Job on hold as O’Shane slams income control

Pat O’Shane’s appointment to a Cape York reform body has been delayed after she said she was opposed to income management.

Deputy Premier Jackie Trad. Picture: Brendan Radke

The Queensland government’s appointment of Pat O’Shane to a Cape York welfare reform body has been delayed after the ex-magistrate confirmed she was fundamentally opposed to the commission’s key function.

Deputy Premier Jackie Trad and her top indigenous affairs bureauc­rat Chris Sarra wooed Ms O’Shane, Australia’s first Aborig­inal magistrate, out of retirement to fill the role of Family Responsibilities Commission boss, with her job due to begin next Monday.

But Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s cabinet did not sign off on the appointment yesterday as planned, after Ms O’Shane gave an extraordinary radio interview slamming income management, central to the work of the FRC.

The independent commission is at the heart of Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson’s Cape York welfare reform regime, is financially backed by the state and federal governments, and has operated in several far north Queensland Aborig­inal communities for more than a decade. Its inaugural commissioner, David Glasgow, retires on Friday.

The FRC’s local commissioners, respected community elders, have the power to quarantine welfare­ payments of community residents if they are charged with criminal offences or allow their children to skip school.

Ms O’Shane told the ABC she had been approached by Ms Trad and Mr Sarra to run the FRC, and confirmed she was oppose­d to ­income management.

“To penalise, to inflict or impose­ a monetary penalty on people who are impoverished and who already have very, very limited incomes, is an extreme punishment indeed,” she said.

“And I have absolutely no truck with that kind of behaviour on behalf of officials.”

Asked how she would preside over a regime of income management if opposed to it, Ms O’Shane said: “This is something I would have to discuss with the minister (but) it should not be left to a commissioner to in fact manage­ the income of the individual members of the community.”

The Australian understands cabinet was scheduled to sign off on Ms O’Shane’s appointment yesterday, with the decision to be ratified by the Governor in Council on Thursday. But cabinet did not make the decision, so Ms O’Shane will not be able to start in the role on Monday as planned.

A spokesman for Ms Trad said an announcement would be made “in due course”.

The FRC is in the middle of a bruising funding stoush between the state and federal governments, leaving the independent statutory body’s future uncertain.

Scott Morrison’s department has accused Queensland of failing to accept a three-year funding offer for the FRC, but the state says the most recent federal budget ignores the program.

Queensland has guaranteed $2.262 million to keep the commission’s doors open until next July. To make matters more complex, the state government has signalled it wants to end the welfare­ reform regime and shift towards a new agenda called “thriving communities”.

The FRC’s local commissioners have opposed the axing of the commission and wrote to Ms Palaszczu­k and Ms Trad yesterday to express concern about Ms O’Shane’s appointment.