2 August 2013

Dear Dep Secs, Gai Brodtmann is here to help!

| johnboy
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All our Departmental Secretaries (hey maybe even the FAS’s too) will be no doubt thrilled to hear that Member for Canberra Gai Brodtman is offering to help them figure out millions in savings:

Federal Member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann MP, is calling on Canberra public servants to suggest non-staff measures to meet the increased efficiency dividend.

“While I am very disappointed with the increase to the efficiency dividend, and I’ve made my views plain to the Deputy Prime Minister, today I’m again asking Canberrans who have a non-staff cost saving idea to contact me on 6293 1344 orgai.brodtmann.mp@aph.gov.au

“Many public servants have approached me with non-staff cost savings ideas, such as increased teleconferencing and reduced travel, and I’ve passed these suggestions on to the Treasurer and Minister for Finance.

“Despite the tight economic circumstances, Labor is committed to jobs and growth. That is the difference between us and the Liberal Party, who have already identified public sector job cuts of up to 20,000. Labor’s target has always been inefficiency, not public service jobs.”

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Canberroid said :

Morgan said :

You’re assuming that the term “Efficiency Dividend” is sincere. It’s no different than a real estate agent calling a tiny house “cosy”.

I note the quaint art of bureaucratese hasn’t changed from my time in The Circus. Back then we had “Management initiated early retirement” – in other words the sack. Not to mention bureaucratic jargon being referred to as “Specialised managerial terminology”.

p1 said :

Antagonist said :

You could recover several thousands of hours of productivity by getting those fat, lazy public servants in Tuggeranong out of Brewbar at 10:45 am every morning, and back at their desks doing something … like their jobs!

Lets say it takes 4 minutes to walk from your desk to Brewbar, 4 mins to receive your coffee, and 4 minutes return journey. This equals one hour of lost productivity each week. And more than a full-time week for every year. Multiply that across a few hundred fatcats and you have a whole lot of lost productivity, which the taxpayer is expected to fund

Seriously, do you *need* a coffee so bad that you cannot use the kitchenettes provided in the office to make your own? Do you really *need* to cross four lanes of traffic to get your coffee during work time, instead of doing it during own lunch hour? It used to be the smoker. Now it is the coffee yuppy.

Yup. It worked for the construction, trades and defense industries. When those slackers stopped taking smoko breaks each morning productivity went up massively. Wait, what?

+1

Laughed myself silly. May now need to go and get a coffee.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Such a busy body sticking your nose in everyone’s business. How about you worry about yourself.

Isn’t that what RiotAct is all about? It would be a pretty boring site if no one stuck their nose in everyone else’s business.

Getting rid of Senate Estimates would save a lot.

Masquara said :

What happened to picking up a take-away coffee on your way TO work?

What, and reheat it at 10:45???

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Masquara said :

It’s amazing that the Today Tonight and A Current Affair haven’t filmed all the public servants all over Canberra taking a half-hour for espresso coffee during work hours. Rich pickings all over Canberra. What happened to picking up a take-away coffee on your way TO work?
Half the time it isn’t even take-away that they are getting! Antagonist, your timing figure is very conservative. I would say closer to half an hour a day on average, taking into account the non-take-aways and that there’s often quite a queue …

Watch those shows regularly, do we?

Such a busy body sticking your nose in everyone’s business. How about you worry about yourself.

Source?

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd9:38 pm 04 Aug 13

Masquara said :

It’s amazing that the Today Tonight and A Current Affair haven’t filmed all the public servants all over Canberra taking a half-hour for espresso coffee during work hours. Rich pickings all over Canberra. What happened to picking up a take-away coffee on your way TO work?
Half the time it isn’t even take-away that they are getting! Antagonist, your timing figure is very conservative. I would say closer to half an hour a day on average, taking into account the non-take-aways and that there’s often quite a queue …

Watch those shows regularly, do we?

Such a busy body sticking your nose in everyone’s business. How about you worry about yourself.

G.R.R said :

She’s two efficiency dividends behind…the teleconferencing and reduced travel happened in the first round.

+1. We’ve been heavily reliant on videoconferencing for at least the last 5 years, been through 2 rounds of voluntary redundancies in the the last 3 years; and have been drastically cutting travel, legal, admin and accommodation costs for the last 18 months.

It’s amazing that the Today Tonight and A Current Affair haven’t filmed all the public servants all over Canberra taking a half-hour for espresso coffee during work hours. Rich pickings all over Canberra. What happened to picking up a take-away coffee on your way TO work?
Half the time it isn’t even take-away that they are getting! Antagonist, your timing figure is very conservative. I would say closer to half an hour a day on average, taking into account the non-take-aways and that there’s often quite a queue …

Antagonist said :

You could recover several thousands of hours of productivity by getting those fat, lazy public servants in Tuggeranong out of Brewbar at 10:45 am every morning, and back at their desks doing something … like their jobs!

Lets say it takes 4 minutes to walk from your desk to Brewbar, 4 mins to receive your coffee, and 4 minutes return journey. This equals one hour of lost productivity each week. And more than a full-time week for every year. Multiply that across a few hundred fatcats and you have a whole lot of lost productivity, which the taxpayer is expected to fund

Seriously, do you *need* a coffee so bad that you cannot use the kitchenettes provided in the office to make your own? Do you really *need* to cross four lanes of traffic to get your coffee during work time, instead of doing it during own lunch hour? It used to be the smoker. Now it is the coffee yuppy.

Yup. It worked for the construction, trades and defense industries. When those slackers stopped taking smoko breaks each morning productivity went up massively. Wait, what?

Madam Cholet6:21 pm 03 Aug 13

Antagonist said :

You could recover several thousands of hours of productivity by getting those fat, lazy public servants in Tuggeranong out of Brewbar at 10:45 am every morning, and back at their desks doing something … like their jobs!

Lets say it takes 4 minutes to walk from your desk to Brewbar, 4 mins to receive your coffee, and 4 minutes return journey. This equals one hour of lost productivity each week. And more than a full-time week for every year. Multiply that across a few hundred fatcats and you have a whole lot of lost productivity, which the taxpayer is expected to fund

Seriously, do you *need* a coffee so bad that you cannot use the kitchenettes provided in the office to make your own? Do you really *need* to cross four lanes of traffic to get your coffee during work time, instead of doing it during own lunch hour? It used to be the smoker. Now it is the coffee yuppy.

Let me tell you that they get further than BrewBar. Try going into the Hyperdome at 10.30am. It’s awash with pubes. I always make a mental note to avoid that time if needing to call a govvie dept. no way would you get an answer. I think a coffee pod machine would be an efficiency dividend.

You could recover several thousands of hours of productivity by getting those fat, lazy public servants in Tuggeranong out of Brewbar at 10:45 am every morning, and back at their desks doing something … like their jobs!

Lets say it takes 4 minutes to walk from your desk to Brewbar, 4 mins to receive your coffee, and 4 minutes return journey. This equals one hour of lost productivity each week. And more than a full-time week for every year. Multiply that across a few hundred fatcats and you have a whole lot of lost productivity, which the taxpayer is expected to fund

Seriously, do you *need* a coffee so bad that you cannot use the kitchenettes provided in the office to make your own? Do you really *need* to cross four lanes of traffic to get your coffee during work time, instead of doing it during own lunch hour? It used to be the smoker. Now it is the coffee yuppy.

miz said :

Perhaps rationalising some of the ridiculous HR processes we are bombarded with. In my Dept, they seem to change the performance process every year, meaning more rounds of explanatory (and exceedingly w*nky) training courses that basically take the form of propaganda. This year we are supposed to do ‘journals’ – as if anyone has time to do this, given (what now appear to be permanent) staff shortages.

But they’ll make the APS so much more efficient!

HiddenDragon1:16 pm 03 Aug 13

A Government worthy of that title, faced with Australia’s fiscal prospects, would have a serious, fundamental look at what it does and how it does it – rather than year after year of gutless, lazy-minded, and regularly changing “efficiency dividends”. If they’d not been pre-occupied with internal divisions, the challenges of minority government, and low-rent retail/personality politics, Labor might have gotten around to doing something like this – which would have cut much of the ground from beneath the Liberals’ promised “audit”.

Morgan said :

Why is it so important to save jobs for its own sake? If your program is not doing anything then why do we need to keep you?

You’re assuming that the term “Efficiency Dividend” is sincere. It’s no different than a real estate agent calling a tiny house “cosy”. As much as everyone loves to bash the public service and its employees, it is there to serve public needs and the quality of the outputs will suffer under ongoing “efficiency dividends” (ie blanket uneducated untargeted cuts).

Here’s a free money-saving tip, Gai Brodtmann: you could always start leading by example.

How about improving processes in your own electoral office so that you don’t post an individual five copies of the same letter (all to the same address – 4 of which arrived on the same day!), advertising your face-to-face meetings that will take place at Cooleman Court in the next few weeks?

I’m sure Australia Post will be happy for the business your inefficiency has generated though!

Install a coffee maker in Defence’s offices on Kent St, Deakin. Imagine the savings if all those Defence people (uniformed and civvy) didn’t have to trudge all the way down to Equinox to get a brew and then trudge back even more slowly.

bigred said :

Entirely predictable response designed to minimise damage to her electoral prospects.

We havent heard boo from her except now in the months coming up to the election.

Starting to appear to look like you are doing something for your constituents wont get you elected Gai.

That being said, she’ll probably get in based off fear alone of what the monk will do to Canberra (which Labor has made great strides in achieving anyway).

Perhaps rationalising some of the ridiculous HR processes we are bombarded with. In my Dept, they seem to change the performance process every year, meaning more rounds of explanatory (and exceedingly w*nky) training courses that basically take the form of propaganda. This year we are supposed to do ‘journals’ – as if anyone has time to do this, given (what now appear to be permanent) staff shortages.

get rid of photocopiers which never work reliably and remove paper from all offices. we all have big screens, so clearing a document should not be that difficult.

Why is it so important to save jobs for its own sake? If your program is not doing anything then why do we need to keep you?

Entirely predictable response designed to minimise damage to her electoral prospects.

She’s two efficiency dividends behind…the teleconferencing and reduced travel happened in the first round.

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