MacroBusiness has frequently criticised the politicisation and lack of independence in Australia’s public service.
I observed this problem myself in the early to mid-2000s while working at the Australian and the Victorian Treasuries, when governments of both parties were overly eager to outsource policy-making to consultants.
In 2003, while working on the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (US FTA), I watched the Howard Government engage the Centre for International Economics (CIE) to model the agreement, despite the fact that the Productivity Commission (PC) was available (and desired) to do so.
