Shake-up a bid to sell Palaszczuk government’s message

Queensland Treasurer Jackie Trad’s hand-picked Under-Treasurer has ordered a major restructure of the senior executive ranks.

Queensland Under-Treasurer Frankie Carroll. Picture: Annette Dew

Jackie Trad’s Under-Treasurer has ordered a major restructure of senior executive ranks to better sell the ­Palas­zczuk government’s economic message before the state election.

Frankie Carroll is trying to recruit six new top bureaucrats for his department, including for the newly created position of chief economist, who will be charged with delivering to voters the “pre-eminent narrative” on the state of Queensland’s economy.

In the mid-year fiscal update last week, the Treasurer revealed a slashed surplus, plunging coal royalties, a higher than expected unemployment rate and sluggish economic growth, as well as total government debt projected to hit nearly $92bn in four years.

Ms Trad said the good news was that her new consultant-run public service razor gang, the Service Priority Review Office, had found more than $700m in cuts in the 2019-20 financial year, much more than the $200m originally budgeted.

A Treasury spokesman said there would be no forced ­redundancies under Mr Carroll’s restructure, despite the number of deputy under-treasurers ­appearing to drop from four to two.

Job advertisements show Mr Carroll is looking for two new deputies: one specialising in economics, policy and commercial, and the other in corporate and strategic initiatives.

He is also trying to recruit a chief economist, a “head of ­commercial”, a “head of budget and financial management”, and an executive general manager of strategic initiatives, which ­includes running the razor gang.

At present, the government is employing former Labor premier Anna Bligh’s former chief of staff Nicole Scurrah, a senior consultant at PwC, to help run the razor gang, which is advising the government on how to cut its $1.5bn annual spending on consultants.

Deputy Opposition Leader and Treasury spokesman Tim Mander said the restructure was merely “shuffling the deckchairs”.

“Under Labor’s financial mismanagement, Queensland has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, nine new or ­increased taxes, and is heading towards a $92bn debt bomb,” he said.

“Queenslanders know Labor can’t manage the economy.”

In a recent interview with The Australian, state Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington said the LNP would “stabilise” Labor’s debt if elected, but could not say whether it would reduce total government debt.

A Treasury spokesman said the restructure was to ­imple­ment a “new, contemporary ­operating model to better service Queenslanders and government agencies”.

“We are confident these changes will make Treasury an even more effective organisation in providing economic, commercial and fiscal leadership for Queensland,” the spokesman said.

Mr Carroll was hired by Ms Trad as Under-Treasurer in February.

The Queensland election will be held on October 31.