Decentralise public service Send the jobs here

DECENTRALISING the State Government’s 212,639 public servants could help boost Townsville’s unemployment rate and strengthen the region’s voice in the southeast corner, according to business and political leaders.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce urged city leaders and local residents in March to petition for federal departments to be created in Townsville in a bid to push bureaucracy out of Canberra.

Mayor Jenny Hill echoed Mr Joyce’s calls last month, after she lodged a submission to the Senate inquiry, claiming public sector jobs from metropolitan areas would support industry.

A similar proposal has since been suggested to decentralise public servants from the southeast corner.

Townsville has 12,373 full- time public servants working for the State Government, but Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls said the region could have more.

“The LNP was very much open to the idea of moving agencies out of Brisbane. We first discussed things in The Queensland Plan back in 2014,” he said. “There are opportunities with the review of agencies and the creation of specialised areas.”

Mr Nicholls said it was not necessary to have all departments in Brisbane when, for example, all the mining occurred in the Galilee Basin.

“Tourism would be better suited to the North in Cairns and Townsville,” he said.

Cr Hill said it would be good to see more public servants in the North.

“Many of the positions were taken out as part of the Newman cuts,” she said. “We obviously would welcome any state agency that would look towards moving more assets north, particularly the Department of Environment and Public Works.”

Senator Ian Macdonald, who supported the push to kick more federal bureaucrats out of Canberra, said the same could be done for the State Government.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the Government had established Energy Queensland in Townsville.