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Welcome to Brisbane Times’ Queensland public sector column, Public Circus. This week: under the hood of the Queensland Protection Commission, audit office efficiencies, Ombudsman pick’s new gap, and Treasury’s philanthropist whisperer.
Attorney-General Deb Frecklington lobbed her bill for the state’s shiny new child safety oversight body last week.
And while it answers some questions about the $255 million Queensland Protection Commission, those answers raise more questions. Particularly, what is the real point?
Frecklington has touted the body as the new one-stop shop for a slew of regulatory and statutory functions – from blue cards to reportable conduct to kids in state care.
Off the back of the cut-short child safety inquiry and a review of failures around Ashley Paul Griffith, it will also, eventually, house a new intelligence hub.
But how, exactly, the new commission – set to absorb Luke Twyford’s Queensland Family and Child Commission – will be set up has been one point of curiosity.
Frecklington has previously danced around questions of what becomes of the dedicated First Nations commissioner role previously held by Natalie Lewis.
The new bill makes clear the person who holds the successor to that office, now relegated to being one of two deputy commissioners, will no longer need to be Indigenous themselves.
They will instead need to be an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island person or “have demonstrated ability or experience in working with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children”.
That’s a helluva difference.
Another shift will see the responsible minister able to recommend the sacking for either the commissioner or deputies “for any reason or none”, rather than misconduct, incapacity or neglect – something we’ve been seeing the government roll out and use across a range of other roles.
Frecklington, for her part, denied last week this would dampen the independence of the office, but made specific reference only to its regulatory function.
Circus imagines that’s because the new commissioner “must comply” with a direction from the minister about almost every one of its substantive functions and roles, explanatory notes state.
The department director-general, not the commissioner, will also be the accountable and administrative officer, leaving the commissioner at their whims, too. How independent!
Explanatory notes state “targeted consultation” was undertaken with Twyford during development of the bill, who has been particularly vocal in his government criticism of late.
He took to LinkedIn to welcome introduction of the bill on Friday. We imagine a formal submission to committee consideration of the bill now underway might say a bit more.
(Twyford reiterated during his estimates appearance that he supports a standalone Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children’s commission, let alone dedicated commissioner.)
Lewis has already cast an eye over the bill. It may not surprise you to learn the main thrust of her view is highly critical of the above changes.
“They alter the character of the office from an independent statutory oversight function to one substantially more answerable, in structure as well as in practice, to the government whose agencies it is meant to hold to account,” Lewis wrote in an issues brief shared with Circus.
It’s not only Lewis, either. A current executive director in the commission, Amy Lamoin, took to LinkedIn last week with a far different tone to that of Twyford.
“Queensland is about to give its new child-protection oversight body more information, more regulatory power, and fewer guarantees of independence,” Lamoin wrote in a scathing three-part statement.
Submissions to the Nigel Hutton-chaired education, arts and communities committee consideration of the bill close on September 18. We imagine such criticisms won’t be alone.
Restructure trims audit office costs with a part-time, or cut-price, assistant
Last year, Auditor-General Rachel Vagg announced the completion of a restructure over at the public spending scrutiny office.
This was, she laid out in her 2024-25 annual report, “to reflect a sharpened focus and to create efficiencies”. Vagg’s new report shows they’ve certainly managed the latter.
As part of the changes, a dedicated deputy position was created, with specific assistant roles set out for the financial, performance, and technology audit arms of the agency’s work.
This came alongside the departure of long-serving assistant Karen Johnson. Colleagues Damon Olive and Darren Brown, and now-deputy, Patrick Flemming, stayed on.
Even with Georgina Crundell brought in as a new assistant auditor (heading up technology work) to round out the top jobs, the 2025-26 management wages bill has come in lower.
A total of $2.09 million was chalked up to total key management personnel remuneration compared to $2.2 million the financial year before. How’s that value for taxpayers money!
A key part of this, it appears, seems to be a lower rate or shorter work week for Crundell, who started in mid-September and Circus’ crunching suggests is on less than $300,000.
Even if Crundell had been there the full financial year, this would have delivered a year-on-year pay saving for the office on management pay packages.
Whispers had reached our tent earlier in the year about a new assistant auditor who had negotiated shorter-than-five-day week, compared to the full-time role carried out by others.
We did sing out to the office at the time to seek confirmation of the arrangement, and ask if that budget saving would be banked or used somewhere else around the agency.
In response, a spokesperson had told us they ran a modern ship with “flexible work practices to support the needs of staff at all levels” to make sure they hire the right people, with some new director roles also added to support the new structure.
Circus certainly isn’t knocking flexible work arrangements. But we do wonder if questions around the full-time equivalent makeup of such a key office isn’t worth a more instructive response than a fobbing-off on the grounds of individual staff work arrangements.
Integrity Commissioner Linda Waugh will be, ah, elevated from the 13th to the 19th floor from November 23, leaving a new vacancy in another key accountability agency.
Elsewhere in government-gig land, Electoral Commissioner Pat Vidgen has been handed another five-year term, set to extend his tenure at the ECQ out to more than 13 years.
A new role over at Queensland Treasury, a so-called “philanthropic liaison lead” under office of social impact executive director Sarah Haigh, has also got some excited.
The contract runs until June 2029 and will see the successful applicant “lead the process of identifying and fostering strategic collaborations between government and philanthropic entities, with a strong focus on achieving outcomes for marginalised Queenslanders”.
Highlighting the national novelty of embedding this kind of role in government was Ryan Ginard, head of innovation at iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation.
Matt Dennien is a reporter at Brisbane Times covering state politics, parliament and the public sector. He has previously worked for newspapers in Tasmania and Brisbane community radio station 4ZZZ. Contact him securely on Signal @mattdennien.15Connect via email.From our partners
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