendan McKennariey.
Mr Nuttall was a Minister of the Crown from February 2001 until December 2005. He remained a Member of Parliament until September 2006.
He held three ministerial positions – Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Health and Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries — over the period that Mr McKennariey received government funds as a subcontractor for two projects:
• a Workplace Health and Safety training program in Indigenous communities commissioned by the Department of Industrial Relations in 2001; and
• a study on waste water in hospitals commissioned by Queensland Health in 2004 and 2005.
Additionally, the jury found that Mr Nuttall perjured himself on five occasions during a CMC hearing in September 2006, including denying any knowledge of Mr McKennariey’s business dealings or that he was connected to the contracts in question.
District Court Judge Kerry O’Brien has deferred sentencing until next month.
Mr Nuttall faced his first corruption trial last year. On 17 July 2009, he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment on 36 charges of receipt or solicitation of secret commissions totalling almost $360,000 from businessmen, Harold Shand and the late Ken Talbot.
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