On Wednesday, 17 September 2025, I asked the Minister for Education and the Arts about the legal concerns associated with fossil fuel sponsorship of the Queensland Museum.
You can read my full question and the Minister's response below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard) here.
Mr BERKMAN: My question today is to the Minister for Education and the Arts. The minister has been sent legal advice that the Queensland Museum’s partnerships with fossil fuel companies, including the Future Makers program sponsored by Shell, are inconsistent with its legislated obligations to lead the preservation of Queensland’s cultural and natural heritage. Given the evidence that fossil fuel expansion will destroy the Great Barrier Reef, what is the minister’s response to that advice?
Mr LANGBROEK: I thank the honourable member for the question. I am not aware of such correspondence. In the absence of such correspondence, it is very hard for me to comment about something I have not seen. If the member has a copy of such correspondence, I would be happy to consider it, but I note that he did not table it.
Mr BERKMAN: Mr Acting Speaker, I rise to a point of order.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Pause the clock. What is your point of order?
Mr BERKMAN: I take the opportunity to table both the correspondence and the advice that the minister has just referred to.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER: Member for Maiwar, a point of order is not the opportunity to table documents. I will give the call to the Minister for the Arts.
Mr LANGBROEK: When it comes to the Queensland Museum and in fact all of the various not-for-profit organisations under my jurisdiction as Minister for the Arts, whether it is the Museum or the Art Gallery or the Orchestra, it is really important that we seek advice about potential benefactors— people who make donations to our various organisations—and beneficiaries. What we are not inclined to do, especially without evidence that I can refer to, is to draw some specious line between someone being a benefactor and their recommendations that affect an organisation that is doing a completely different thing in terms of what is in the museum.
I am happy to consider the information when I receive it. However, when it comes to issues that the member is asking me about, I think it is a long bow to draw between what is being suggested in terms of what the member has asked in his question and then asking me as the minister responsible to make some policy decision based on a letter that I have not seen and to then say that in some of our institutions we would be looking at the issues he is raising and that we are going to make policy decisions based on that.
We have a more considered way of looking at issues, rather than looking at a letter that has been written by someone who is an advocate for a particular issue and then saying on the strength of that recommendation that we should be doing that at the museum or at any of other institutions. I heard the question once. To do exactly what it is that he is suggesting we do is really drawing a long bow. I am happy to consider it. I am happy to come back and advise the House in a more formal way. I just cannot do it in the form in which it has been asked.