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Welcome to Brisbane Times’ Queensland public sector column, Public Circus. This week: precarious police finances, a proposed department restructure, “Project Invisibility” and more.
With just two weeks until the state budget is handed down, we’ve added a fifth notch to the tally of departments feeling the heat about hiring staff.
The entrance of the Queensland Police Service is a little different. A crackdown on vacant roles there appears a fate of its own making.
Former public servant Neil Castles, commissioned to dive into the agency’s finances, put it bluntly: an estimated structural deficit by the end of the month of $400 million.
The driving factor, as Castles’ 99-page CBRC-approved report tabled last week lays out, was “poor financial governance” over a number of years.
Interim Commissioner Brett Pointing, who fronted media with Police Minister Dan Purdie to deliver the news, said the department had been “living beyond its means”.
As a result, Pointing has handed the whole thing to the Crime and Corruption Commission, whose chair, Bruce Barbour, was said by Purdie to have OKed its release.
“I think that’s a matter for the CCC to determine,” Pointing said when asked if the issues raised by the report reflected a failure of previous leaders.
While the commissioner and minister gave away little else, Purdie had pointed comments about the priorities of previous leaders irking staff.
These almost 20,000 staff, in an agency with a budget of more than $4 billion, are also likely to see some flow-on effects of Castles’ work, carried out between January and March.
Castles and another figure seconded from Queensland Treasury Corporation were handed the work after a two-week post-MYFER “sprint analysis” of the police books by EY.
Terms of reference asked Castles to help lay out a 2026-27 budget strategy that did not result in redundancies and ensured government election commitments could be delivered.
Over 21 recommendations, the report calls for development of a model to better forecast staff costs and demand, returning non-operational sworn officers to the frontline, abolish vacant unsworn temporary roles, and freeze hiring for other vacant and new unsworn roles.
The report also calls for $50 million to be trimmed from the supplies and services budget allocation, and a new taskforce to be set up to oversee the reforms. Yikes.
In their media conference, Pointing said he and Purdie were working through the response, but insisted there would not be a blanket freeze on new unsworn roles.
“I’ve considered this, I must admit it, but I can’t do that because policing changes every day and sometimes new priorities will come,” Pointing said.
While redundancies still very much seem taboo for the Crisafulli cabinet, at least among police ranks, attrition appears to be the flavour of the (budget) season.
One thing the agency will apparently have to shell out for is a formal recruitment process for the commissioner job, taken up by the directly appointed Pointing back in February.
Asked if work had been started on the search for Steve Gollchewski’s permanent successor, Purdie told media last week it had not – but promised it would come.
Redesigning the Child Safety Department? Inquiry has some ideas
Another report landing last week was that of the cut-short Child Safety Commission of Inquiry.
The almost 1400-page behemoth from Paul Anastassiou made a point of acknowledging the similar probes across the past three decades, and the ongoing problems.
To ensure reforms are locked in this time, Anastassiou put forward 52 recommendations, including a series of five around a wholesale redesign of the department.
This one came with a timeline – with the government told to restructure Child Safety within six months of its response, due by late July, to fix what was described as fragmented responsibility, regionally varying practices and unclear accountability.
“The state’s task is to create the conditions in which change can be implemented, tested and sustained,” the report noted.
“Without those conditions, Queensland will remain vulnerable to the cycle that has led to this Commission of Inquiry: known problems, partial reform, renewed pressure, and further evidence that the system has not changed enough.”
Implementation notes on the call for a departmental overhaul (recommendation 45) suggest a staged rollout with transitional arrangements to manage risks, and workforce considerations.
In four related recommendations, the inquiry called for dedicated business functions separating intervention and family support, coercive statutory powers and a new “Child Guardian”.
It also calls for a new associate director-general or similar – rather than director-general Belinda Drew – to oversee the reforms, led by a permanent reform implementation office.
“The redesign should not be limited to organisational charts,” the inquiry noted of its bureaucratic rethink.
“It should address how decisions are made, how risks are escalated, how practice is supervised, how children’s pathways are tracked and how system learning is converted into operational change.”
And we haven’t even touched on the other 48 recommendations. Let’s just hope it doesn’t go the way of the Richards’ inquiry-urged overhauls of policing. (A police integrity unit, anyone?)
Extended CFMEU Inquiry to hear from almost ‘captured pawn’
Fresh from getting the green light for an 18-month extension last week, the state’s second and seemingly prioritised public probe is back with more public hearings.
CFMEU Inquiry Commissioner Stuart Wood kicks off his 10th hearing block on Tuesday, with a witness list featuring new Office of Industrial Relations (OIR) and Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) figures.
(Two former federal building commission folks, northern region operations director Wayne Jenkinson and commissioner Nigel Hadgkiss are also tipped to return for cross-examination.)
One name on the witness list is a curious addition, after Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie’s tabling in parliament of a 2023 QUT report into the culture of OIR’s construction compliance and field services section.
In interviews with 40 people who volunteered to take part, the report team heard evidence of many concerns since aired in the inquiry.
While not mentioning the CFMEU, the report notes aggression, intimidation and some violence from “external stakeholders”, along with unsupportive management.
In laying out their methodology, the QUT team referred to short-lived OIR boss, deputy director-general Kym Bancroft, as a “sponsor” of the work.
Now Bancroft – described in an earlier hearing as almost a “captured pawn” of the CFMEU – has been called to front the inquiry this week.
Circus hopes Bleijie had no inside track on the independent inquiry’s work – or vice versa.
Pressure mounts on court transcription following company collapse
The collapse of a company with the massive task of transcribing court hearings has raised fears about how the service will be delivered in Queensland.
A justice department spokesman said audio transcript requests have been unaffected since VIQ Solutions went under, and was confident the other contracted provider would keep the courts operating as normal.
But Circus was told some were openly questioning what contingencies were in place.
VIQ Solutions has contracts with the courts in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Western Australia, as well as the Federal Court of Australia, and the Federal Circuit and Family Court.
The company fell into administration in mid-March and employees were told last week it would be wound down later this month.
The collapse of VIQ Solutions means Queensland courts will now solely rely on its other service provider, legal and compliance services platform Epiq.
“The Department of Justice has been working to put contingency operating arrangements in place for court transcription services in Queensland,” a spokesman said in response to questions from Circus.
“As Queensland has a two-service provider model, the second provider will help support business continuity.
“We are engaging closely with key legal stakeholders to keep them updated and we are working to minimise the impact on court operations.”
Former truth-telling chief’s inside word on ‘Project Invisibility’
It’s been hard to follow Queensland’s public sector since the 2024 state election and not see First Nations figures losing their posts, or policies and programs wound back.
The cumulative effect of these decisions has led to some whispers in the Circus tent about whether this is, in fact, a deliberate strategy.
Now, we have an apparent name for the purge: “Project Invisibility”. At least, that’s what former truth-telling inquiry chair Joshua Creamer has heard.
Speaking to ABC Radio Brisbane’s Drive program last Wednesday, the Waanyi and Kalkadoon barrister described a recent conversation with someone who used the term.
“I just had a discussion with someone, probably four-to-six weeks ago, about this [where they said] this is what the internal name is,” Creamer said, though he added he was not sure if the name was accurate, or if it was something which even had a name.
(Circus is also yet to hear anyone else utter such a name, or describe the approach as a co-ordinated effort. But, as always, the tent is always open.)
On such a list, Creamer included the axing of his inquiry, and the removal of some people from government boards and other bodies. It might also include attempts to change the approach to native title and the decision not to name a new theatre after poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal.
In response, a Crisafulli government spokesperson – in comments published by Guardian Australia – said its “approach has been clear from the start”.
“[We are] redirecting funds into practical, locally led projects which deliver tangible outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander discrete communities through our Closing the Gap Priorities Fund,” they said.
“The Crisafulli government is investing in critical infrastructure projects such as restoring clean drinking water supply to Woorabinda, delivering housing and increased home ownership opportunities across Indigenous communities, and supporting education programs such as the Buwu education program in Cherbourg.”
The next big signpost for the government’s approach? Its response to Child Safety Inquiry calls for adoption to no longer be a last resort for First Nations kids – a recommendation that came despite “strong submissions” from First Nations stakeholders. Watch this space.
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.
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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