17 January 2004

Mr Peter Beattie,
Premier of Queensland

'Minister denied justice: Beattie'

I should like to strongly support your expressed concern for natural justice (Macfarlane D., and Wilson A., The Australian, 16/1/04). You were referring particularly to the processes used by Q-Compo which apparently allowed release of an adverse determination against one of your ministers (Ms Merri Rose) even though she had had no opportunity to respond.

However I should also like to submit that natural justice not only requires the formality of a hearing but also that the person conducting it have the ability to understand the issues involved.

On this basis I again request that you take action to rectify a gross abuse of natural justice which arose when your Department refused to allow professional merit to be considered in investigating a matter related to the making of a senior Public Service appointment.

Details of this damaging abuse of power were first drawn to the attention of your Government in a letter of 10 July 1998 to the then Acting Director General of your Department. They are also available in an up-dated form in Autocratic Ignorance Purges the Public Service.

In relation to this I note again that:

• political manipulation of what is now your Department under the Goss administration had caused it to regress dramatically in its ability to assess technical merit in relation to many professional matters - especially in relation to the economic development functions it then had;

• as a result of many years of research, I had made a breakthrough of philosophical, theoretical and practical significance in understanding economic development as systemic issue, and in relation to the critical role which knowledge plays in economic progress. This could have been easily explained to any technically competent and receptive audience - and enabled practical substance to be given to the rhetoric about the development of a more sophisticated economy which has prevailed in Queensland in recent years (ie of a Smart State);

• when I expressed a grievance about the making of a senior policy R&D position ( a position similar to that which I had successfully filled for a decade), the person the Department appointed to investigate it stated that he lacked the ability to assess the matter on merit;

• when I pointed out the importance of merit considerations, your Department failed to arrange for participation by a person with relevant knowledge, but instead proceeded with my immediate involuntary retrenchment;

• your Department has consistently refused my requests for reasons for its refusal to allow professional merit to be considered (though I have reasonable suspicions about what they were), or to explain how a person in my situation was expected to get fair and just treatment.

I look forward to your favourable response to this request that you take action to redress an abuse of natural justice that is within your power.