25 September 2012

Wong to swing the axe at the public service again

| johnboy
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The National Times has word of further major cuts to the Public Service with Penny Wong wanting another $550 million in savings over four years on top of the swingeing 4% efficiency dividend.

She has some piddling ideas as to where savings can be made:

— Almost $30 million a year through across-the-board reductions in air-travel spending, including restrictions on business-class flights.
— Over $60 million in 2012-13 by cutting public servants’ reliance on external consultants and contractors.
— $2 million a year through advertising jobs online rather than in other media.
— Cutting printing costs by about 5 per cent by increasingly publishing online only, saving about $6 million a year.

That leaves a lot of bone and muscle to make up the numbers.


UPDATE 25/09/12 13:27: Penny Wong’s office has sent in her release:

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“$2million a year advertising jobs online”

– there goes the Canberra Times!

Could the politicians an their minders( who are not real public servants anyway) ALSO cut back on business class travel?

Pigs might fly they will!!!!!!!

I once saw Rudd and his minders on the little Virgin jet fly between Canberra and Sydney. Oh the humility of needing to fly in the one-class plane!!!! At least they placed him in the front seat!!!

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

what foreign investment have the government done. None….. Governments don’t have money, it’s our, the public’s money WE PAY IT BACK IN TAXES.

…this is performance art, right? You’re a dramatic arts student, and this is some sort of meta piece about your grant?

While I may disagree with gazket’s comments about foreign aid and investment, the last part of his rant is a statement of fact. It is the public’s money, and we have paid, or will pay, it in tax.

gazket said :

what foreign investment have the government done. None….. Governments don’t have money, it’s our, the public’s money WE PAY IT BACK IN TAXES.

Well dammit it they terk our jerbs!!

steveu said :

Mysteryman said :

Truthiness said :

And the difference between labour and liberal is?

Liberal are honest about wanting to cut PS expenditure. Labor lie about it.

Barvo Sir! About time someone spelling out out like it really is. Wake up Canberra.

I think it comes down to the issue that they are trying to somehow get a budget surplus this FY. As revenues from mining (taxes etc) are now looking like being lower than expected, they are having to scrounge around in the vain attempt to scrape up enough saving to get their surplus.
The fact that they have resorted to cuts in the PS (two or three times in the last few months?) shows they are out of other ideas i’m afraid… Unfortunately, $550 million (over 4 years?) isn’t going to do it for them.
Don’t worry though, after this, they’ll simply ‘postpone’ a few more things to next FY (like they have been doing the last two budgets) to somehow achieve a ‘paper’ surplus while still looking like they are spending and providing services! They seem to be getting quite good at fiddling numbers over years….
Of course, it will mean a big blow out for the FY when all the postponed things ramp up! Hahahaha! That’ll be the Libs problem though! 🙂

p1 said :

– Over $60 million in 2012-13 by cutting public servants’ reliance on external consultants and contractors.

Because that work should be done by all the lazy staff who are sitting ’round all day doing nothing.

Well, if you believe Truthiness then that’s not so far off the mark…

That “$6 million in printing costs” is dozens of jobs in the printing industry.

Get rid of all Parliamentarians Entitlements, reduce the comcar fleet, provide a shuttle bus between the airport and the House (and Kingston pubs) instead of each “VIP” being driven around at will in their own car… Get rid of the entire dept that looks after their perks. Meetings can be done by video conferencing. Getting rid of the PS print mentality is a start, but then ANAO needs to play along and stop demanding processes to have a printed trail and accept digital signatures.

I’m sure QIC would love to buy APH.

Woody Mann-Caruso7:01 pm 25 Sep 12

what foreign investment have the government done. None….. Governments don’t have money, it’s our, the public’s money WE PAY IT BACK IN TAXES.

…this is performance art, right? You’re a dramatic arts student, and this is some sort of meta piece about your grant?

noma said :

Truthiness said :

And the difference between labour and liberal is?

hmm not much actually, except that Labor cuts public service sneakily over time whereas Liberal was upfront about cutting PS

+1

The Government squeals about how they are not cutting jobs (sorry but $550 million = job losses) and the Coalition is up front about wanting to reduce numbers.

How about some leadership from the politicians themselves – reduce their travel costs by making less trips (no, not those to get them back to their electorates, but to those ‘important meetings’ interstate that seem to happen all the time – and no more domestic travel at the pointy end of the plane?

Mysteryman said :

Truthiness said :

And the difference between labour and liberal is?

Liberal are honest about wanting to cut PS expenditure. Labor lie about it.

Barvo Sir! About time someone spelling out out like it really is. Wake up Canberra.

johnboy said :

You do realise that foreign investment raises the value of local assets don’t you?

JB please don’t confuse him or he’ll blow a gasket.

what foreign investment have the government done. None….. Governments don’t have money, it’s our, the public’s money WE PAY IT BACK IN TAXES.

johnboy said :

You can’t even spell the name of the party and you expect us to take your views seriously?

Bad spelling cannot hide the fact that LABOR (happy now Johnny) have flushed the country and it’s people down the toilet . You like me and our grand children will be paying for this incompetent Labor government long after Gillard and her cronies kick the bucket.

You do realise that foreign investment raises the value of local assets don’t you?

fromthecapital5:16 pm 25 Sep 12

Does this imply that if some politicians apply an efficiency drive against some defence civilians we will suffer a military coup?

If Labour didn’t go flying around the world giving away our borrowed 300 billion dollars to any country that holds their hand out and didn’t open the countries borders to boat people we would be fine. Thats also why Labour are selling of Australia like a fire sale. Bastards

You can’t even spell the name of the party and you expect us to take your views seriously?

schmeah said :

She must have thought of this saving measure only after her and her parliamentary colleagues gave themselves a second pay rise in 12 months ..

Good try, but pay rises (and all other remuneration) for politicians is determined by the independent Remuneration Tribunal. Politicians have no say in it at all, despite the lurid headlines in the tabloids whenever they get a pay rise.

switch said :

fromthecapital said :

Why do defence get quarantined?

Because they’re so good at playing the game? They seem to be able to get rid of troublesome Ministers and Secretaries at will.

Is that what happened to Nick Warner? One minute he was there, next minute he wasn’t.

I once oversaw the printing restructuring of a major department, providing online versions is a good start, but we really need to shift government into “print on demand”.

Typically departments print out tens of thousands of copies of every brochure and publication, most of which never get used and end up sitting in huge warehouses waiting for someone to order a copy. The cost of storage and retrieval alone can be astronomical, the cost of excess printing can be counted in forests.

By setting up automated print on demand, and doing away with product storage, it is possible to find massive environmental and economic savings. All without firing anyone!

fromthecapital said :

Why do defence get quarantined?

Because they’re so good at playing the game? They seem to be able to get rid of troublesome Ministers and Secretaries at will.

Here at RiotACT we’re all in favour of cutting print advertising and switching to online!

It was interesting that the last term of the Keating Government cut almost as many PS as Howard did, albeit not in one go. Approximately a third of the public service was retrenched 1991-1999 but it’s back to where it was 20 years ago through increases in staffing by Howard and Killard.

Governments are always gung ho about cutting PS but less so about cutting their programs therefore the bombast by either party is only a temporary measure to appeal to the Joe Sixpacks out there who think that less public servants is a good thing (until they need some service).

fromthecapital2:59 pm 25 Sep 12

Why do defence get quarantined?

Truthiness said :

And the difference between labour and liberal is?

Apparently:
“Our methodical and responsible approach to finding savings in the public service is in stark
contrast to the Liberals. State Liberal Premiers had the opportunity to progress considered
savings, but instead chose to indiscriminately cut jobs.
We will always find new ways of delivering essential government services, while ensuring
value for money to taxpayers – and without targeting jobs.”

So, apparently they are finding efficiencies, not cutting jobs (consultants/contractors apparently don’t have jobs)…

I also love the last bit (which should be spoken quickly, like at the end of a pollie/Govt Ad on TV!):
“The Department of Defence has been excluded from this arrangement. It also does not
apply to the Departments of the Senate or the House of Representatives, reflecting the
importance of the chamber departments in the functioning of the Federal Parliament.”

So, they get to keep their plush travel, reflecting their ‘importance’ over the rest of the PS! 🙂
They’ve probably earned themselves another pay rise with this work.

Truthiness said :

And the difference between labour and liberal is?

hmm not much actually, except that Labor cuts public service sneakily over time whereas Liberal was upfront about cutting PS

Ah. When Labor cut PS jobs, they’re making it “more efficient”. So it’s a good thing they are putting people are out of work. Because it’s efficient.

The paperless office is unworkable as there will actually be more covert printing and poor record keeping of same.
Also there are areas where you legitimately must have hardcopy. I can think of several off the top of my head where persons being dealt with do not have access to computers – prisoners in Australia or OS (mutual assistance, extradition), areas requiring proof of identity. There is also the problem of retrieval in a software environment where more than five years old is ancient and not maintained, preventing softcopy access. IT areas in public service are often run on a shoestring with contract staff who don’t have any longstanding corporate knowledge.

I have experienced all of the above. Sure you might ‘save money’ in the short term but at what cost? The public service would cop it big time if record keeping was found (through some media scandal) not to be up to scratch.

Now with Senator Wong’s statement.

Truthiness said :

And the difference between labour and liberal is?

Liberal are honest about wanting to cut PS expenditure. Labor lie about it.

They wouldn’t need so many contractors if they could lend skills between departments. In my experience many people contract because a department hires them for a single project and then let’s them go. If the APS just hired people to work for the government, and then moved them between departments as needed, there wouldn’t need to be so many contractors.

You find me a permanent role doing what I do, and I’ll stop contracting, until then I’ll be following the work from project to project.

– Over $60 million in 2012-13 by cutting public servants’ reliance on external consultants and contractors.

Because that work should be done by all the lazy staff who are sitting ’round all day doing nothing.

She must have thought of this saving measure only after her and her parliamentary colleagues gave themselves a second pay rise in 12 months ..

Be pretty ironic if she destroys the Dept. of Climate Change before Abbott does, since it was in setting it up that she came to the fore…

The problem with cutting consultants is that the APS often just doesnt have the skills. So everything takes twice as long and costs more, negating the savings.

Lets be real, there are some areas in the APS that waste money. However, its pretty rare when you are looking at things like travel or publishing. If you want to cut the APS, you need to reduce what they do – cut some procurements or programs or whatever.

And the difference between labour and liberal is?

In before the typical “but, but Abbott is worse he’ll cut all the jobs and destroy the public service hurr durrr”.

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