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Queensland’s corruption watchdog, the Crime and Misconduct Commission, is investigating whether government staffers manipulated an online poll hosted by the state opposition, The Courier-Mail has reported. The poll concerned Labor’s contentious Traveston Crossing Dam proposal.
The Daily Grind understands that the CMC will rule on whether the Traveston Crossing Dam poll was free and fair.
The ‘quick poll’ is hosted at Robmessenger.com, which serves as both the website for Nationals MP Rob Messenger and the state’s most important elected assembly. The continued integrity of the site is vital to preserving the authority of important legal decisions, such as “Should Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence stop misleading Queenslanders over the level of drugs in Queensland prisons?”.
Though Deputy Premier Anna Bligh, who used the poll results in parliament, has dismissed the investigation as a waste of time, CMC chairman Robert Needham has told The Courier-Mail that public officials manipulating a website poll was not a “minor matter”.
Mr Needham later told The Daily Grind that he “wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be the most extensive corruption scandal in Queensland history.”
“This goes all the way to the Deputy Premier.”
If the CMC finds that website polls are open to manipulation, the government may be forced to move the Queensland justice system off the “requests for arbitration” page at Wikipedia.org. However, vice-regal proclamations are likely to remain at quentinbryce.blogspot.com.
