Congratulations to the honours winners

Don’t forget we (the public) helped these fine people get these awards.

emd said :

Plus the public servants don’t get pay bonuses for doing their job well, nor can they accept kick-backs in any other form. Having their name on a list that not many people read is one of the only ways to recognise public servants who give more than 100% to their job.

Tell that to Joel Fitzgibbon!

Plus the public servants don’t get pay bonuses for doing their job well, nor can they accept kick-backs in any other form. Having their name on a list that not many people read is one of the only ways to recognise public servants who give more than 100% to their job.

somehow i missed out again – when will they get it right?

as for the criticism of people just ‘doing their job’ getting gongs, i think you’ll find that many hundreds of thousands of people ‘do their jobs’ but those that do them very well an so contribute to the australian society are the ones whose names you’ll find above… a department secretary who is honoured, for instance, is one who has, in the course of prosecuting their responsibility, also steered the portfolio’s policy directions through astute management of the issues and the government’s advice on same… good upon them.

Yes – public servants, even excellent ones who make a real and meaningful contribution to their communities, should toil away in utter obscurity for their entire careers, and when they’re dead, they should be grateful to go to the big Flextime in the sky anonymously. It’s not like they’re cricketers or country-western singers.

I don’t think it costs us much as a community to recognise achievement where it’s due.

You’re right, baldilocks. I’ve never been able to understand that. Well, perhaps easy to understand, but less easy to accept that the two (unpaid community service and paid professional service) can be treated the same on these occasions.

Well in the case of judges, they’re taking a considerable pay cut when they take up the job, so it is a kind of voluntary service. Although one imagines there is already a fair bit of status that goes along with the position.

Congratulations to all those volunteers in our community who have received awards.

What I cannot understand though are all the people who have received awards for doing what is in effect there 9 – 5 job. Why should judges, public servants etc be receiving awards and recognition for doing what they are paid to do from the public purse,as part and parcel of the normal occupation which they have chosen to do.