Dr Don Russel, former secretary of the Department of Industry, gave an address to the ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy last night in which he questioned the federal government’s use of the public service in decision making, as well as the timidity of departmental secretaries, who have allowed the public service to become overly subservient. From The Canberra Times:
The structure of the economy is changing and this has implications for the future skill and education needs of the workforce...
What is needed is sophisticated and well-considered decision-making.
It is fair to say Australia has developed a political culture where it has become commonplace for decisions to be taken in minister’s offices with little or no departmental input or awareness. Departments end up with an implementing role.
Such a dishevelled approach makes governments look untidy and confused. But, more important, it stops governments achieving the outcomes they want…
If the public service is to perform the key role that it should, then the Prime Minister needs to view secretaries and the service as important assets that strengthen the prime minister’s capacity to manage an agenda and run an effective government.
The loss of independence and politicisation of the public service has been a growing concern over the past decade.
When I worked at the Australian Treasury in the early-to-mid 2000s, I encountered a number of staff complaining how a bunch of budget measures (read pork barreling) had been introduced at the 11th hour, without Cabinet scrutiny, just prior to the release of the Federal Budget. Similar practices are rumoured to have occurred under the Rudd Government, including the introduction of the First Home Buyers’ Boost in the wake of the GFC (apparently against Treasury’s advice), in addition to the ill-fated introduction of the Resources Super Profits Tax, which despite being a good idea, was introduced without proper community consultation and thereby implemented poorly (these are obviously only a few examples).
As former Productivity Commission head, Gary Banks, lamented last year, Australia has experienced “a decade in which spin has often triumphed over substance in policy making”, whereby poorly thought-out government policies have come “out of the blue”, introduced without proper stake holder consultation.
The rise of the 24-hour news cycle is also to blame, particularly over the Rudd/Gillard Governments’ reign. Politicians from both sides seemed to spend much more time and effort “massaging” their message and responding to the latest media attack, rather than just getting on with the job and developing sound policy. To their credit, the Abbott Government seems less inclined to engage the 24-hour spin cycle, although its constant bluster over the carbon tax, mining tax and red tape is a distraction from the more important issues at hand.
In many ways, it is hard to imagine the big micro-economic reforms of the mid-1980s and early-1990s even being possible under today’s conditions. Yet, this is exactly the scale of reform effort required if Australia is to see itself past the great mining unwind and budget squeeze, and to ensure that it prospers into the future with a dynamic and competitive economy.
