Clean Energy Council names former Queensland deputy premier as new CEO

Senior Queensland Labor politician and former deputy premier of the Sunshine State, Jackie Trad, has been named as the new chief executive officer of the Clean Energy Council, following the departure at the start of the month of longtime CEO, Kane Thornton.

The CEC said on Tuesday that its board, currently headed up by Iberdrola Australia chief Ross Rolfe, had appointed Trad to lead the organisation – one of Australia’s peak renewable energy industry bodies – “into its next chapter.”

Rolfe says Trad will bring “sophistication and focus” to the CEC, as well as a “wealth of experience in building consensus across a wide group of stakeholders and a deep understanding of policy development and design.

“Jackie is also passionate about delivering a smooth and just transition to Australia’s energy system to ensure that we maximise the benefits of the transition and minimise the adverse impacts on Australian consumers and communities,” Rolfe said.

Trad, who will be the first woman to lead the industry group, was deputy premier of Queensland from 2015 to 2020, when Annastacia Palaszczuk was premier, and treasurer from 2017 to 2020.

“I am incredibly excited to be part of the Clean Energy Council – the leading voice for the companies and organisations delivering the clean energy infrastructure, generation and firming for Australia’s clean energy future,” Trad said on Tuesday.

“As someone with a long-standing commitment to action on climate change, I know we are now in an important period of delivery, where policy reform and impactful advocacy, across governments and within communities, is critical and necessary to achieve a successful jobs and energy transition for Australians.”

The CEC says Trad, who was the state Labor member for South Brisbane for more than eight years (2012 to 2020), brings deep experience in energy policy reform, including through the establishment of Queensland’s publicly owned clean energy company, CleanCo, and the setting of its renewable energy targets.

“Jackie brought together environmental groups, the resources industry and regional communities to achieve …crucial world-class law reforms to protect regional jobs, protect the environment and protect industry’s investment in Queensland,” the CEC says.

“With more than 30 years’ experience in public policy, government, membership-based organisations and campaigns, Jackie’s experience will be incredibly valuable in leading and guiding the CEC’s work and influence on Australia’s transition to a clean energy economy, on behalf of members.”

Whether she will be able to build a bridge with the current Queensland government, however, remains to be seen.

The LNP Crisafulli government – which has marched back some of the progress Queensland had made on climate and renewables under Labor – earlier this year used parliamentary privilege to release a Crime and Corruption Commission report on Trad.

According to the Guardian, Trad had taken legal action to block the release of the report, which was finalised in 2021 after determining that there were insufficient grounds for Trad to be charged with criminal or corrupt conduct.

“Knowing for some time that the report was filled with subjective character judgments but no actual findings against me, I approached the CCC, through my lawyers, to settle the matter in 2023, to which they did not respond and chose to go to the high court,” Trad said in

“Every single member of the full bench of the high court resoundingly found against the CCC.

“For the LNP government to now release the reports against the judgment of the high court, and in light of the CCC’s recent track record, for the purposes of political point-scoring is both terrifying and petty,” Trad said.