For years, MB decried how decades of government outsourcing, waves of senior redundancies, and a penchant for governments to seek advice from hired consultants had stripped Australia’s public service bare.
As a result, the “frank and fearless advice” for which the public sector was previously known vanished, replaced by propaganda and paid analyses tailored to serve a pre-determined political goal.
This point of view was backed up by last year’s Senate Committee report titled “APS Inc: undermining public sector capability and performance”, which described consultants as “ticket clippers” and “rent seekers” and claimed they contributed to the politicisation of the public sector.
