QUEENSLAND Premier Campbell Newman is in crisis management as a senior public servant he hand-picked is investigated for allegedly misleading parliament.
Michael Caltabiano on Thursday stood down on full pay from his $500,000-a-year post as transport and main roads director-general over concerns he may have misled a budget estimates hearing last week.
Political analyst Dr Scott Prasser says Mr Caltabiano, having been a Liberal state MP, a Liberal Brisbane city councillor and a Liberal party president, isn't "any old public servant".
"He has strong political links, so this is a very challenging situation," Dr Prasser, a former Australian Catholic University academic, told AAP.
"How he is dealt with if he is guilty will show us how far the Newman government's standards of integrity go.
"They can give in to politics and give him a slap on the wrist and say 'naughty boy', or decide that he should be made an example of like they did with former police minister David Gibson."
Mr Newman dumped Mr Gibson as police minister in April over unpaid speeding fines.
Mr Caltabiano was among Mr Newman's first appointments, sparking accusations he was creating jobs for mates.
Dr Prasser said the appointment had been doomed to fail.
"He probably had a falling out with the transport minister because you can't have two political people running a department," he said.
Queensland Transport Minister Scott Emerson took the unusual step of referring his own director-general to parliament's ethics committee.
Mr Newman told reporters on Friday he and Mr Emerson had concerns about Mr Caltabiano's testimony.
"And we made the decision to refer the matter," he said.
Mr Emerson said while he had the premier's support, it was "my decision to send it to the Speaker Fiona Simpson, asking her to refer the matter to the ethics committee".
He said he had asked Mr Caltabiano about apparent discrepancies between what he told the estimates hearing and what the media reports had said.
When asked about his relationship with departmental liaison officer Ben Gommers - the son of Arts Minister Ros Bates - Mr Caltabiano told the hearing he had known him personally, not professionally.
But subsequent media reports allege Mr Caltabiano was named, alongside Mr Gommers, on the register of lobbying firm Entre Vous.
Mr Gommers, who earns up to $105,000 a year, is currently the subject of a Crime and Misconduct Commission investigation into his employment at Mr Caltabiano's department.
The Parliamentary Ethics Committee is now investigating Mr Caltabiano as well.
The committee can only make recommendations. It's up to the LNP-dominated parliament to decide what action, if any, will be taken.
Ethics committee chairman and LNP MP Alex Douglas said it was rare for parliament not to follow the committee's recommendation.
And while the committee is headed by an LNP member, he said it was bipartisan.
"People should be reassured that the ethics committee, which is one of the instruments of how parliament manages itself, takes itself really seriously and is impartial," Dr Douglas said.
The Newman government reintroduced laws making it a criminal offence, punishable by up to seven years' jail, to lie to parliament.
The Beattie government removed the legislation in 2006 when former health minister Gordon Nuttall was accused of misleading a parliamentary committee.
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