A BRAIN drain of Queensland top talent has left the public service, with some of its best workers opting for the coal seam gas industry.

Public servants who did much of the key assessment work for the CSG to LNG projects have jumped the fence into the private sector, with some of the biggest fish being caught by the Flinders Group, a privately-owned project management company that has contracts with UK energy giant BG Group's Queensland CSG subsidiary QGC.

Many of the top talent have direct or indirect links to Premier Campbell Newman.

Shane McDowall, a former deputy co-ordinator general with the Government, now sits on the board of the Flinders Group as managing director.

He will work with former senior public servants Phil Dash, who worked on the assessment of QGC and Santos's Gladstone LNG project, and former deputy co-ordinator general Geoff Dickie at Flinders.

The links don't stop there.

One of Flinders' directors is John Cotter Jnr, whose father, also John Cotter, runs the Newman-appointed Gasfield Commission which liaises between farmers, regional communities and the CSG industry.

Mr Cotter Snr said there had never been any conflict-of-interest issues despite the Flinders Group consulting to companies such as QGC.

"It has never come up in discussions with landowners or companies that I am pushing his barrow and I wouldn't do that anyway," he said.

One of the Gasfield Commission's directors is former Taroom mayor Don Stiller, whose daughter is Deb Frecklington, now an LNP MP on the cusp of joining the ministry.

The Gasfield Commission's general manager was until recently Andrew Brier, who was with Santos and before that headed the Government's LNG enforcement unit. Mr Brier resigned from the commission for health reasons.

There are also a trail of links between the companies and the Government that raise questions over whether the loss of talent will affect the Government's ability to assess resource projects effectively.

Santos's GLNG project has certainly benefited, with four senior bureaucrats moving over to the company. It has also snared a government media operative, Mitch Grayson, and Brad Burke who worked with Mr Newman in his days as Lord Mayor at Brisbane City Council.

The links to Mr Newman extend further with his current chief of staff Ben Myers, who previously worked for QGC. His brother, Luke Myers, is a lobbyist for Government Relations Australia, a company which has QGC as a client.

Arrow Energy's former media adviser, Lisa Palu, also now works within the Newman Government's media unit.

Origin's APLNG project hasn't lured any public servants but has two former senior Labor advisers, Anne Syvret and Steve Keating, within its communications office.

Activist Drew Hutton said the CSG industry had changed the state's governance system.

"There seems to be an open door between the industry and the Government," he said.

"There is obviously a close relationship between the Government and the CSG industry and there is a conflict of interest inherent in that."

The issue is a sensitive one for the companies which all refused to comment while the State Government said it was a personal matter for each person and not something in which it would get involved.

Originally published as State's best are jumping on CSG jobs