Jarrod Bleijie, defended the claim, saying he was responding specifically to a question about the lawyers who lodged the defamation claim. Credit:Chris Hyde Lawyers, as implied by the title of their profession, are sworn to uphold the law so this pair believed they had been defamed and took action to defend their names against the incendiary statements of the dynamic duo who were ever-so-briefly Batman and Robin of Queensland. That left Mr Newman and Mr Bleijie, firstly, having to demonstrate the truth of their claims. The way defamation law works is that you face an uphill battle if you can't claim truth as part of your defence. And, presumably, this is why the case ended up going to mediation rather than the far more expensive route of litigation where a jury can decide the case. But mediation implies compromise. And without knowing the details (because this was an exercise in which the taxpayers would pay the bill), it's easy to see the former premier being unwilling to compromise on his statements by publicly admitting they were wrong. The effect of that is simply to push up the price of the settlement, which is easy for the defendant who can take a stand on principle – even when they have lost the case – without taking responsibility for the cost.

That responsibility, Dear Citizen, is yours. That's despite Mr Newman and Mr Bleijie having the resources of the state to either know what they were saying was true or not or use the privilege of Parliament to say it if it was contestable. Those experienced at defamation are stunned at the outcome. This settlement is well beyond what anyone else is known to have paid out in Queensland for defamation. The only publicly known settlement approaching it was the $400,000 Alan Bond paid Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen in the mid-'80s - but it was by no means a typical defamation payout. Instead of jumping in and ordering a review, Annastacia Palaszczuk should be making sure Mr Newman and his former colleagues wear the stain of this sloppiness. Those most associated with his leadership (Mr Bleijie, former deputy Jeff Seeney and former Treasurer Tim Nicholls) are still in the opposition frontline and they deserve a public Please Explain. After all, their mantra in government was to cut waste. While we got some of that, we also got big bills for advice to sell government assets and an expensive advertising campaign to justify the sale but the failure of basic political leadership to convince the community this was the right approach. Those most associated with Mr Newman's leadership (Mr Bleijie, former deputy Jeff Seeney and former Treasurer Tim Nicholls) are still in the opposition frontline and they deserve a public Please Explain.

The former premier's ill-discipline in thinking he could do whatever he liked saddled the state with a spare chief justice who retains his former entitlements to preside over neighbourhood disputes until he's ready to retire. It's also stuck the taxpayer with new government offices which will leave thousands of square metres of city office space unused. And now this. Half a million dollars. Enough to fund five teachers for a year. All for the sake of a grab on the TV news to support the uncontroversial idea that we needed tougher laws against outlaw motorcycle gangs. What's particularly galling is that the taxpayer should have to cop this bill for the statements of a former premier who's made a mission in and out of office of criticising what he believes are poor media standards. Yet no one recently working in the media has been guilty of such an expensive breach of standards.

Mr Newman has now turned to live media commentary. Hopefully, for his own sake and for the sake of his broadcaster, he's learnt that whatever he thinks isn't automatically right. For independent news coverage, be sure to follow our Facebook feed.