Annastacia Palaszczuk finds job for ‘Labor mate’ Mike Kaiser

A former Queensland Labor MP once involved in an electoral scandal has been appointed to a senior job in the newly re-elected Palaszczuk government.

Former Queensland Labor MP Mike Kaiser. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

A former Queensland Labor MP who was involved in an ­electoral fraud scandal has been appointed to a senior position in the newly re-elected Palaszczuk government.

In the first of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s post-election appointments, Mike Kaiser has taken up the role of acting director-general in the Department of Resources. The one-year Woodridge MP, who resigned after his involvement in a 1986 branch-stacking scheme uncovered by an inquiry into electoral fraud, will begin the role in January.

The position will be advertised three months later to find a permanent appointment using a merit-based system.

A similar selection process will also take place for the director-general of tourism, innovation and sport which will be temporarily filled by Newgate Communications partner and sports administrator John Lee.

Ms Palaszczuk said she ­expected everyone would “roll up their sleeves and get on with our COVID recovery”.

The only other change announced in the director-general appointments was the replacement of retiring Department of Agriculture and Fisheries head Beth Woods with former Queensland police commissioner and youth justice director-general Bob Gee early next year. Mr Gee’s youth role will now fall under the reshaped Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs, overseen by Deidre Mulkerin.

Mr Kaiser, a KPMG partner, left parliament in 2001 after an inquiry found evidence he had signed a false enrolment form as a university student in 1986. He quit the party to sit on the crossbench but ultimately gave up the seat. He served as federal Labor assistant national secretary ahead of the 2004 election before working as a chief of staff to NSW premier Morris Iemma and Queensland premier Anna Bligh.

LNP finance spokesman Jarrod Bleijie described Mr Kaiser’s appointment as “unbelievable”. “It didn’t take long for (the Premier) to start handing out the jobs for Labor mates,” he said.