Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

As I mentioned, the Premier's first excuse for pulling the economic rug out from under the people of North Queensland was that there was a conflict of interest—her partner worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers, who were preparing the application for Adani to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility. So the Premier rightly sought advice from the Queensland Integrity Commissioner. That advice came back to the Premier and the Queensland government later in the first week of the campaign. The preferred option from the Integrity Commissioner was: 'Declare a conflict of interest to the chair of the Cabinet Budget Review Committee, the Treasurer and the Minister for Trade and Investment and exclude yourself from any part of CBRC meetings that involve deliberations and decision-making about NAIF projects at the investment decision and execution stage.' That's what the advice said, but the Premier made out that the Integrity Commissioner wanted her to simply veto the project. She misconstrued this advice and misled and deceived the Queensland people—and now they are being made to suffer for the Queensland government's inability to get on the same page on this.