Suspended Queensland education boss Jeff Hunt pocketed $630,000

A senior Queensland public servant pocketed more than $630,000 while suspended and under investigation over the hiring of a school principal that cost Jackie Trad her job.

Former deputy director General Department of Education Queensland Jeff Hunt. Picture: Jerad Williams

A senior Queensland public servant pocketed more than $630,000 while suspended and under investigation over the hiring of a school principal that cost Jackie Trad her job.

Education Department former deputy director-general Jeff Hunt resigned earlier this month after a disciplinary probe found he had engaged in misconduct.

Under questioning at Thursday’s budget estimates, Education Queensland director-general Michael De’Ath revealed Mr Hunt received $630,704 in salary while on a two-year suspension.

That figure did not include any extra employment contract entitlements, but the department confirmed he was not paid redundancy because he resigned.

Mr Hunt was stood down in May 2020 amid a Crime and Corruption Commission probe into the appointment of a principal at Brisbane’s new Inner City South State Secondary College, in Ms Trad’s former electorate.

Ms Trad, who was treasurer and deputy premier at the time, resigned from cabinet while the watchdog investigated whether she had deliberately tried to intervene in the selection process.

She was later cleared by the CCC of criminal conduct, ­dishonesty or corrupt intent.

Ms Trad lost her South Brisbane seat at the October 2020 state election.

The CCC report found Mr Hunt and others planned to “test” principal candidate Tracey Cook at a meeting with Ms Trad in 2019 to see whether she could “hold her own as the deputy premier’s not the easiest personality”.

An expert recruitment panel had already selected Ms Cook to lead the new high school, but she was dumped and the position was readvertised following the meeting with Ms Trad.

Ms Trad was adamant she knew nothing of the nature of the meeting.

The CCC accepted that the Department of Education had instigated the meeting, not her.

The CCC report was damning, however, about the behaviour of senior public servants in wanting to satisfy the “perceived wishes of their political masters’’.

A subsequent probe by the Public Service Commission found that Mr Hunt had “in­appropriately” involved himself in the recruitment process for the principal and had “overruled” the selection panel‘s first pick.

Mr Hunt appealed to the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission, arguing that the finding had not been “ fair and reasonable”, but he was ­unsuccessful.