Queensland's corruption watchdog says there are no grounds to investigate its conduct after the collapse of fraud charges that saw an entire council sacked.
There were cheers of celebration inside Brisbane Magistrates Court on Wednesday when fraud charges were dropped against seven former Logan City councillors and ex-mayor Luke Smith.
Prosecutors told the court they did not have enough evidence to proceed and withdrew the charges.
The admission ended two years of legal limbo for former deputy mayor Cherie Dalley and councillors Jennifer Breene, Russell Lutton, Phillip Pidgeon, Trevina Schwarz, Laurence Smith and Stephen Swenson.
Fraud charges against Mr Smith were also dropped but the former mayor is still facing a District Court trial on two charges of misconduct in relation to public office.
It was 2019 when Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission (CCC) charged all eight with fraud. They were quickly sacked from their council positions and an administrator was appointed to run Logan City.
The charges related to a decision to sack the council's former CEO Sharon Kelsey four months after she gave information to the CCC about alleged possible misconduct by Mr Smith.
Days before terminating Ms Kelsey's employment, councillors were told it would be unlawful to do so because she made the disclosure, or because she had started proceedings in the industrial relations commission.
After prosecutors abandoned the charges on Wednesday, the Local Government Association of Queensland called for an independent inquiry into the CCC's conduct.
"Careers, lives and reputations were ruined and a democratically elected council wrongly sacked before these erroneously laid charges could be properly tested by the courts," LGAQ chief Greg Hallam said.
He said CCC chair Alan MacSporran should step aside while the watchdog is investigated, and said councillors should get compensation and a public apology for an "egregious misuse of the justice system".
But Mr MacSporran hit back saying there are no grounds to criticise or investigate the CCC for probing serious allegations of public sector corruption.
He said the CCC had merely prepared a brief of evidence for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the ODPP had independently decided to prosecute the charges the CCC had laid.
"They went ahead with the prosecutions and it was only when the committal proceedings in the magistrates court were well advanced that the charges were discontinued," he said.
"It is difficult to see how it could be reasonably suggested there should be an inquiry into the CCC's conduct."
Mr Lutton, who was a Logan councillor for 34 years, said he and other sacked councillors were taking advice to "see where we can go".
"To have my reputation tarnished and snapped from beneath me at the whim of the government and others is soul-destroying," he said outside court.
Mr Pidgeon was a councillor for more than 20 years and said he lost his career, his reputation and almost his marriage.
"We are all innocent of these charges and something needs to happen to make sure this does not happen again."
Ms Schwarz said she endured "two years of hell" tormented by the thought of a lengthy jail term.
She said she had voted to end Ms Kelsey's employment as the council's CEO not as an act of retribution but based on her conscience and the advice of some of Queensland's leading industrial lawyers.
"The death of the presumption of innocence which has occurred to me and my fellow accused and now acquitted fellow councillors is appalling."
Queensland's current Local Government Minister and Deputy Premier Steven Miles wouldn't comment, saying the matter would be referred back to the CCC after prosecutors abandoned the charges.
Australian Associated Press
