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Welcome to Brisbane Times’ Queensland public sector column, Public Circus. This week: the estimates comments which struck a nerve (or got a laugh), police union spills tea on government talks, and a brewing mystery in the Tower of Power.
The joy that is budget estimates delivered no shortage of the usual for senior unelected officials: government protection, bizarre opposition gotcha efforts, and the occasional eye-opening answer.
But one director-general’s doozy seems to have struck a nerve – and frustrated someone in their orbit enough to pick up the phone to pose the question: did David Rosengren mislead his hearing?
We ran the ruler last week over the Queensland Health chief’s explanation for having three hospital and health service boards without a legally required First Nations director.
In case you missed that, Rosengren said the vacancies were the “unscheduled” result of resignations “subsequent to” the process of the March HHS board overhaul. The facts suggest otherwise.
At Metro North (the state’s largest HHS) and Metro South (no.2, with the largest Indigenous population), three directors were either handed midterm marching orders or gave earlier notice.
Up on the Sunshine Coast, Circus has learned that not only did Bundjalung man Terry Bell not resign after the recent recruitment round, but that he had reapplied for the board. Twice!
It’s all been enough to drive one board insider, who we’ve granted anonymity to get around the fact they’re unauthorised to speak publicly, to get us on the blower and call the situation out.
They confirmed the detail about Bell’s efforts to remain on the board, and said it appeared Rosengren had “misled the estimates committee”, suggesting he should explain or apologise.
Not a minor thing, given parliamentary rules leave any deliberate misleading of proceedings by MPs open to a contempt finding. Let alone the maximum seven-year penalty for anyone else giving false evidence to parliament under the Criminal Code.
Circus is, of course, not suggesting Rosengren is guilty of any such thing. Only that his evidence did not align with the facts as we understand them, and he has to date given no explanation as to why.
In our generosity, we’d also posit that he was perhaps misinformed by three separate HHS boards.
For their part, we’ve sung out to the four former directors and have either been unable to reach them or found them politely declining to speak about both their departures or Rosengren’s remarks.
We also put the insider’s assessment to Rosengren via the Queensland Health media team on Monday, along with a nudge for the still unanswered questions from last week.
“To protect the privacy of individual applicants and comply with confidentiality obligations, Queensland Health is not able to provide specific details regarding the board recruitment process,” came the week-in-the-making response from a department spokesperson.
For what it’s worth, Health Minister Tim Nicholls’ office reckons it’s all a matter for the bureaucrats – a bit rich given the ultimate appointment decisions are ones for him.
While Circus is loath to share official backgrounding, such spin work in this case has sought to explain the “unscheduled” labelling of the gaps, but not the resignation element. Read into that what you will.
And the estimates comedy award goes too…
Elsewhere across the 70 hours and 15 minutes of hearings over nine days, there were at last a few successful efforts to break the stuffy (or petty) nature of proceedings with some humour.
But it was hard to look past the deadpanned delivery of Department of Sport, Racing and Olympic and Paralympic Games director-general Andrew Hopper as the gold standard.
One pressure-release came after two minutes of bickering sparked by a question from Kurwongbah Labor MP Shane King about 2025-26 advertising campaigns.
This topic was the trigger for countless points of order by government MPs across the fortnight, a campaign led by Leader of the House Dr Christian Rowan.
King ultimately labelled Rowan’s efforts in this circumstance “frivolous”, which the member for Moggill took as personally offensive and had withdrawn.
Speaker Pat Weir managed to dam the duelling interruptions long enough to give the call to Hopper.
“My apologies, member, there was a bit going on there. Could you please repeat the question,” the department head quipped with the slightest hint of a smirk. Cue bipartisan laughter.
For contrast, Hopper’s earlier request for clarification from Labor’s opposition sports spokesperson Glenn Butcher during a line of questioning about the delayed government sport strategy was among the most cutting.
Hopper: “Just to clarify, you are asking if there was money allocated in 2025-26 for a strategy that has been released today. I will take a moment for that.”
After turning to speak to a colleague for all of 10 seconds, he continued: “Member, obviously with the release of the strategy in the financial year 2026-27, that is where the money is allocated.”
No laughter from the chamber at that zinger.
What government and police chief told union crowd
Among all the estimates fun, it would be excusable if we missed the release of the Winter 2026 edition of the Queensland Police Union Journal.
But thanks to a reminder from some eagle-eyed members of the tent, we were able to catch up on all the juicy goss from the annual coppers’ collective council meeting back in May.
Inside were speeches (and Q&A sessions) from acting Commissioner Brett Pointing, Premier David Crisafulli and Police Minister Dan Purdie, dutifully transcribed and published in full.
And what did the political leaders and top brass have to tell union president Shane Prior’s troops?
A bit of that has already been aired by our Campbell Street comrades, including approval from Crisafulli to collecting more DNA from youth offenders and supporting changes to pursuit laws.
Beyond that, Pointing also said cabinet had asked him to “come back with a model that would work better with the troops” on controversial instant domestic violence orders.
Dubbed police protection directions, and earlier decried by Prior as too onerous for use in most cases, Pointing conceded the powers had not “been as effective as we had all hoped it would be”.
“Whilst that is still cabinet in confidence, the model that we put up, if we get it through, I think will make a huge difference,” Pointing said.
Another comment from the top brass that caught Circus’ eye was the fact, in his words, that “hardly a day goes by that Shane doesn’t ring”, particularly with about watchhouse and fleet concerns.
Despite all the backslapping, some more pointed elements of the gathering were captured in the questions from delegates and elsewhere in the journal.
With the government spruiking of record spending in key frontline workforces, Prior’s opening comments describe the Crisafulli LNP’s 2026-27 budget as a “pretty bland affair … a bit like reheating Monday night’s dinner on Wednesday”.
Regardless, Circus imagines Crisafulli and Co will be invited back – and show up – next year.
Cold water poured on brewing mystery at 1WS
With all the talk of stationery supplies being slashed as part of the Crisafulli government’s bid to find $500 million in public service savings, the case of the diminishing tea bag stock in One William Street has invoked fears for many.
Circus spies were quick to raise the alarm after tea bags, milk and sugar satchels ran dry in recent weeks, with staff fearing the austerity measures had come for the much-loved cuppa.
The government insists the future of the smoko brew is safe, but how do they explain the missing bags and single-serve sweeteners?
The empty kitchens were caused by end-of-life coffee machines being replaced, Circus was told. You see, public servants get access to automatic coffee machines for a small fee inside the Tower of Power, with the coins amassed through the machines used to stock tea stations.
But the older machines, which only accept coins, have been pulled from the building to make way for newer models which allow electronic payments.
Meanwhile, there’s no change floating around to pay for the depleted stock of tea, milk and sugar.
As a tea-and-coffee-loving column on the side of our hard-working public servants, Circus pressed the relevant minister on the issue, Public Works Minister Sam O’Connor, whose spokeswoman sought to ease concerns.
“Despite the brewing speculation, there is no change to the tea and coffee arrangements for staff at 1 William Street,” she said in response to questions.
Thank goodness. Now, time to put the kettle on.
Have a curiosity for the 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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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.
James Hall is the News Director at the Brisbane Times. He is the former Queensland correspondent at The Australian Financial Review and has reported for a range of mastheads across the country, specialising on political and finance reporting.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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