One was not due until May.

The actions means that taxpayers face a payout of almost $900,000, including superannuation entitlements, for two senior bureaucrats.

Last December the opposition wrote to then-premier Lara Giddings, expressing concern about the renewals, because the two agencies involved would be merged under an incoming Liberal government. Ms Giddings dismissed the concern as "irrelevant" to her government.

It is true that whatever oppositions promise in an election period may be irrelevant to a government, but this was not just a policy proposal or promise.

The previous government indeed booby-trapped the two contract renewals, knowing that incoming governments always make their own choices with the public sector.

Senior appointments or contract renewals should be frozen within say three months of an election. No premier should be allowed to sign contracts or make changes to appointments within cooee of the election date.

If Ms Giddings's office thinks they were being clever, the joke sadly is not on the new government but taxpayers.

As Mr Hodgman said in his December letter to Ms Giddings, state Auditor-General Mike Blake had previously criticised poorly planned and costly appointments.

In one case the head of national parks Scott Gadd had his contact renewed by the Bartlett government just days before his department was abolished - by the same government - resulting in a $400,000 payout.

There are now fears that Labor renewed a large number of contracts of public officials just before last month's election. Whether intended or not, it smacks of political patronage and sheer bloody- mindedness.

It is a financially reckless practice that should be made illegal.