17 February 2012

Floods inquiry secrecy order to protect key witnesses

Gailes Caravan Park adjacent to Brisbane Road
 Gailes and Woogaroo Creek in the aftermath
 of the Brisbane River Flood of 11 January 2011.

THE Queensland floods inquiry has drawn a veil of secrecy over its final legal submissions that will prevent any adverse references to key witnesses from being published unless commissioner Cate Holmes agrees with them in her final report.

Senior legal and government sources expressed astonishment at Justice Holmes's ruling as four flood engineers have already faced accusations from the inquiry's lead lawyer of concocting a "fiction" in an orchestrated cover-up of their alleged mismanagement of the Wivenhoe Dam before last year's Brisbane floods. 

The engineers have strongly denied the claims.

17.2.12