With train schedules in chaos, the only thing that is dependable about QR's Citytrain service is that another day brings another excuse for the inexcusable.

Yesterday we got even more cancellations, and more bad excuses.

But this had already reached high farce on Monday when Transport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe acknowledged the existence of a consultant's report from February this year which highlighted the shortage of train crews on the QR network. His excuse was he didn't know about the report until Monday night.

But this was the same Minister who gave a briefing to Cabinet last week which fully outlined the problem. How can he have fully briefed Cabinet and not known of the report?

What needs to be understood is that when a Minister briefs Cabinet after a fiasco, the "I didn't know" excuse doesn't work.

Even a half competent Minister facing this sort of mess would go to QR and ask some thorough questions. I have seen very good Federal Ministers on both sides of politics who have rigorously pursued their own departments to get to the truth, as they should have.

Stirling Hinchliffe, by comparison, seems to have just sat in his office chair like a stunned mullet while he listened to briefings.

But there is a smoking gun that everybody has missed.

The consultant's report was damning enough, but it pointed to the existence of another document the contents of which Mr Hinchliffe must have known.

This was an "overarching operational readiness plan which addresses the needs of the organisation for the delivery of… the MBRL Timetable introduction, and the NGR testing training and commissioning needs and the needs if any for the 2018 Commonwealth Games."

The preparation of this readiness plan was one of the key recommendations of the consultant's report, and there is no indication it was not done.

Given Mr Hinchliffe is not only the Transport Minister, but also the Minister responsible for the Commonwealth Games, he could simply not have been doing his job if he or his staff did not at the very least know the contents of the operational readiness plan.  

Mr Hinchliffe must release the operational readiness plan, so we can all see what it said. He must also outline what inquiries he and his staff made about the readiness of the network for the opening of the Moreton Bay Rail Link.  

If the Minister or his advisors did not ask these questions, then he is simply incapable of doing his job. 

More worrying still, if he is incapable of hiring a few train drivers for a 12km rail line, what hope is there he can oversee the opening of the Commonwealth Games?

Sadly for Queensland commuters, in a government of incompetent Ministers, ignorance is seen as a necessity and paraded as a virtue.

It reminds of me of what Martin Luther King once had to say: "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

That seems to fit this government to a tee, as train commuters will no doubt agree.

Bill O'Chee is a former Nationals Senator for Queensland.