Welcome to Brisbane Times’ Queensland public sector column, Public Circus. This week: the deputy premier’s celebrant services cause a stir, senior figures’ uranium shares, an inflation-driven pay bump amid budget blues, and more.
It’s the wedding that has the Circus tent aflutter. Last month, Public Sector Commissioner David Mackie tied the knot. But that lovely act was not the focus – per se.
More notable was the identity of the celebrant for a groom tasked with embodying the apolitical nature of the sector: Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie.
Current and former public servants appear taken aback at the blurring of, well, the church and state that is the executive and the public service in a Westminster government.
News of Bleijie’s role in the nuptials was made public via a post from The King of Kawana himself (and the Chooks) – but we had a few questions.
We can now report the marriage was officiated by Bleijie for no cost, in “a private capacity”, according to Mackie. Not bad for something that could set you back an easy grand.
The pair were also asked if they considered the whole thing appropriate, particularly given the place of the commissioner in the public sector – a role elevated by Bleijie’s government.
Neither responded directly, but both pointed to the fact there were guests from both sides of the (political) aisle in attendance and Mackie had worked for both.
“Whilst a number of guests that attended had different political persuasions, their attendance was purely in a personal capacity,” Mackie said.
Former Labor attorney-general Yvette D’Ath, under whom Mackie also worked, was there, along with a staffer for Opposition Leader Steven Miles.
A spokesperson for Bleijie said he was “more than happy to officiate the wedding in a personal capacity for someone who has worked under numerous governments and is well-respected by both sides of politics”.
While that may all be true, it misses the point, that the public sector must be perceived to be independent of executive government.
“No one should model this more than the public service commissioner,” said one former senior public servant, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the sensitive matter.
“I would never ask a minister in a government I was serving to carry out such a role at my wedding. Just too close. It erodes public confidence … There is clearly a very close relationship there.”
Given how the public sector views personal events like weddings in the conflict-of-interest space, that relationship will likely now need to be disclosed in matters involving the pair.
Difficulties with a minister are also among the topics on which bureaucrats can seek counsel from the public sector commissioner.
Mackie, of course, has been a stalwart of the Queensland public sector for decades. Most frequently, he has found himself in the Department of Justice and Attorney-General.
This includes a stint as deputy director-general from the early days of the Newman government under department head John Sosso and attorney-general Bleijie.
He continued in that role through the Palaszczuk government – including under D’Ath, with whom he was also close – until his appointment as commissioner in 2023.
Mackie was also in the box seat for the change of government, briefly elevated to the head of Premier and Cabinet during Bleijie and Premier David Crisafulli’s initial two-man ministry.
At that time, Crisafulli said he was working with Mackie to get the “departmental mix” right in the eventual machinery of government changes which came with his cabinet swearing-in.
Bleijie discloses the celebrant role in his register of interests. We’ll be waiting keenly to see if anything lands on the public sector gift register Mackie oversees – or his own interests list.
More questions (and answers) on uranium shares
Speaking of directors-general interests, this masthead’s reporting about the shareholdings of Sosso has also prompted reader feedback.
After integrity and anti-corruption figures urged Sosso to respond to our (we think reasonable) questions about the timeline and scale of his shares in Paladin Energy, one former public servant felt strongly enough to be willing to be quoted.
“Either Sosso needs to come clean or Premier [Crisafulli] needs to step in,” they told us.
The premier’s office, readers will be aware, didn’t respond to our questions last week about Sosso’s holdings in what would be the largest uranium miner in the state if a politically seesawing ban on mining the metal was lifted.
But we’re not ones to let a brushing-off dampen our digging. And we’ve uncovered some more details on another senior public sector figure who has held shares in the miner: Mackie.
Department bosses have had to declare their interests for decades, though it wasn’t until the Palaszczuk government that such disclosures became public-facing.
Mackie hadn’t previously answered our questions about when he bought and sold his Paladin shares, but this week agreed to share all iterations of the public document.
Thanks to that, we can now see Mackie first declared the Paladin shares in July 2021, and dropped them off his disclosure form in February this year. Not so hard.
Sosso continues to hold the shares, which Transparency International Australia chief executive Clancy Moore has said give rise to a “strong case for a potential, perceived or actual conflict of interest”.
Circus suggests no wrongdoing by either Mackie or Sosso, only that questions around Sosso’s public share declarations have not been answered, and that some have suggested they should be.
Inflation figure pulls trigger on public service pay bump
With inflation still running hot thanks to Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s foray into Iran, many Queensland public sector pay packets will get a further bump of up to $500 to try to keep up.
After last week’s figures came in, as widely expected, well above the 3 per cent trigger, all those with deals struck last year will now have an extra – backdated – 0.5 per cent on top.
This includes more than 100,000 police, firefighters, paramedics, nurses, doctors, health administration staff, non-teaching school staff and others not in arbitration.
But the inflation figure triggering those clauses will also mean the starting point for talks around several other deals up for renegotiation will now also be a 3.5 per cent rise.
This includes expiring deals for unsworn police, youth detention centre youth workers, youth justice administrative workers and their child safety counterparts, and the core public service agreement.
For a public servant on the average sector salary of about $100,000, the 0.5 per cent bump could add up to $500 to their base annual pay, and form a higher floor for future rises.
It’s all something the Crisafulli government, Treasurer David Janetzki and his Under Treasurer Paul Williams are likely to be watching very closely.
The government, of course, set aside $169 million in its December budget update to cover the potential pay bump – amid concern from ratings agencies and economists.
Which brings us to another topic that has been the subject of much chatter: the state’s (not) hiring freeze.
This column had already heard that the filling of vacant positions has been stifled by the heavy weight of upward management at Transport and Main Roads and the Queensland Fire Department.
We can now also add Queensland Corrective Services to the tally.
Approval to advertise any position that isn’t a custodial boots-on-the-ground role now has to be run up to the relevant deputy commissioner to help identify savings, instead of the usual director level, one Circus source with knowledge of the matter tells us.
After reaching out to Corrective Services Commissioner Paul Stewart’s media crew for clarity on it all, a department spokesperson said only: “there is no recruitment freeze”.
It all sounds awfully familiar to Transport’s “vacancy management plan” and the Establishment and Resource Governance Subcommittee spun up by the Firies, and those departments’ various responses.
Let alone the rare in-writing vow of Fire Commissioner Steve Smith in one staff email that his team would “continue to scrutinise how we operate to find efficiencies and cost savings”.
With the June 23 state budget looming, and a less-than-definitive response from Janetzki about whether Crisafulli and Co would be seeking to expand their senior public servant cap, Circus can’t help but wonder if there isn’t something larger at play.
Particularly with the conflicting web of promises around fewer and/or lower taxes, no forced public sector sackings, and a lowering of the state’s debt. Watch this space.
Teacher’s pay talks trickle along as train pain ramps up
There’s little news yet from the bargaining rooms of those workplace deals up for negotiation this year. According to an update to union members sent Circus’ way, the drawn-out teachers arbitration has had a new date set down for … August 24.
That still leaves some time before the Queensland Industrial Relation Commission will consider the Queensland Teachers’ Union interim salary increase application, and the Education Department’s response.
“We are also in ongoing discussions with the Department of Education and the Crisafulli government regarding our State Budget Submission, which addresses issues that sit outside the arbitration process that can have a positive effect on the working lives of QTU members and improve state school education in Queensland,” the union told its members.
Meanwhile, Queensland Rail and its workers’ unions are still quite publicly bluing in their efforts to strike a deal, with staff rejecting a renewed offer amid a battle for hearts and minds (and functioning public transport).
We’re sure the inflation-driven changes across other parts of the public sector will work wonders to bring everyone at the table closer together.
Who’s in and out of the tent
The board in charge of the critical job of Queensland’s water and wastewater services is on the hunt for a new chief executive after Paul Arnold resigned from leading Urban Utilities.
This masthead broke the news on Friday that Arnold would step away later this year after four years running the statutory authority that has an annual operating revenue of more than $1.6 billion.
Elsewhere, Circus was told the child safety department, now under the watchful eye of a commission of inquiry, will soon advertise for a new executive director.
Little detail has emerged from this team reshuffle, but it’s clearly a tricky time for a highly scrutinised department that is managing a public probe as well as the ongoing fallout from the Unify IT bungle. Another friendly reminder our emails are open.
And while we’re in ED land, former Courier-Mail state political editor Jessica Marszalek will this week step into the senior role in the department of state development. Marszalek arrives at 1WS after nearly three years with PR firm 89 Degrees East.
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 this link) and mattdennien@protonmail.com.
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