Welcome to Brisbane Times’ Queensland public sector column, Public Circus. This week: Brisbane’s budget week, a “new” commission loses its shine, police behaviour in focus, the state librarian resigns and an electoral redraw looms.
While Treasurer David Janetzki has been out touting what’s been billed as a back-to-basics “meat pie budget” by our crosstown comrades, much like those mince-filled morsels, questions remain about the contents.
For those working in the public sector, or relying on it to deliver their services, evidence suggests the filling may be more of the frozen bulk-buy variety than anything too gourmet.
The government is touting investment in “the frontline”, while placing pressure on many departments to tighten their belts – seemingly as far as they go without crossing into the realm of a blanket hiring freeze or outright headcount reduction.
Circus has for months been documenting the strict new recruitment regimes across at least five departments, and has now caught word of a sixth in David Rosengren’s Queensland Health.
Any new roles now need to be signed off by Rosengren while appointments of more than six months need to be approved by deputy directors-general.
We’ve sung out to Rosengren’s spinners to get their explanation of things, but does it sound familiar? It’s almost like an edict from some higher power! (Who, Circus could hardly speculate.)
A Queensland Health spokesperson said the new “responsible corporate workforce management” approach applied to “corporate roles only”.
“This approach supports a continued focus on organisational priorities, particularly frontline service delivery and growth,” they said.
With the ruler being run so finely over all hiring, particularly away from the “frontline”, it’s no wonder temporary roles are in the frame for non-renewal.
Then there’s the inflation-triggered $169 million bump for wages under last year’s workplace deals, lifting the bargaining floor for the core agreement set to expire (with little update) next week.
Whether Tuesday’s budget and related rhetoric from Janetzki points to anything more explicit than last year’s freeze on senior executive levels remains to be seen, as economists flag the need for lower spending to help avoid a credit downgrade making the budget maths harder still.
Mind the gristle.
Influencers locked out of budget lock-up, for now
Tuesday’s state budget will somewhat hark back to the old days, where the thrill of an embargoed media lock-up with treasury officials and soggy sandwiches will be reserved for legacy print and broadcast journalists.
The presence of social media influencers, or content creators, trawling through budget documents and line items while grilling elected figures and bureaucrats has become the norm in recent federal budgets.
Closer to home, two creators – Adam Robert Young from The Brisbane Channel and transport enthusiast Imogen Buckley of immyonboard fame – attended the Brisbane City Council budget last week.
But Circus has confirmed there will be no influencers poring over Janetzki’s second budget, which Dr Susan Grantham, Griffith University’s expert on social media trends, said was a surprise.
“The thing about youths is there is a parasocial relationship – there is this genuine connection they make or have with people that they trust online, and that’s where this ecosystem of trust actually happens,” Grantham told Circus.
“It’s really important to be engaging in that influencer space in the political environment.”
‘New’ commission loses some shine
Now a week on from Attorney-General Deb Frecklington’s big “new” Child Protection Commission announcement, and things appear slightly less shiny than first spruiked.
The first sign something was awry was the blunt admission (only after a buzzer-beater question at the Queensland Media Club event) that the body would be absorbing another.
Fronting media with the head of said body, Queensland Family and Child Commission chief executive Luke Twyford, the next day, there was a further concession.
That $250 million to set up the new commission? “The majority” would be existing budgets of the functions and teams it would be collating from across the public sector, Frecklington said.
A big chunk of the rest, presumably, will be the new IT system to underpin the overhaul.
New legislation will come to parliament soon to make all this happen. But don’t be surprised if that no longer requires one of the two commissioners to be someone of First Nations descent.
“If, for example, there is a Deputy Commissioner role, it is my anticipation and my expectation that the person that holds that deputy commissioner role does have that demonstrated experience in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs,” the attorney-general said when asked if current arrangements would remain.
It was a response unlikely to undermine suggestions of a government ploy to purge the public sector of First Nations figures.
Another question mark from the big announcement – will staff seconded from already stretched departments like police and Child Safety be backfilled? – also got a partial answer.
“Those positions already are within the departments, the respective departments, so that would be a matter for that minister,” Frecklington offered.
Police union takes watchdog to court
Speaking of secondments, news emerged this week that the Queensland Police Commissioned Officers’ Union was questioning whether cops seconded to the corruption watchdog had proper ministerial sign-off to be there.
This had, reportedly, emerged as the union tried to push back on one of its own being disciplined under the Crime and Corruption Commission’s own internal scheme.
It’s a scheme that, if chair Bruce Barbour’s recent comments are anything to go by, is probably a tad more robust than what’s on the integrity unit-free police side of the equation.
The QPCOU and Queensland Police Union general president Shane Prior have come out swinging, including a suggestion from Prior his members should consider transferring back out of the anti-corruption agency.
A spokesperson for the CCC confirmed the matter was related to Supreme Court judicial review action taken by a formerly seconded officer challenging Barbour’s power to discipline them under the watchdog’s own laws.
“It is not something new or proposed and the police union is well aware of the longstanding statutory disciplinary framework as the union has, when required, provided legal and other assistance to seconded officers who have found themselves involved one way or another (as a subject officer or witness) in such a process,” they said.
Not unrelated to the behaviour of those in police ranks is an eye-watering bill revealed in a recent parliamentary question on notice from Greens Maiwar MP Michael Berkman.
Berkman had asked Janetzki for an annual breakdown of the number of civil claims made against and settled by police, and the total compensation and legal cost to the agency for defending the claims, back to 2022-23.
The results show police have settled 72 of the 563 claims brought against them across the period – including an unspecified portion of the 2025-26 financial year. All up, these payouts amounted to a figure of $10.2 million and legal defence costs of about $589,000.
Top Librarian packs book bag
The Queensland state librarian Vicki McDonald has told staff she will resign after a decade in the role.
McDonald wrote to staff on Friday to announce the usual: It was a difficult decision, but it was the right time to go.
The call comes three months after the library’s board was almost completely overhauled, with former Liberal senator George Brandis brought in as chair.
Last year the library was controversially thrust into the spotlight when Arts Minister John-Paul Langbroek directed the institution to cancel a $15,000 fellowship to a First Nations writer over her online commentary.
Author Karen Wyld, who writes under the name K A Ren Wyld, had posted on X referring to killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a martyr, before deleting the post in October 2024, shortly after Sinwar’s death.
Langbroek met with Library leaders, including McDonald, twice to express his concerns before stepping officially to deny Wyld the black&write! fellowship.
In March, just days after the board changes, the government announced the library would no longer manage the state’s literary awards following a review of the process.
Mark your calendars: New electoral boundaries coming next week
After almost a year of public consultation and deliberations, the Gregory Koppenol-chaired Queensland Redistribution Commission will deliver the state’s redrawn election map on June 29.
This shouldn’t be of much surprise to Circus readers, however, given the rumoured movements of another of the three commissioners, State Development director-general John Sosso.
Will the final changes end up, on paper, handing the Crisafulli LNP another two (or three) seats in parliament? Not long to wait now.
The next question looming for Electoral Commissioner Pat Vidgen before voters return to polling booths in 2028: will he also be reverting the state’s voting system back to an optional preferential scheme as the government has pledged?
Have a curiosity for the Public Circus tent? Email us on m.dennien@nine.com.au or james.hall@nine.com.au. For more security, sing out with a non-work device and network via Signal (mattdennien.15 or here) and mattdennien@protonmail.com.
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