Justice Patrick Keane has been picked as the newest member of the Pineapple Mafia – the Queenslanders who run the government – after Attorney-General Robert McClelland announced his appointment as the next chief justice of the Federal Court.

Keane went to the bar in 1978, took silk in 1988, and was appointed Queensland solicitor general in 1992. He joined Queensland’s Court of Appeal in 2005, where he was considered a candidate for the High Court in 2008.