In a press conference yesterday, Beattie said Nuttall had let down his former cabinet colleagues by concealing a $300,000 loan from prominent Queensland businessman and CEO of Macarthur Coal Ken Talbot, Australian Associated Press reported.

Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) uncovered the money in Nuttall's bank account while investigating him on another matter.

“I feel frankly betrayed by what's happened here but at the end of it, what you do as a leader and as a government is to get them independently investigated and accept the consequences of what's happened,” Beattie said.

He said the former health and industrial relations minister should leave the party regardless of whether the CMC decided to press charges.

“As far as I'm concerned, the sooner Gordon resigns from the party the better,” he said at the press conference.

“It doesn't matter what comes out of the CMC inquiry, Gordon broke the rules.”

The Government has been rocked by scandals involving a string of ministers since it came to power in 1998 and Beattie conceded he might not have been tough enough with some of his former colleagues, AAP reported.

“Sometimes I have been too tolerant, sometimes I have been too supportive, sometimes I have tried to assist people through difficult times, that's just my style," he said.