AN Australian state’s Scots-born chief scientist has been forced to step aside from her post after she was charged with a fraudulent private health insurance benefit totalling £27,400.
Professor Suzanne Miller, 52, who is originally from Edinburgh, has also had to surrender her Australian and UK passport after she was alleged to have claimed the $45,000 using the private health insurance of the Queensland Museum.
The charges were brought against her just hours before she had been due to appear alongside the state’s science minister before a budget committee of Queensland’s Parliament. She did not appear after news broke of the development.
Ms Miller, who is also the chief executive officer and director of the Queensland Museum Network and is paid about £240,000 a year, is expected before Brisbane Magistrates Court on August 8.
As part of the investigation, her home and officers were raided by investigators.
It is thought that Ms Miller believed she was on a visa that entitled her to make a claim for private health insurance, but it was ineligible.
The expert, who studied geology at the University of St Andrews at at Imperial College in London, made history as the first woman to hold post of Queensland chief scientist in 2016.
Court documents filed by the country’s Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) said the alleged dishonesty took place between February 2014 and July 24 this year. Ms Miller, who will continue to be paid her salary, must stay away from the museum and not contact board members, employees of the Corporate Administration Agency, or contact any witnesses or potential witnesses.
A senior Queensland government spokesman has since confirmed Ms Miller has been stood aside as chief scientist.
Science Minister Leeanne Enoch said: “We will have an acting arrangement for the chief scientist but that’s all I can say on that.
“The chief scientist has a very important role in Queensland and she has been incredibly successful in terms of putting science front and centre, not just in Queensland but in Australia.
“We’ve seen over 180,000 people in Queensland, in Brisbane celebrating science, and she’s played an incredibly crucial role in all of that.
“There is a CCC investigation and obviously I can’t make any further comment on that.”
Prime Minister Annastacia Palaszczuk confirmed the chief scientist had been stood aside pending the outcome of the fraud investigation.
“I was shocked just like everybody else, but they need to run their natural course through the justice system,” Ms Palaszczuk said. Ms Miller has been stood aside from both roles at full pay, but must show cause within 21 days as to why that arrangement should continue.
On July 21, Ms Miller was named as the chair of the new expert panel to advise on fisheries management by Queensland Fisheries Minister Bill Byrne.
Ms Miller was the director of the South Australian Museum from 2007 to 2013.
Following her appointment to the Queensland post in May 2013, the state’s arts minister Ian Walker said she had the “drive to build on the museum’s impressive record of research, partnerships and dynamic experiences”.
Ms Miller also holds a range of advisory roles, including chair of the Council of Australasian Museum Directors.
Queensland Museum board chairman David Conry said: “We are working with the relevant authorities to provide the information required.”
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