17 March 2013

Public Service apocalypse IPA-style

| PantsMan
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Alan Moran, one of those cheery folk from the Institute of Public Affairs, has have been hard at work devising an action plan to assist the now inevitable Abbott administration to achieve some of their fiscal objectives. His efforts are up on the Catallaxy Files.

You will be happy to know that the IPA’s identified savings:

amount to an annual $22.5 billion in program costs plus $2.4 billion in staffing costs.

But:

Except where duplication with state spending is concerned and where funds are spent on social research, the savings identified exclude the major Health, Education and Welfare programs which account for some 60 per cent of government spending. Nor do they include “off budget” expenditures like the grants being made by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

Here’s a taste:

The Commonwealth Bureaucracy
Public sector resources are normally far less productive than those of the private sector for a number of reasons. These include an absence of profit driven discipline on their growth, difficulties in terminating unnecessary staff, costs entailed in raising revenues for their remuneration.
Some 23,500 public servant positions have been identified as being in these classes. They cover 14 portfolio areas. The positions classified as surplus to need include the following:

Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry
Abolish the R&D corporations covering sugar, fishing, wine etc and three divisions covering sustainable Development, climate change and trade and market access, which are either counterproductive or duplicate other bureaucracies.

Attorney-Generals
Abolish Australian Commission for Law enforcement Integrity, the Human Rights Commission the law reform commission and one of the divisions (“Social Inclusion”). These bodies have a track record of excessive and counterproductive meddling

Broadband, Communications and Digital
Privatise the ABC and SBS which should be able to finance themselves alongside other media businesses. Abolish the unnecessary universal service management and the NBN

Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
Abolish

Education Employment and Workplace
Abolish the Curriculum Assessment Authority, the Institute for Teaching and Leadership, Fair Work Australia, Safe Work Australia. All of these add nothing and in the case of the “Fair Work” agencies clearly contribute to lower productivity.

Families Housing Community Affairs and Indigenous
The Aboriginal Land Councils are a clear “make work activity that distracts some of the better minds from productive work. The Institute of Family Studies is one of the many failed agencies and the Equal Opportunities for Women in the Workplace if it ever had a function is now redundant. Housing policy is little to do with the Commonwealth and gambling and parts of indigenous program support should be downsized.

House prices and all that…

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DrKoresh said :

LSWCHP said :

I think everyone is for improving efficiency in the APS

I agree but should it be at the expense or running the business?

ATM we have had things cut so far that the regular essential tasks cant be catered for.

HiddenDragon11:15 am 19 Mar 13

PantsMan said :

Q. How do you get a story in the Canberra Times?

A. Post it on the RiotAct: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/union-alarmed-over-think-tanks-talks-on-public-service-cuts-20130318-2gblm.html

LOL!

From which we get:

“However, ACT Liberal Senator Gary Humphries said the Coalition was sticking by its policy to reduce the public service by 12,000 positions by natural attrition.

”Our policy on the public service has been restated ad nauseam … any other claims from this government are scaremongering, pure and simple,” he told Fairfax Media.”

I’m not sure how this statement sits with the Coalition’s commitment (as I understand it) to set up a Commission of Audit, which, presumably, would identify savings in addition to those already contemplated in the 12,000 – the detail of which is still a mystery, anyway. Surely they are not asking us to believe that, regardless of what the Commission of Audit recommends, and regardless of what else – “imagine our surprise” – they discover on taking power, a Coalition government would limit total cuts to 12,000(?)

Yep. Looks like a classic Tory agenda.

LSWCHP said :

I’m all for improving the efficiency of the APS, but this non-beer IPA crew are self-evidently idiots. If Mr Abbott gives them any credence then he’s stupider than he looks and sounds.

I think everyone is for improving efficiency in the APS, but I think the issue is lampooned thoughtfully and hilariously in this soapbox clip from David Micthell, Waste In Politics

gentoopenguin8:26 am 18 Mar 13

“Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
Abolish”

Says it all, really. Althought Abbott might listen since he thinks that climate change is a bunch of crap.

It’s interesting that immigration didn’t make the list. That behemoth, along with Defence, hides under the guilded lily of protecting Australia’s interests. Underneath that though there are layers and layers of festering non-productivity and SES ahoy that could be slashed and burned.

Do not touch the NBN, I’ve been waiting for good internet for over a decade! Slash the rest!

HiddenDragon10:18 pm 17 Mar 13

I assume that one purpose of this exercise is to prod the Coalition into cutting some (if not all) areas which have tended to be fairly safe under former Coalition governments, and are likely to be spared under the next one.

LSWCHP said :

This is serious. “IPA” stands for India Pale Ale. It’s a type of beer, and that’s it. Society will fall if we allow this mob to usurp one of our greatest and most useful three letter acronyms.

As for this bunch of microcephalic imbeciles, my first thought upon reading this nonsense was that it was fairly unsubtle satire along the veins of “A Modest Proposal”. Apparently this is not the case, and these folks are serious.

I’m all for improving the efficiency of the APS, but this non-beer IPA crew are self-evidently idiots. If Mr Abbott gives them any credence then he’s stupider than he looks and sounds.

IPA could also stand for I’m a Pinhead Asshole.

This is serious. “IPA” stands for India Pale Ale. It’s a type of beer, and that’s it. Society will fall if we allow this mob to usurp one of our greatest and most useful three letter acronyms.

As for this bunch of microcephalic imbeciles, my first thought upon reading this nonsense was that it was fairly unsubtle satire along the veins of “A Modest Proposal”. Apparently this is not the case, and these folks are serious.

I’m all for improving the efficiency of the APS, but this non-beer IPA crew are self-evidently idiots. If Mr Abbott gives them any credence then he’s stupider than he looks and sounds.

I had to laugh at the proposal to abolish the department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

If the Coalition want to implement the bureaucratic nightmare that is their Government Intervention Climate Change Plan, DCCEE will have to grow massively.

Gungahlin Al4:23 pm 17 Mar 13

This assumes the Tea Partyists in the hilariously named “IPA” have the slightest shred of credibility.
But then … here we are facing a government led by Tony Abbott…

Tetranitrate3:40 pm 17 Mar 13

Does anybody of importance really take any notice of Libertarian blowhards like this guy?
I mean obviously Abbott and co will utilize the propaganda generated by organizations like the IPA when it suits them – but the moment it’s no longer convenient the right wing ideologues will be completely ignored. People need only remember the Howard government, particularly in its latter years to see that.

Poe’s Law surely?

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