The state's transport minister says he did not push Queensland Rail chairman Phillip Strachan to resign, despite stepping in to block QR executive bonuses this week on the grounds that the organisation had yet to recover from service failures.
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Mr Strachan, the man called in to straighten out QR last year, resigned as chairman on Thursday, and two other QR board members - senior finance officer Sandra Birkensleigh and senior engineer Paul Wallis - quit shortly after.
On Friday Transport Minister Mark Bailey denied relations had broken down between the state government and the QR board.
The QR board had signed off on $3.6 million in bonuses to executives last Friday but the bonuses were blocked this week, with Deputy Premier Jackie Trad telling executives many of the issues identified with Queensland Rail had not been fully remedied.
Mr Bailey said his signature on QR's annual report did not mean he had approved the executive bonuses.
He said when he was made aware of QR's move on Tuesday - which he described as an "error of judgment" - he asked Ms Trad to stop the bonuses.
Mr Bailey said the state government and QR were still using Mr Strachan's scathing recommendations into system failures as a template and were halfway through implementing them.
But he could not give a definitive answer when asked by ABC host Rebecca Levingston when QR would be running at full speed, with a sufficient number of drivers operating a full timetable.
"The date I have in mind, Rebecca, is as soon as possible," Mr Bailey responded.
"That’s not a date minister, it’s not a deadline. 'As soon as possible' can mean anything from a week to a month to a year. Surely you have a time frame in mind," Ms Levingston fired back.
"We will have a date, Rebecca, when we are certain we have the sustainability in terms of the number of drivers and resources to make sure that it definitely can be delivered," Mr Bailey said.
"We’re seeing signs of recovery, the full timetable has been kept in place for these school holidays and the last school holidays for the first time since October 2016.
"We’ve seen the overtime coming down, the number of drivers increasing every month and on-time running is above 95 per cent every quarter for the last year."
The minister said he was keen to continue to work with Mr Strachan "to continue the process of reform".
"He has made a substantial contribution, I certainly acknowledge that, and thank him for all of his work - he has given, really, two years of his life to Queensland Rail."
He blamed an LNP "botch-up" for the QR problems, saying the government led by former premier Campbell Newman didn't start training a single driver during its last year.
In a letter to all staff on Thursday afternoon, Mr Strachan said he was proud of the work QR had delivered since he became chair.
That included improvements to on-time running (to 95 per cent), reducing driver overtime by 20 per cent, reducing the duration of new driver training by 30 per cent and introducing 29 new generation trains into paid service.
The process to replace the former QR executives would start on Friday.
With Felicity Caldwell
