The questions swirling in Qld’s $500m new youth justice program orbit

Welcome to Brisbane Times’ Queensland public sector column, Public Circus. This week: checking in on a key election pledge, the premier’s department adds staff, what wasn’t in the budget, and more.

Establishing a swathe of new early intervention and rehabilitation programs for youth offenders was a major plank of the Crisafulli government’s election pitch to Queenslanders.

With a more than $480 million price tag, most of the work is tendered out to third-party providers. So what is going on?

On Friday, we heard one of the $225 million Staying on Track providers (one we’d had our eyes on) had been referred to state and federal authorities over allegations it misused public funds.

Then there’s the provider for the $50 million Regional Reset scheme that’s been defunded over (contested) claims it wasn’t delivering on its contract requirements.

There’s also the matters of:

• The second of four proposed Crime Prevention Schools being announced after what Youth Justice Minister Laura Gerber described as an “extensive tender process” – contradicting departmental statements it had gone direct to market after tearing up the earlier open tender. Handpicked Gold Coast provider Men of Business – which now employs the relative of an LNP MP – was also involved in the dumped selection process for the $50 million program.
• While Gerber’s office said on Monday that all nine pledged Regional Reset locations had providers operating, except the far north after The MaraWay was defunded, Western Queensland’s is now being delivered from Mount Isa and the Brisbane-pledged site has instead become Moreton Bay-based. The last provider on the Sunshine Coast was only announced in February, despite tenders closing in May 2025. Labor’s Di Farmer suggested in parliament last week that a second provider was “dysfunctional but with direct ministerial protection”.
• The long-awaited location of the second of Ohana for Youth’s two $40 million Youth Justice School locations, now set for the Cairns CBD, has been criticised by the chamber of commerce and mayor Amy Eden, who says her local government wasn’t consulted on the ultimate site.
• Providers of the $65 million Proven Initiatives portion of $115 million earmarked for “gold standard early intervention” are yet to be announced, despite tenders closing in October.
• Before the last election, party leader David Crisafulli highlighted the Ipswich-based Fearless Towards Success as the kind of organisation that would “directly benefit” from the LNP’s program, if he was elected. It was announced as a Staying on Track provider in September.

Circus reached out to the department, the offices of Gerber and Crisafulli, and Fearless Towards Success with additional questions.

A government spokesperson said Fearless Towards Success was successful “through a standard procurement process”.

A spokesperson for Gerber said: “We won’t be lectured to by Di Farmer and the Labor Party after their failure to deliver effective early intervention and rehabilitation programs created a Youth Crime Crisis”.

Crisafulli backed Gerber on Sunday when asked if he had confidence in her to manage the programs’ rollout. “Very much so,” he responded. On whether he was then worried about departmental procurement processes, he didn’t say.

We’re sure Crisafulli wouldn’t have been seeking to throw the department, with its third (still acting) director-general in Michael Drane, under the bus, given the news often filtering out of Gerber’s orbit.

Just how much are public service ranks growing? Depends how you slice it

Much fanfare was made among Crisafulli and Treasurer David Janetzki’s political budget bluster last week of the number of public servants joining the ranks.

Almost 8700 full-time equivalent roles were added in the year to March, as detailed in the parallel-released State of the Sector by David Mackie’s Public Sector Commission.

Of these, 91 per cent were said to be in frontline and frontline-support positions – something the government has been very keen to spruik, as departments apply significant scrutiny to new or vacating corporate and senior executive roles.

This lift represented a 3.2 per cent increase to a total FTE count of 279,577, down from the 4.9 per cent increase to March 2025 laid alongside last year’s budget.

While that document accounted for a 2.2 per cent uptick in funded roles in the 2025-26 financial year, the budget papers this year tell a much different story going forward.

Growth from estimated actual 2025-26 to budgeted 2026-27 roles has been trimmed to just 0.7 per cent – half the Treasury-forecast population growth of 1.5 per cent.

For a government that made service delivery such a significant plank of its platform, any drop-off in that may cause trouble.

Just 11 of the state’s 25 departments will benefit from the net 2205 FTE headcount increase in 2026-27, the budget papers show. The other 14 will take a combined 222-role haircut between them.

So, to use a well-trodden trope, who are the winners and losers? Circus has crunched the numbers below – and wonders how many frontline roles exist in Premier and Cabinet.

What wasn’t in the budget

Circus was in the lock-up on budget day poring over the documents to see what other illuminating titbits we might find. But as is often the case, what’s left out is also curious.

There was no further information on how much has been allocated to CFMEU inquiry Commissioner Stuart Wood AM KC for his more-than-doubled construction sector probe.

The inquiry announced 21 new hearing days over seven weeks on Sunday, rounding at its scheduled end-of-year total to 62. If that doesn’t sound like enough, don’t fret – it has all of 2027 as well.

But how much will the 18-month extension of the initially budgeted $19.6 million probe cost taxpayers? We don’t know.

“The CFMEU Inquiry has been extended and will continue to be fully resourced to ensure this critical work can proceed without delay and expose the full extent of any wrongdoing,” a spokesperson for Attorney-General Deb Frecklington told us. Helpful.

Also absent was an update on Janetzki’s supposed $6.8 billion consultant and contractor spend cap saving plan, despite a (rather sneaky) addition in last year’s budget and suggestions to Circus when we were diving into the matter earlier this year it would be forthcoming.

“The total spend for 2025-26 will be finalised and released in the next Queensland Audit Office’s State Entities Report,” a government spokesperson told us. That’s not until early next year, for those paying attention. We hope the new in-house team have their skates on.

Something disappearing from the detailed Service Delivery Statements for police were measures of public “perceptions of police integrity” – a fact Greens MP Michael Berkman was quick to spot.

The statements noted this had dropped off because the survey the data comes from has been discontinued by the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency (ANZPAA) Board, of which QPS is a member. What will take its place? Well, nothing yet.

A police spokesperson tells Circus the agency is working with ANZPAA on “alternative options”. We wait with bated breath.

No-cause board sacking rules extended to critics’ home turf

After an extended four-day budget week in parliament, what treat awaited those who stayed beyond 6pm on the final day? Why, a “sack a board Friday” for the ages, of course.

The latest three prominent LNP figures to be parachuted into plum paid board jobs include a recent byelection candidate, a sitting Brisbane councillor and a party stalwart that others suggested might be in the frame for Government House.

While Circus hasn’t yet run the ruler over who made space for the trio, changes to laws governing the South Bank Corporation board tacked onto an unrelated bill by Bleijie – and waved through parliament this week – raised our eyebrows.

The changes, similar to those pushed through last year for Hospital and Health Service boards, will allow the government to sack board members without cause.

Why would the government want this power extended to the South Bank board? If you ask Bleijie’s office, a spokesperson will tell you it’s about “a consistent framework” across the, well, board.

This, of course, is what Health Minister Tim Nicholls said of his changes to HHS board laws. The reality was maybe two-fold. We wonder if Dr Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes, who panned her earlier push from the Queensland Reconstruction Authority Board, may be in the sights this time.

The South Bank Corporation was yet to respond to questions, Circus got Dedekorkut-Howes’ out-of-office, and Bleijie’s spinner wouldn’t be drawn. All board members’ terms are up on New Year’s Eve.

Have a curiosity for the Public Circus tent? Email us on m.dennien@nine.com.au or james.hall@nine.com.au. For more security, sing out with a non-work device and network via Signal (mattdennien.15 or here) and mattdennien@protonmail.com.

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