Mungana affair

The Mungana affair involved the sale to the Government of Queensland, Australia, in 1922, of some mining properties in the Chillagoe-Mungana districts of northern Queensland,[1] at a grossly inflated price. At that time, Ted Theodore was Premier of Queensland and William McCormack, Member for Cairns and a former Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland,

In 1927 Theodore entered Federal politics, while McCormack became Premier of Queensland from 1925 to 1929.

In 1929 the Queensland Government appointed a Royal Commission to investigate the sale. The Commission found that at the time of the sale in 1922, Theodore and McCormack each secretly held 25% ownership of the properties sold. In July 1930, the scandal forced Theodore to resign from his role as Treasurer of Australia.[2] McCormack had already resigned from Queensland Parliament in February 1930 before the adverse findings by the Royal Commission.[3]

The Queensland Government did not charge either man with any offence.

References

  1. ↑ "State Mines: The Mungana Acquisistion". Brisbane Courier. 1922-02-15. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
  2. ↑ "Advertising". The Week. CIX, (2, 846). Queensland, Australia. 11 July 1930. p. 1. Retrieved 5 November 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ↑ "MR. M'CORMACK". The Brisbane Courier (22, 487). Queensland, Australia. 22 February 1930. p. 15. Retrieved 5 November 2017 – via National Library of Australia.

Further reading

  • K. H. Kennedy. The Mungana Affair: State Mining and Political Corruption in the 1920s, University of Queensland Press, 1978
  • Trevor Sykes. Two Centuries of Panic, Allen and Unwin, 1988. (Chapter 11: "Theodore's scandal")
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.