Five-year terms for Queensland public service chiefs backed

State public service chiefs will be employed for fixed terms in Queensland, under integrity reforms embraced by both major parties.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

State public service chiefs will be employed for fixed five-year terms in Queensland, hamstringing a new government from removing them, under integrity reforms embraced by both major parties.

The recommendation, accepted by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli, is a potential “landmine provision” that could bind an incoming government to key bureaucrats appointed by the previous administration.

The proposed reforms, put forward by public administration expert Peter Coaldrake in a benchmark review, would potentially require an incoming government to keep on the previous director-general of the premier’s department and the under-treasurer for a full term of government.

Professor Coaldrake’s extraordinary proposal is among a slate of controversial changes recommended in his Let the Sunshine In report released this week.

He has also pushed Ms Palasczcuk to release secret cabinet documents within 30 days and ban political operatives from jumping between election campaign work and lobbying.

Mr Crisafulli said there was nothing in the report that made him “uncomfortable” and the issue was one of governance, not politics. “I think the appointment of (directors-general) must be above politics, the appointments of DGs cannot be a political plaything – that is important to good government,” he said.

Ms Palaszczuk blamed a dental appointment for being unable to hold a media conference to respond to Prof Coaldrake's scathing findings on Wednesday.

“This morning I underwent two-hour dental surgery. It could not be delayed,” she said in a statement. “I am in the office working but ... I am unable to conduct a media conference this afternoon. I will be available ... at 9am Thursday morning.”

Prof Coaldrake’s recommendation for the appointment of agency CEOs, including directors-general, to be unaligned to the electoral cycle should not be seen as radical, Griffith University professor of public policy and law AJ Brown said.

“I see it as being a pretty sensible way to stabilise the situation,” said Professor Brown, a Transparency International Australia board member.

“The bottom-line message is governments should be prepared to work with agency heads who have worked under previous governments and agency heads should be professional enough to serve any government. That is the idea of having a politically independent public service.”

Last year, Queensland’s corruption watchdog finalised a probe into the recruitment of departmental heads since Labor took power in 2015. Former deputy premier Jackie Trad has taken taxpayer-funded action in the Supreme Court to have the report withheld from public release.

The CCC investigation led to a directive from the Public Service Commission, gazetted last June, that “merit assessment must occur” in recruit­ment of state government chief executives.

It has become common practice in Australian politics for incoming leaders to put their stamp on the top level of the public service.

In one of his first acts as Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese sacked Australia’s top civil servant Philip Gaetjens, head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. He has also axed ­Coalition-linked department chiefs Simon Atkinson and Kathryn Campbell.

A landmark 2019 review into the federal public service, by former Telstra chief executive David Thodey, recommended more robust processes to govern the termination of department secretary appointments.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison rejected the recommendation.