As it happened: Brisbane on Tuesday, July 23

Out of the $1.27 billion in unpaid debts owing to the State Penalties Enforcement Registry (SPER), $184 million has been on the books for more than 10 years.

The total debt owing has grown $4.31 million in one year, but the agency has made a dent in debts older than a decade, which sat at almost $199 million just one year ago.

Debts aged between five to 10 years, and three to five years also decreased in value.

SPER is responsible for collecting and enforcing unpaid traffic fines and court-ordered penalties, and tactics to compel people to pay include driver licence suspension, collection from wages, vehicle immobilisation and property seizure.

The figures have been revealed in budget estimates documents.

The Queensland government has so far spent $994,011 on a $2 million independent review of the state’s homelessness response, the budget estimates process has revealed.

The funding supports a project team of technical specialists, including analysts, strategy advisors and homelessness sector experts.

The review is being headed by former Department of Premier and Cabinet director-general Rachel Hunter on a pro bono basis, after media reports revealed she had been hired for the position just weeks after leaving her government job with a $400,000 payout.

Premier Steven Miles said stakeholders had recommended Hunter to the Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon, who had suggested her to him.

LNP leader David Crisafulli has asked how many hours Hunter has worked on the review for free.

The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal has overturned a police decision to revoke a man’s gun licence after his suicidal son was able to access and fire a shotgun.

Almost four years after the incident, on a rural property, the man successfully argued he was a fit and proper person worthy of holding a licence.

The man told the tribunal he had been cleaning his shotgun after shooting feral animals the night before. Upon hearing his son had crashed a vehicle into a tree, during a mental health crisis, the shotgun was placed under the bed instead of the gun safe.

The son later found the shotgun and fired it inside the house.

QCAT member Hugh Scott-Mackenzie said it was fortunate no one was injured in the incident.

“The shotgun should have been in the applicant’s gun safe,” Scott-Mackenzie said.

“He was aware his son suffered depression and should have been vigilant to ensure his son did not have access to any of his weapons.”

However, Scott-Mackenzie accepted the incident occurred in unusual circumstances, the man was charged with a weapons offence but had no conviction recorded, had since completed a firearms safety course and needed the weapon to control snakes and feral animals.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has called the LNP’s use of artifical intelligence to create a fake video of him “appalling” and “disgusting”.

The 14-second LNP TikTok ad, which was marked as AI-generated and appears visibly so, shows Miles dancing to Ne-Yo’s Closer.

The attempt to ridicule the premier’s use of TikTok to show a side of his personal life also features the caption: ‘POV: my rent is up $600 a week, my power bill is up 20 per cent, but the premier made a sandwich on TikTok’.

In a statement to the ABC, Miles reminded voters to be cautious of what they see on social media.

“In a time when misinformation is everywhere, we as politicians have a duty to communicate with our audiences and to voters clearly and honestly,” Miles said.

“It’s appalling and disgusting that David Crisafulli has stooped to using AI and deep fake videos to attack me.”

A government spokesperson has responded to our request for comment on the first image of Brisbane’s planned Olympic stadium, obtained through the Right to Information Act.

The photocopied image of the Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre (QSAC) shows a single permanent covered grandstand, with most of the crowd exposed to the elements in uncovered temporary seating.

The no-frills Olympic stadium, designed by architecture firm Populous, would hold just 40,000 spectators and be downsized to 14,000 after the Games.

This morning, a Department of State Development and Infrastructure spokesperson said the image was “illustrative only and does not reflect a final reference design for QSAC”.

“The Project Validation Report (PVR) process, including for QSAC, involves consultation with a range of stakeholders, both internal and external to Government, and [is] often supported by briefing material such as presentations, with images to aid discussions,” they said in a statement.

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Premier Steven Miles has been forced to defend a trip to regional Queensland during a crime policy tour in April this year, when he and new Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski took two private jets, rather than some staff flying commercially.

Sitting in the hot seat during parliamentary estimates on Tuesday morning, Miles said it was standard practice for funding to be given to QGAir to provide services to the government, including for ministerial travel, prisoner transfer and organ transplants.

“Less than 3 per cent of flight hours are used by the Premier or by ministers,” Miles said.

“My itinerary was booked and confirmed some time earlier.

“The police commissioner was appointed just prior to that travel, and I asked that he accompany me on some elements of the trip. He then went about, his office, I assume, then went about booking his travel arrangements.”

Estimates hearings give MPs from the opposition and crossbench to grill ministers and public servants, such as department attorneys-general, but there’s also plenty of opportunities for government MPs to ask Dorothy Dixers.