Canberra, paved with gold and awash with cocaine

poetix said :

Masquara said :

PS Myles could have used Poetix’s much-defended and discussed $11.40 supermarket-soy-patty-and-two-lettuce-leaves-and-a-tablespoon-of-shredded-carrot sandwich (value a fiver at most) avec string bows as an example of Canberrans not living in the real world!

Yet Poetix is such a practical, common sense type of person. (Judging a city’s grasp of value for money by one of its poets would seem a slightly odd way to go, somehow.)

I do think he’s right about supermarket prices, though, amongst the more fanciful claims. I was shocked by food prices when I moved from Melbourne in 1867. Particularly lard, billy tea and treacle.

Gosh – you are earning enough from full-time poetry writing to spend $11 on that sanger? I thought Les Murray was the only full-time poet in Australia living only on his poetry. I suspect you are not on Les Murray’s plane, and must have a very pragmatic, realworld source of income there and are not in the least vague! : )

chewy14 said :

Masquara said :

PantsMan said :

Generally agree with Myles.

Yep I was surprised to be in agreement with much of the article, and a lot of the reactions here in fact underline his points. Rents are high, prices are high, and we might think a hundred grand isn’t a high wage, but to the rest of Australia it is. Also, “million dollar house” is certainly no rarity for an EL1 couple. Where he goes off the rails is re the arboretum. The ACT has needed to grow its tourism possibilities, and locals don’t give a rat’s about the arboretum – I believe a LOT of tickets to the opera events he mentioned were giveaways. It is anything but an indulgence for locals.

Can you point out the part of the article that talks about EL1 couples?

Basically you’re saying that he’s at least overestimating by double and even then its a stretch. Good work.

Well it may be news to you, but most people partner up.

Masquara said :

PantsMan said :

Generally agree with Myles.

Yep I was surprised to be in agreement with much of the article, and a lot of the reactions here in fact underline his points. Rents are high, prices are high, and we might think a hundred grand isn’t a high wage, but to the rest of Australia it is. Also, “million dollar house” is certainly no rarity for an EL1 couple. Where he goes off the rails is re the arboretum. The ACT has needed to grow its tourism possibilities, and locals don’t give a rat’s about the arboretum – I believe a LOT of tickets to the opera events he mentioned were giveaways. It is anything but an indulgence for locals.

Can you point out the part of the article that talks about EL1 couples?

Basically you’re saying that he’s at least overestimating by double and even then its a stretch. Good work.

Masquara said :

PS Myles could have used Poetix’s much-defended and discussed $11.40 supermarket-soy-patty-and-two-lettuce-leaves-and-a-tablespoon-of-shredded-carrot sandwich (value a fiver at most) avec string bows as an example of Canberrans not living in the real world!

Yet Poetix is such a practical, common sense type of person. (Judging a city’s grasp of value for money by one of its poets would seem a slightly odd way to go, somehow.)

I do think he’s right about supermarket prices, though, amongst the more fanciful claims. I was shocked by food prices when I moved from Melbourne in 1867. Particularly lard, billy tea and treacle.

kb78 said :

what a load…must be a slow news week

News?

This is the Daily Terror we’re talking about – the Australian equivalent to Faux News. They don’t do “news”.

what a load…must be a slow news week

And, on a re-read, he seems a little confused about the target of his spleen venting – is it the Cth or local govt? Eg, the arboretum et al is in the domain of the local govt.

They haven’t called APS rankings ‘ASO’ for years. I wonder how long he’s had this article parked.

It’s OK. It was in the Telegraph. No-one takes anything printed in that rag seriously.

Stick to writing about computer games Myles …

staminaman62 said :

I think at least a part explanation for the increase in executive level jobs has been the significant changes that have occurred in the APS (and the wider economy) in the last 20 or so years.

Departments used to be full of lower level clerical staff processing paper. Mst of these jobs have simply been replaced by IT.Many other service delivery type jobs which would also involve lower classifications have been contracted out or privatised. This has led to a subsequent growth in positions like contract managers, program administrators and policy advisors. By there nature, these jobs are preformed at a higher level. Hence the growth in exec level classification numbers.

This is a very good point. Take IT, for example: IT companies became aware over the last few years that if they hired a senior level IT person then that person could probably do around 5-10 times as much work as a junior while settling for only 2-3 times as much pay. This is another reason that explains why the hunt is on for more senior staff and less junior staff.

“Grow or go” indeed.

Nice trolling, Mr Peterson.

*slow clap*

I have worked in private and public sector jobs and frankly saw more lazy people who tried to do as little actual work as possible while looking at eBay all day or whatever when I was in the private sector. They were better at hiding it though!

Great photo. Reminds me of me when I was a kid and there was extra icing sugar on my jam doughnut.

PS Myles could have used Poetix’s much-defended and discussed $11.40 supermarket-soy-patty-and-two-lettuce-leaves-and-a-tablespoon-of-shredded-carrot sandwich (value a fiver at most) avec string bows as an example of Canberrans not living in the real world!

I read the comments here before I read the Tele article.

I was thinking that surely it isn’t as bad and incorrect as people are making out.

But it was.

Probably the funniest piece of fiction I’ve read in a while.

PantsMan said :

Generally agree with Myles.

Yep I was surprised to be in agreement with much of the article, and a lot of the reactions here in fact underline his points. Rents are high, prices are high, and we might think a hundred grand isn’t a high wage, but to the rest of Australia it is. Also, “million dollar house” is certainly no rarity for an EL1 couple. Where he goes off the rails is re the arboretum. The ACT has needed to grow its tourism possibilities, and locals don’t give a rat’s about the arboretum – I believe a LOT of tickets to the opera events he mentioned were giveaways. It is anything but an indulgence for locals.

gorinosho said :

I know of one public servant who does pretty well for himself, but he told me the story of how his brother, a builder, laughed incredulously when he found out how little the EL1s and EL2s make.

The article by Myles is not devoid of facts, as some have asserted, but clearly has a singular target. The fact is, with a long cold winter, exorbitant rents and utilities, and rental vacancies under 2%, it is not an easy city to live in, let alone move to from elsewhere. $100K here with one parent working and mum at home will buy you a cockroach lifestyle. People don’t realise it, but this place is like a Mexican prison, where you can distract yourself in many ways but they’ll do everything to stop you being able to afford to leave. But in my humble opinion, Canberra is much more liveable than Sydney, although Melb and QLD are the preferred destinations of escapees, and with good reason.

Canberra is a fantastic city to live in of you are moderately wealthy, or have a genuinely good income.

rosscoact said :

Come on, it’s a silly little made up story in a silly little rag owned by a silly old man. Myles ain’t no Woodward or Bernstein which is why he’s writing fiction in the Terrorgraph. It is probably the best thing he’s ever written

1. Telegraph has over 3/4 of a million readers

2. Laurie Oakes writes for it.

Hardly a silly rag nor incapable of further screwing up the country’s perceptions of this city.

Come on, it’s a silly little made up story in a silly little rag owned by a silly old man. Myles ain’t no Woodward or Bernstein which is why he’s writing fiction in the Terrorgraph. It is probably the best thing he’s ever written

Ok, so if Canberra has about 400,000 people, and 2.1% of them (8400 people) used cocaine in the previous 12 months (http://www.druginfo.adf.org.au/topics/quick-statistics#cocaine), and the 1kg seizure equals just 1 percent of all the cocaine used in the ACT (100kg), then the average user is consuming 11.9 grams per year. I’ve never touched the stuff, but it doesn’t sound like a huge amount of drug. Even if a gram is 10 lines, that’s still only an average usage per user of 2 lines a week or so. Probably much less than Myles himself is consuming, if his rant is anything to go by.

I know of one public servant who does pretty well for himself, but he told me the story of how his brother, a builder, laughed incredulously when he found out how little the EL1s and EL2s make.

The article by Myles is not devoid of facts, as some have asserted, but clearly has a singular target. The fact is, with a long cold winter, exorbitant rents and utilities, and rental vacancies under 2%, it is not an easy city to live in, let alone move to from elsewhere. $100K here with one parent working and mum at home will buy you a cockroach lifestyle. People don’t realise it, but this place is like a Mexican prison, where you can distract yourself in many ways but they’ll do everything to stop you being able to afford to leave. But in my humble opinion, Canberra is much more liveable than Sydney, although Melb and QLD are the preferred destinations of escapees, and with good reason.

This is not the norm in my agency. The EL1s that I work with are all work-a-holics who spend extra hours running groups, events and other workplace related matters on top of their regular workload. The fat has been trimmed and then some.

As mentioned earlier, I think a jealous Sydney journalist wants to to stir the pot and take the focus off of all the western Sydney gang warfare.

Tetranitrate said :

goggles13 said :

BundahBoy said :

I agree with Myles on this one. Best not dwell on it too much though, I hear he loves a good trolling

which part of Myles’ story do you agree with? it contains a lot of ideas, most of which are way off the mark

The only thing that’s off the mark is the coke.

Maybe you should join the APS, if you actually believe this sh*t and are feeling that hard done by.

Hahaha! Classic! Sounds to me like someone got bumped at an EL1 interview recently!
So let me get this straight: are EL1s and above the only ones who can afford soft drinks in PS vending machines? How expensive are they? ‘…please: Stop the coke’. I assume he’s on an anti-sugar crusade like Sarah Wilson? Hahahaha!
Such a colourfully-worded story!! ‘Epidemic’, ‘scourge’, ‘torrents’, ‘gold-paved streets’, ‘cartels of ex-bureaucrats’, ‘spiralling upwards’! Too funny!
Lastly is the ‘Canberra’s elite regularly hold opera events for themselves in an $100m artificial forest’ bit talking about the Voices in the forest thing that’s been on annually for the last two years (from my memory)? I.e. Twice ever – over two years. I suppose technically you could call that ‘regularly’…. Though, can’t anyone that buys tix go to that? If so, WTF? Strange dude. Sounds like he’s sad because he thinks he’s the only one at the pub that is missing out on the Charlie! He probably just needs to make friends with some EL1s, apparently…. 🙂

bundah said :

‘Between 2001 and 2011 the number of EL1s grew by more than 100 per cent’

If that is actually the case can someone ‘please explain’?

Because if you don’t promote your good workers they bugger off elsewhere and leave you starting from scratch. EL1 is the new APS5.

goggles13 said :

BundahBoy said :

I agree with Myles on this one. Best not dwell on it too much though, I hear he loves a good trolling

which part of Myles’ story do you agree with? it contains a lot of ideas, most of which are way off the mark

The only thing that’s off the mark is the coke.

It’s not that he’s wrong in all of his criticisms that gets me so much. It’s that a great number of you must be holding out with the charlie.

That made me laugh out loud.

BundahBoy said :

I agree with Myles on this one. Best not dwell on it too much though, I hear he loves a good trolling

which part of Myles’ story do you agree with? it contains a lot of ideas, most of which are way off the mark

I agree with Myles on this one. Best not dwell on it too much though, I hear he loves a good trolling

The f*ck is this bloke on about. Might be on the coke himself from the sounds of it.

I am not a big fan of Canberra, but anyone worth their bob knows we don’t have a serious coke problem running rampant among the local pube population. There are enough legitimate criticisms one can make about Canberra without having to resort to making sh*t up.

Yeah, coke in Canberra is bull$hit. Go to Sydney, it’s easier to get there =)

I think at least a part explanation for the increase in executive level jobs has been the significant changes that have occurred in the APS (and the wider economy) in the last 20 or so years.

Departments used to be full of lower level clerical staff processing paper. Mst of these jobs have simply been replaced by IT.Many other service delivery type jobs which would also involve lower classifications have been contracted out or privatised. This has led to a subsequent growth in positions like contract managers, program administrators and policy advisors. By there nature, these jobs are preformed at a higher level. Hence the growth in exec level classification numbers.

I am an EL1 and, no, I do not have a million dollar home nor do I use cocaine.

rosscoact said :

goggles13 said :

what a crap article.

I am an EL1 and I don’t have a million dollar home, nor a coastal home.

I also don’t get any allowance for parking, travel, technology or have many, many junkets.

I must be doing something seriously wrong. oh hang on, I am paying a mortgage and have just finished putting three kids through school.

wtf would some journalist writing in a Sydney paper know about the reality of Canberra?

Best you stay off the coke then.

I only drink cans of coke!!

c_c™ said :

What a bizarre article, all over the place and in parts just wrong.

He has a go at the Arboretum, saying it’s doomed to burn down just as the site did in 2003. Except it didn’t, the pine forests on that site went up in the previous year’s fire in 2002. Facts aside, I still don’t get the point of his argument, don’t plant trees they’ll just burn?

Coke bust within 1km of Parliament. Okay, point being? Surely any perception of some moral aura emanating from parliament is debunked by merely watching 5mins of Question Time. And I think you’d fine plenty of Coke houses a short distance from the Capitol and Westminster.

Honestly this city just doesn’t need this kind of crap written about it.

Completely agree.

There is a big difference between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. I’ve never really understood the hatred of the public service given that so much economic activity is created here from it. I mean – those prices to rival that of South Yarra or Vaucluse – they’re being charged by non-public servants. There are plenty of people in this town making a heap of cash out of those caw cow EL1s.

I more or less agree with him, though when it comes to coke, it’s probably more the legal fraternity and graduates (or thereabouts in seniority) that are into it than the EL1/2s or SES.

dungfungus said :

bundah said :

‘Between 2001 and 2011 the number of EL1s grew by more than 100 per cent’

Most public servants on EL 1 range salaries have at least one investment home (negatively geared) several I know have 5 or more which are managed in taxpayers’ time.

Really? Most EL1’s have investment properties? You are joking arent you? Sweeping generalisations anyone?

Hahaha, that was a hilarious piece of fiction. Not going to waste time drilling holes through his ‘stories’. And yes, excellent for tourism!
“Pssst Buddy, just here for the weekend. Do you know where I can get some coke?”

What a bizarre article, all over the place and in parts just wrong.

He has a go at the Arboretum, saying it’s doomed to burn down just as the site did in 2003. Except it didn’t, the pine forests on that site went up in the previous year’s fire in 2002. Facts aside, I still don’t get the point of his argument, don’t plant trees they’ll just burn?

Coke bust within 1km of Parliament. Okay, point being? Surely any perception of some moral aura emanating from parliament is debunked by merely watching 5mins of Question Time. And I think you’d fine plenty of Coke houses a short distance from the Capitol and Westminster.

Honestly this city just doesn’t need this kind of crap written about it.

Is this guy off his tree?

I’m supposedly one of the cashed up, zonked out EL1 he refers to in such loving term. So where is my million dollar house, weekender at the coast and coke?

I agree that Canberra is an expensive place to live but can that be traced specifically to the existence of Exec Level ones? I didn’t set the prices of houses (which I think are highly overpriced btw), nor the food in the supermarket (also a bit inflated). The ACT Government has been slow in releasing land and approving new houses (and building infrastructure etc etc) but the APS?

He talks about incentives, allowances for parking, technology, travel, living away from home and the many, many junkets. Really? Is this meant to be a go at political staffers?

And the cartels of ex public servants buying up government land and reselling it to the unwashed?
Thats a new one to me!

WTF?

I work hard for a boss who is very demanding and a Minister who is even more so (as they should be) and has their eye on the $$’s. Has MP heard of the Efficiency dividend?

goggles13 said :

what a crap article.

I am an EL1 and I don’t have a million dollar home, nor a coastal home.

I also don’t get any allowance for parking, travel, technology or have many, many junkets.

I must be doing something seriously wrong. oh hang on, I am paying a mortgage and have just finished putting three kids through school.

wtf would some journalist writing in a Sydney paper know about the reality of Canberra?

Best you stay off the coke then.

what a crap article.

I am an EL1 and I don’t have a million dollar home, nor a coastal home.

I also don’t get any allowance for parking, travel, technology or have many, many junkets.

I must be doing something seriously wrong. oh hang on, I am paying a mortgage and have just finished putting three kids through school.

wtf would some journalist writing in a Sydney paper know about the reality of Canberra?

Christ, the EL1 bloat is nothing new, I’ve been overlooked so often that I no longer fit Peterson’s salary bracket, but the other biggest waste would have to be the over-supply of utterly useless SES officers. I used to work with one who would regularly call in sick with a ‘headache’ or ‘sore back’ ffs. And they’re still employed while thousands of others took pay outs and walked.

Having once worked in a not for profit, I do otherwise agree that for those not employed in the APS, or those on lower classifications .. this town can be very fiscally unforgiving.

Looking again at the headline, and the eye-catching pic (wasn’t that guy in Rake?), I realise this is all just a devilishly clever piece of work by Canberra Tourism – with Summernats only a few days a year, and fireworks a thing of the past, and porn readily available on the net, we need a new angle to keep those cashed-up bogan dollars flowing in our direction. Well done Canberra Tourism (or whatever you call yourself now) and well done Myles – we knew you really loved us all along. This has got “viral” written all over it – woo hoo!

hundreds of kilos, with a street value gauged in the millions, are potentially wandering the capital’s streets looking for cashed-up buyers

Do these people deliver?

He takes what happens on the minority of occassions and promotes it as the norm.

Oh Christ, I only just saw the accompanying photo. Goddamn I hate the Tele.

It bugs me that there aren’t any hard facts in this piece. Especially the idea that we are some kind of cocaine-Capital, which is based on nothing but anecdotal evidence (and not even good anecdotal evidence).

I’ll grant you that Myles has definitely struck a chord and that a lot of people are dissatisfied with the current state of Canberra, but I don’t think there was much substance to the article itself.

I thought it was 1996-2010 but yes the number of EL1 have increased by 100%. All public serivce ranks increased under Howard and Labor except for trainees and APS 1-3 which have have dropped, that’s all the young ones straight from high school.

More graduates coming in starting at APS5+ and quickly rising to EL1 would also contribute.

However, I think the main reason is that you cannot just pay people more to poach them from other agencies or reward them. They need to increase in rank.

The end result is that if you can find someone with any talent any drive at all they quickly get promoted to middle management simply to give them extra income and retain them. It seems that if a person is smart enough to wear their underpants on the inside they are a shoe-in for an EL1 position.

It might be a bit late but I mean no offence to talented EL1s out there 🙂

bundah said :

‘Between 2001 and 2011 the number of EL1s grew by more than 100 per cent’

If that is actually the case can someone ‘please explain’?

I can’t explain why the numbers grew but their existence could explain why the perceived demand driven real estate market remains overpriced. Most public servants on EL 1 range salaries have at least one investment home (negatively geared) several I know have 5 or more which are managed in taxpayers’ time. Some are even self-renovators in taxpayer time. I don’t know of any that snort cocaine however. Perhaps some should as it would take the boredom out of dinner parties where all that is talked about is the real estate market.

Dammit! Where’s my gold and my cocaine then?

Clearly our Myles – I use “our” as he has been an occasional commenter in these parts – is still processing his experience of working in the APS, perhaps with some lingering bitterness. See this piece in The Age from a while back and the corresponding RiotAct thread. Actual stats about classifications and everything can be found here.

I am in no position to comment on prices in South Yarra and Vaucluse, or on the supply of Bolivian marching powder, but at least some of what MP has to say rings true with me – most particularly that it is increasingly difficult for people on lower incomes to get by in this town. Those who run the place, and those who surround them, are on comfortable (at least) and generally quite secure incomes and it often seems that they either don’t understand, or simply don’t care, about the impact of their decisions on those whose incomes are somewhat lower and less secure.

Others might care to comment on the detail of the claims about the growth in “executive” level positions, but I have heard a very (and I do mean very) senior APS insider describe Branch Heads – not mere EL1s – as “tuppence a dozen”.

Generally agree with Myles.

He might be pissed at the nations capital but its hard to argue with a lot of that. Just go to Kingston on any Friday night when parliaments in session

I guess, because prices rise so fast here and they need to persuade people to move here, everything has been bumped up a notch..?

Somebody told me….don’t think that EL1’s are anything special, and don’t think that Directors in the Federal PS actually direct anything, they’d be a junior manager elsewhere. If any complicated work needs doing, they employ foreigners on contracts through agencies.

‘Between 2001 and 2011 the number of EL1s grew by more than 100 per cent’

If that is actually the case can someone ‘please explain’?