Taxpayers for more than $75,000 to pay for quorum's legal bill

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Taxpayers for more than $75,000 to pay for quorum's legal bill

Queensland taxpayers have forked out about $75,000 to pay for the state's corruption watchdog's legal bill fighting court action brought by former deputy premier Jackie Trad.

The costs were incurred by the Crime and Corruption Commission CCC because of the legal action launched by Ms Trad in the Supreme Court to have a CCC report suppressed from being publicly released.

It is not known whether the report will make any findings against Ms Trad.

The total expenditure on external legal fees from May 2021 to May 5 this year is $74,137, according to the document from the CCC released today. About $42,006. 25 has been incurred for junior counsel and $32,130. 76 for senior counsel.

Another $1,468 was added. There are 50 of internal costs that have been spent on transcripts of court appearances and proceedings.

It states that the CCC briefed senior counsel Matthew Wilkinson and senior counsel Peter Dunning QC to represent it in relation to the judicial review brought by the applicant on May 24, 2021.

The CCC's legal costs were revealed at a private meeting of the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee PCCC this afternoon.

The decision to release the costings was due to be made in a meeting on Thursday but was delayed because four Labor MPs didn't attend.

Their lack of attendance meant that the meeting lacked quorum and could not proceed.

The Chair of the PCCC, Jon Krause, said on Thursday it was disappointing that the government members haven't seen fit to show up to integrity matters in Queensland Labor MPs, who blocked attempts to reveal the CCC's legal costs in May because the matter was ongoing.

Taxpayers are funding some or all of Ms Trad's legal costs.