19 November 2013

Zed to Public Service: "It's not just us that hates you"

| johnboy
Join the conversation
20

Senator Seselja is engaging in the dubious strategy of trying to convince a public service mid-mutilation that Labor was going to do the same anyway:

“Whilst running an entire campaign focussed on supposedly saving jobs, Labor was cutting jobs behind Canberrans’ backs,” stated Senator Seselja. “Labor members blatantly lied to the people of Canberra.”

Labor’s cuts were largely unfunded, forcing a large number of departments and agencies to offer redundancies for which they were not funded and which has pushed some of them into operating losses.

“Not only did the former government lie about their job cuts, they irresponsibly also failed to ensure that departments could continue to meet their budgets.”

“The former Labor Government has done extensive damage to Australia’s fiscal budget line and thrown our local economy in to disarray by creating instability and uncertainty. Local Labor members have shown unashamed disrespect for Canberrans and their livelihoods,” concluded Senator Seselja.

UPDATE: The ABC has a story on a freeze to sackings as the Government assimilates the existing cuts.

Join the conversation

20
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest
neanderthalsis3:07 pm 20 Nov 13

CrocodileGandhi said :

davo101 said :

I’m a little confused as to where the Liberal’s 12 000 came from?

Their arseholes. This is evidenced by the fact that they annoucned the figure over two years ago and didn’t revise it as the size of the APS gradually declined between then and now.

If I recall correctly, the 12k was based on the growth of the APS post Rudd in 2007 and considered to be surplus to the policy requirements of the Coalition. http://tinyurl.com/nbgpsuv

CrocodileGandhi2:05 pm 20 Nov 13

davo101 said :

I’m a little confused as to where the Liberal’s 12 000 came from?

Their arseholes. This is evidenced by the fact that they annoucned the figure over two years ago and didn’t revise it as the size of the APS gradually declined between then and now.

I’m a little confused as to where the Liberal’s 12 000 came from. I would have assumed it would have been based on the budget forecasts ie: budget forecast says we’re going to be spending too much we need to cut 12 000 to get to our selected level of expenditure. However when they are informed that the budget forecast includes an implicit staff reduction of 14 000 all of a sudden they start backing away from the 12 000 number. Does this mean we’re actually looking at a cut of 26 000 to get to the level of expenditure the Liberals wanted? Or did they just make up the number? Is 12 000 just a neat percentage of the total service?

If you insist on using obsolete spellings then you’re going to have to make a few thousand modifications to your dictionary. Which era are you choosing? Here’s a list to get you started.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_obsolete_forms

Just don’t call him Sir Humf.

vaguely said :

Deref said :

So does “aluminum”, btw.

The word you’re thinking of is alumium.
That is the orininal word, aluminium has been the correct word for over 200 hundred years.
Webster’s Dictionary first used the incorrect word many years after the scientific community had settled on aluminium, it was American journos who spread the wrong word to the people.

🙂

According to my reading, Sir Humphrey Davey (who abominated gravy, and lived in the odium of having discovered sodium) first named it alumium but then changed it to aluminum. The “aluminium” spelling was later adopted by others who felt that it matched better with the other -iums.

So yes – thanks – alumium is legit, but (assuming the above is correct) Sir Humphrey, who had naming rights, seems to have gone with aluminum.

Fascinating stuff.

dtc said :

I wonder how many times the Liberals have been told that, due to budget cuts, there arent the resources to run the programs (or ‘programmes’ if you are a Liberal) that the Libs want to run; and have now siezed on that to stop the reduction. I mean, the Libs through ‘natural attrition’ must have assumed there would be no redundancies, so to now say they can’t cut people due to there being not budget for something that was (apparently) never going to happen anyway is a bit strange.

That is a very good point, the Labor plan was through both, though not mentioned redundancies (at least where I work) also came off the departments bottom line.

As for the Libs what I don’t follow is they have now decided to stick with nasty Labors plan (for the time being at least), a plan they say they didn’t realise even existed. So their cuts were planed on a know budget bottom line (the budget papers), which included these hidden cuts. So if the libs plan was to save x $m through cutting 12,000 jobs how are they going to achieve these savings now? Surely to get the same result the figure needs to be 26,000 cuts.

But alas I reckon they knew full well, if they didn’t they shouldn’t be in power. Which makes me think this sudden revelation, and the revelation Labor didn’t fund redundancies (refer to para 1) is now a way of hanging more shit on Labor for political gain, nothing more.

gungsuperstar11:07 pm 19 Nov 13

If anyone was going to read the pre-election budget statements, you’d think it’d be

1) the opposition (at the time)
2) the media
3) the public servants who implement the programs.

These cuts weren’t a secret in the slightest… Zed is just running yet another Liberal lie. This information was freely available well before the election to anyone who bothered to look for it. The Liberals were TOLD what it said!

The ALP can claim they were projecting jobs, because whatever the ALPs number was, the Libs have this arbitrary figure of 12k that they’ve plucked from the sky that they will cull over and above that ALP number.

Isn’t it good to see our elected local members telling us about all the hours they’ve spent lobbying influential government members to try and save some of their voters’ jobs from a bizarre and irrational culling process?

Oh, wait…

I love that the latest RA “critique” of the current government is more about the correct wordage being used than it is about the “ABBOTTABBOTTABBOTT”

Robertson said :

Deref said :

Adopting an 19th century affectation is no basis for spelling. I’m a stickler for spelling but, in this case, “program” has more validity.
.

“Programme” is English spelling.
“Program” is an archaic form preserved in a different dialect based on a dictionary that, although it did get cleaned up a lot, remains riddled with errors to this day and whose nefarious effects we should resist for as long as possible.

Program is the way 80% or more of people in Australia spell it. Its how every TV channel and radio channel spell it. Like it or not, its now the common and accepted way to spell it. ‘Programme’ is seen as archaic and old fashioned, a bit hoity toity.

However, those who are in the APS will be aware that the Libs style guide requires ‘programme’. Which is how it was under Howard but not under the ALP (who didnt care)

Deref said :

So does “aluminum”, btw.

The word you’re thinking of is alumium.
That is the orininal word, aluminium has been the correct word for over 200 hundred years.
Webster’s Dictionary first used the incorrect word many years after the scientific community had settled on aluminium, it was American journos who spread the wrong word to the people.

Deref said :

Adopting an 19th century affectation is no basis for spelling. I’m a stickler for spelling but, in this case, “program” has more validity.
.

“Programme” is English spelling.
“Program” is an archaic form preserved in a different dialect based on a dictionary that, although it did get cleaned up a lot, remains riddled with errors to this day and whose nefarious effects we should resist for as long as possible.

BimboGeek said :

dtc said :

… to run the programs (or ‘programmes’ if you are a Liberal)

It’s “programme” if you know how to spell in English. “Program” is the original spelling and still in use in North America but the Oxford English Dictionary uses the French spelling.

Adopting an 19th century affectation is no basis for spelling. I’m a stickler for spelling but, in this case, “program” has more validity.

So does “aluminum”, btw.

dtc said :

… to run the programs (or ‘programmes’ if you are a Liberal)

It’s “programme” if you know how to spell in English. “Program” is the original spelling and still in use in North America but the Oxford English Dictionary uses the French spelling.

I wonder how many times the Liberals have been told that, due to budget cuts, there arent the resources to run the programs (or ‘programmes’ if you are a Liberal) that the Libs want to run; and have now siezed on that to stop the reduction. I mean, the Libs through ‘natural attrition’ must have assumed there would be no redundancies, so to now say they can’t cut people due to there being not budget for something that was (apparently) never going to happen anyway is a bit strange.

Yep. The PS is a tailor-made whipping boy for politicians of any flavour. Everyone around Australia hates them, knows that they’re underworked, overpaid fat cats who live in a luxurious city where the streets are paved with gold thanks to rivers of taxpayers’ hard-earned, and the more the politicians – Laboral or Liber – sack, the better.

Then, of course, they whine like stuck pigs when anyone suggests reducing subsidies to [insert name of industry here] because people will lose their jobs.

thebrownstreak69 said :

mossrocket said :

We didn’t need convincing – it was obvious to Public Servants that it’s ben happening for the last couple of years, and would have continued had Labor won.

The ridiculous use of the blunt knife of efficiency dividends was used to sack hundreds if not thousands of staff while the previous Government dodged any political flack for their mismanagement of the APS and the budget as a whole.

I’m not saying the ‘natural attrition’ proposal is better – but at least it’s out in the open…

+1.

Labor had been cutting for several years when they lost government. At least 8000 positions had already gone. Given the current budget pressures, they were committed to continuing down the same path.

+1 more

It has been clear that the APS was going to go thru a period of downsizing for a long time. EDs and the like have been removing staff for a number of years. At least the Coalition was clear about what it was going to do, unlike the Labor Party.

Makes all the current wailing from Labor-ites seem a tad fake though.

thebrownstreak6910:24 am 19 Nov 13

mossrocket said :

We didn’t need convincing – it was obvious to Public Servants that it’s ben happening for the last couple of years, and would have continued had Labor won.

The ridiculous use of the blunt knife of efficiency dividends was used to sack hundreds if not thousands of staff while the previous Government dodged any political flack for their mismanagement of the APS and the budget as a whole.

I’m not saying the ‘natural attrition’ proposal is better – but at least it’s out in the open…

+1.

Labor had been cutting for several years when they lost government. At least 8000 positions had already gone. Given the current budget pressures, they were committed to continuing down the same path.

We didn’t need convincing – it was obvious to Public Servants that it’s ben happening for the last couple of years, and would have continued had Labor won.

The ridiculous use of the blunt knife of efficiency dividends was used to sack hundreds if not thousands of staff while the previous Government dodged any political flack for their mismanagement of the APS and the budget as a whole.

I’m not saying the ‘natural attrition’ proposal is better – but at least it’s out in the open…

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.