George Street Beat: Qld politics news and gossip
The man who leads the agency responsible for recruiting, caring for and developing policies for Queensland’s 260,000-strong government workforce has had his contract extended. THIS IS GEORGE STREET BEAT
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Public Sector Commissioner David Mackie has been quietly reappointed to his role for another five years.
Mr Mackie leads the agency responsible for recruiting, caring for and developing policies for Queensland’s 260,000-strong government workforce.
His reappointment was revealed in the Queensland Government Gazette, with Governor Jeannette Young doing the formalities to approve the Premier’s recommendation Mr Mackie’s tenure be extended for five years until April 10, 2030.
The long-term public servant was appointed as Public Sector Commissioner in mid-2023 after a stint as the director general of the Department of Justice and Attorney-General.
Appointing agency bosses on a fixed-term, five-year contract unaligned to the electoral cycle was a recommendation of the Coaldrake Review.
Despite being appointed under the Palaszczuk government, Mr Mackie is well liked across the political divide.
He was tapped by Mr Crisafulli to temporarily serve as Queensland’s top bureaucrat – Department of Premier and Cabinet acting director-general – after the election and until December 23.
STEMMING THE HAEMORRHAGING
Labor comprehensively lost the 2024 state election, but it could have been so much worse had Steven Miles’ camp not turned the tide with its guerrilla social media campaign.
Mr Miles’s ability to tap into young voters was largely credited to his digital guru at the time — Deon Savage.
The young social media aficionado was hot property after October 31.
It seems he decided to take on an impossible mission — make Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan likeable.
Mr Savage was spotted in Melbourne at a joint press conference with his new boss and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
To misquote Gough Whitlam: “Well may we say God Save the King, because not even Deon will save the Victorian Premier.”
STILL TRENDING
The departure of his social media guru doesn’t mean Steven Miles is missing out on the latest trends.
The Opposition Leader, who has notably more time on his hands, joined in on the ChatGPT AI action figure trend – which is taking the internet by storm.
If anyone was going to do it, of course it would be him.
The trend involves users sharing artificial intelligence-generated images of themselves that look like figurines, complete with accessories related to their personality or career.
The “Steven Miles action figure” depicts the former Premier in a tight tee and dress pants with five accessories – a 50c coin, NRL footy, sandwich, sunglasses and weights.
“Makes sense,” he said on Instagram.
Of course it does, he chose the accessories.
WE’LL BRIEF YOU
Taxpayers might need to stump up an extra $5bn to build the on and off ramps to the CopperString energy highway, if you believe the Treasurer.
It isn’t an insignificant sum, so surely the Premier of Queensland would have been told of this supposed shocking Labor blowout.
When did David Crisafulli find out about the latest increase?
“The Treasurer briefed me yesterday (Tuesday) before his speech,” he said.
By then the story had been all over the news after it was revealed in that day’s The Courier-Mail.
We trust Mr Crisafulli really first found out about the blowout closer to 3.30am when he bounced out of bed to check his digital version of the paper.
Why didn’t the Premier find out earlier?
Well, the Treasurer delivered the most jaw-dropping line in recent political memory.
“I didn’t want to tell the Premier about the $4.9bn problem until I had a solution,” he said.
Does that mean Mr Janetzki didn’t find a solution – tasking Queensland Investment Corporation to attract private sector investment – until moments before his speech on Tuesday?
Did he make the announcement without Cabinet’s approval on Monday?
He wouldn’t answer either.
For a government elected to improve transparency, this was a shocking shambles.
TARIFF SILENCE
Australia’s economic relationship with the United States of America is dominating debate, so GSB is a little perplexed to see it didn’t rate a mention when we sent our big gun Resources Minister Dale Last across the Pacific Ocean to drum-up business.
Tariffs appear to have been avoided entirely during Mr Last’s delegation to the United States and Canada a month ago, despite numerous meetings during a volatile time for international trade relationships.
It seems perplexing Donald Trump’s tariff warnings never came up, considering Mr Last met with mining giants including Rio Tinto, Glencore’s aluminium representatives, and other significant bodies such as the Alberta and Ontario Governments, and the US Export-Import Bank.
Mr Last and his six other delegation members, including chief of staff Ally Foley and director-general Graham Fraine, were in North America as a shouting match took place in the Oval Office between Donald Trump and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, disrupting an anticipated critical minerals and peace deal.
The delegation report hinted dryly at the shouting match on March 1 by saying the resources policy environment was “evolving rapidly”, and that there was an agreement with the Embassy of Australia for further talks when the situation became clearer.
BRAZIL IN EIGHT?
The busy bees at the 2032 organising committee have been working away these past three years while politicians play politics with venues.
GSB and our hawk friends in the Olympic media have spotted two blunders published by the committee this month.
The first image on the Brisbane 2032 website prominently features a young boy with their cheeks painted green and gold.
No problem – had the green and gold not been centred with blue and to form the flag of Brazil.
We’re blaming the International Olympic Committee.
Far more embarrassing though was an email sent by the committee on Saturday encouraging subscribers to “dive in” to information about the Games.
It read: “There’s a bit of time to get to know each other (8 years to be exact!), so we’ve pulled together some serving suggestions to begin your Brisbane 2032 journey”.
In truth, there was exactly seven years, three months and 19 days until the 2032 Games.
We’ll need every minute to get our venues built.
If only Brisbane had a record runway …
CROC FOOLS
The state government’s plan to host Olympic rowing in the croc-infested Fitzroy River has gone global – on April fool’s Day.
British Rowing issued an official-looking media statement on the day of laughs to declare it would introduce crocodiles to its training program.
“With news that a crocodile-inhabited river is set to host rowing events at the Brisbane 2032 Games, British Rowing has approached reptile experts and Salford City Council to explore a bold new plan to introduce crocodiles to the River Irwell in a bid to boost how they prepare the next generation of British rowing medallists,” it said.
“We know that Rowing Australia is hoping for a bit more bite from their team, but we didn’t see this coming.”
Tongue-in-cheek, British Rowing said Olympic preparation “shouldn’t just be for those who can afford access to their own croc-infested waters”.
“I imagine that some pupils may be a little uneasy at the thought of crocs lurking in the river, but we think it will build resilience. We will, of course, take all precautions and train our staff on how to treat any bite injuries.”
We’re not sure this is the international exposure Queensland was hoping for.
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