DPC boss Damien Walker quits SA for major Queensland Crisafulli Government role

The highly paid bureaucrat has reportedly quit a job that pays more than Peter Malinauskas’s for a top post under Queensland’s new premier.

South Australia’s Department of Premier and Cabinet boss Damien Walker has reportedly quit the $760,000 a year post to take up the equivalent role in Queensland.

The Australian reports that Mr Walker has been recruited by the Sunshine State’s newly elected Liberal National Party Premier David Crisafulli.

It says it is a “curious choice” given Mr Walker previously ran Queensland’s state infrastructure and development department under its ousted Labor regime, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a Covid quarantine centre that was barely used before quarantine requirements were scrapped.

Mr Crisafulli was highly critical of the project.

Mr Walker was expected to become Mr Crisafulli’s director general “in the coming weeks”, The Australian said.

Damien Walker was appointed Chief Executive of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet in April 2022.

Newly elected Queensland Premier David Crisafulli. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

As of Friday night, the SA Department of Premier and Cabinet website said Mr Walker was “our chief executive”, having been appointed in April, 2022.

“He is a proud South Australian, who has returned to the South Australian Public Sector following nearly 12 years in Queensland,” the site says.

“Damien is an experienced executive who has broad background in strategic planning, industry development and public policy.”

The Advertiser last month revealed Mr Walker’s total salary package, including superannuation, was now $760,035 a year, outstripping the salary of Premier Peter Malinauskas by more than $300,000.

That was on the back of $25,000-plus pay rise.

The Commissioner for Public Sector Employment said state cabinet had agreed to a 3 per cent increase for all chief executives from July 1.

It prompted co-leader of the SA Greens Robert Simms to say he would consider introducing legislation to cap the pay of public servants so they could not be paid more than the premier.

“These chief executives are being paid an obscene amount of money in a cost-of-living crisis,’’ Mr Simms said.

“It’s hard to justify any departmental chief executive being paid more than the premier or the prime minister.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is paid about $607,000.

The Advertiser has approached Mr Walker and Mr Malinauskas’s spokesman for comment.