The 75-year-old, who likened the inquiry to blackmail, warned the state government not to "dignify the inquiry with cooperation"

Mr Howard responded animatedly to Redland City mayor Karen Williams who pressed him on his thoughts on the investigation before launching his latest tome, The Menzies Era, in Cleveland this week.

Cr Williams said the inquiry could jeopardise two multi-million-dollar development projects at Redland city's two ferry terminals.

Mr Howard, who said the Senate was "full of Labor apparatchiks", questioned the benefits of the state cooperating with the inquiry and said it was a "complete corruption of the parliamentary process".

"I think it's just outrageous and the Labor party only agreed to it [the inquiry] if it did not include the Bligh government," he said.

"But I think we (the LNP) should maintain a consistency of opposition …

"I wonder what the Queensland government will do and whether it should dignify the inquiry with any cooperation.

Mr Howard said he wrote the book out of admiration for the Liberal Party founder, the country's longest serving prime minister.

He gave Immigration Minister Scott Morrison the thumbs up.

But the former prime minister would only say "people in Australia should have the freedom to wear what they want" when asked about the controversy over confining women wearing burqas to the classed enclosures in Parliament House chambers.

Redland City Bulletin