jobs for the boys with labor

THE NSW Labor Government has appointed Greg Keating, brother of former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, to a $306,990 job as president of the state's Workers Compensation Commission.

Mr Keating's appointment comes just two months after he shared in a windfall of up to $5million when he sold his interest in Sydney law firm McClellands to Slater & Gordon Ltd.

Because the presidency of the commission is reserved for judges, Mr Keating has also been appointed a judge of the NSW District Court, triggering calls for reform of the judicial selection process. "Greg Keating is a very able lawyer but it is for others to judge whether his relationship to Paul Keating has advanced his cause," said Opposition legal affairs spokesman Greg Smith.

"Next time, I'd like to see a more transparent process such as the British system where a separate body interviews candidates and checks their competency."

Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca said Mr Keating, 52, had extensive legal and specialist workers compensation experience.

He had practised as a solicitor for 26 years, had been an acting judge of the District Court for three years to June 1999, and had been a director of the NSW WorkCover Authority since 1998, Mr Della Bosca said.

Mr Keating, 13 years junior to his famous brother and the youngest of the four Keating children, did not go to university to obtain his legal qualification, instead doing a Solicitors Admissions Board course at night.

"My father was never real keen on university graduates," he told Paul Keating's biographer John Edwards.

"There was never any great pressure to go to university ... certainly not from Dad's point of view - he used to describe university graduates as bums."

Until the sale of McClellands to Slater & Gordon in August, Mr Keating had been managing partner of the firm founded by the late Labor senator "Diamond" Jim McClelland.

Mr Keating guided the firm through a prostitution scandal involving former partner Michael Ryan who had been acting for former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld.

He has also been a keen property investor, leading a syndicate that bought a parcel of land next to Sydney's Olympic stadium eight months before the NSW government announced its decision to bid for the 2000 Olympics at Homebush. At the Workers Compensation Commission, Mr Keating will be replacing current president Terry Sheahan, a former president of the NSW Labor Party and former state attorney-general. Mr Keating's presidential salary of $306,990 falls short of the $321,670 special pay deal that the state Government made with Justice Sheahan.

Mr Keating, who takes office on November 5, will be taking charge of the commission at a time when its contract arbitrators are in revolt over delays during Justice Sheahan's presidency in resolving their pay claims. Mr Keating has been given a seven-year term as president of the commission and will then be entitled to join the bench of the District Court where he will be paid $276,300. On retirement at age 72, he will be entitled to a pension for life. Judges' pensions are payable in reduced form to any surviving spouse.

Slater & Gordon declined yesterday to say whether it knew Mr Keating would be leaving McClellands when it agreed to buy the firm for $2million in shares and an undisclosed amount of cash.

The total value of the deal could be $5 million, according to Austock Securities.