Coalition begins elevating its campaign against the public service ahead of election

Far out folks, none of you understand how the APS works and clearly you don’t want to!
The APS is there to deliver services to our community and our strategic partners through a range of programs funded through budget allocations: as it should be. There is scrutiny of every program that receives public funding through estimates and inquiries of the Parliament: as it must be.
But ok let’s play your silly game of slash and burn, but this time I’ll make the decision based on the previous government’s track record.
We will off load all visa services (including field monitoring and compliance), all welfare assessment and compliance functions, all shopfront services to Post Offices or state/territory outlets.
The queues and delays are now in excess of anything pre-covid, and privatised call centres will take the financial penalties to keep their contracts alive.
Community safety is next with all detention facilities, transport and surveillance turned over to Wilson or some other security company.
Getting the picture? And we haven’t started on the impact on small businesses who will lose as public servants move out of their centres. Nor have we talked about unemployment impacts.
Seriously…….

As a former senior public servant and political staffer, I have to say it is in the public interest for the Coalition to cut public service numbers right back. From my experience running big teams only about a third of your team contribute in a positive fashion. There are way too many passengers. Some just milk flextime, attend morning teas and disappear when there is work. Research is often carried out for its own sake. It goes nowhere. Travel budgets must be pared right back. The SES needs to be cut right back.

Like in the Fraser years, I would put a freeze on recruitment. I would not use packages to get rid of staff as it is terribly expensive. I would introduce the requirement that managers actually manage their teams. Poor performers need to be taken through a process and if necessary shown the door. It needs to be fair. At present the vast majority of managers pay lip service to performance management. Trouble makers and the lazy are ignored or moved to somewhere else. You have to tighten departmental funding. Agencies need to find cost savings. No one has a right to be paid a very generous wage for doing very little.

The Coalition should seek to reduce the inflated salaries we now see in some APS high level positions and in QUANGOS. It is out of control. The highest salary should be paid to the Secretary of PM&C. Salaried need to be pegged with reference to the PM’s salary.

“The business of government must be the provision of the greatest public good at the least private cost”

That’s from Bob Hawke’s 1988 Robert Garran Oration which also famously (at the time) quoted approvingly these forthright views from Lenin –

“In our country everything is swamped in a foul bureaucratic morass of ‘departments’. Great authority, intelligence, and strength are needed for the day-to-day struggle against this. Departments are shit; decrees are shit. Seeking out people and entrusting the work to
them that is all that matters.”

Dutton’s comments at BayCISS sit comfortably with both quotes which, certainly in the case of Lenin, reminds that the political spectrum is sometimes not so much a straight line as it is a circle, or at least a horseshoe.

So much waste and inefficiency in the public service, all funded by the Australian taxpayer of course. It’s impossible to get rid of bad performers in public service and they know it. They would not last two minutes in the private sector. When you ask a public servant to do some work they accuse you of being a bully. Fancy asking public servants to do some work… outrageous!

Having worked alongside contractors and public servants, as well as acting in both roles, there are issues with both.

With contractors, the issues are cost, value for money and conflicts of interest.

With public servants the issues are poor recruitment practices, inappropriate hiring, poor training and often atrocious management of people and performance.

The issues with contractors will not change, whilst the issues with the public service can be fixed, if there is better decision-making and management.

Kevin Rudd cut the Public Service big time when he got in. The resulting employment of consultants started then.

Do public servants do anything besides hovering around the coffee shop? I’m not a public servant, but I have seen woeful performance by many of them in my 40 years of working. Contractors any day