The Financial Review has a story on Federal Coalition finance and deregulation spokesman Andrew Robb and his big bold idea of cutting the Public Service here in Canberra by outsourcing the work to State bureaucracies.
The Coalition plans to “outsource” administration of a vast swath of federal policy – including health and education – to state government bureaucracies, potentially saving billions of dollars.
Federal Coalition finance and deregulation spokesman Andrew Robb said the opposition was looking to use its planned handover of administration of environmental laws to the states as a model for other areas, both to reduce red tape and to cut thousands of federal public servants from the payroll.
The federal government would not abandon its own policies under the plan, Mr Robb told The Australian Financial Review, but states would act as agents for the commonwealth in administering federal policies.
Getting often hostile states as monopoly vendors to administer Government policy appears to tick every single one of The seven deadly sins of outsourcing.
It is such a spectacularly stupid idea one has to wonder where Mr Robb is in his long and storied battle with mental illness.
There are a great many things that could be cut in the public service. But hoping to magic costs onto the States is not going to lead to policy delivery.