Page 2338 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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Certainly, the Government is mentioned there, and, indeed, the public service should be responsive to the requirements of the Government. But look at what the Government is. After all, they are public servants and they are responsible to the requirements of the people - in our case, the people of Canberra. So, under "Values and principles", we come down to the fact that the public service serves the public. Let us look at one of the definitions of "public" in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles. It says:
Pertaining to the people of a country or locality.
Indeed, Canberra. It goes on:
Devoted or directed to the promotion of the general welfare.
That is a quite good definition. What a good definition of the role of the public service! If we look at the definition of "service", the dictionary says:
The action of serving, helping or benefiting; conduct tending to the welfare or advantage of another.
That is a nice definition relating to the public service. Those two words, "public" and "service", go together very well.
Why else is it important that we call the public service the "Public Service" and not the "Government Service"? Perceptions are important because out of perceptions and out of people's beliefs come resulting actions, sometimes over a period. There are three areas of perception that we need to look at here. Firstly, we need to look at the perception of people in the public service. Is it not valuable that they understand that, first and foremost, they serve the public? If we look at the perception of members of parliament, it is important that we understand that we serve the public, and no-one else. What of the perception of the public? Is it not important that we let them know that the public service serves them and not the Government? Is it not true that too many people in Canberra, let alone around the rest of Australia, feel that the public service does indeed serve the Government? We know that that is not true, and we should do everything we can to make sure that that erroneous perception is not held. One of the best ways we can do that is to make sure that we do not call it the "Government Service", because some people might get the wrong idea that they are supposed predominantly to serve the Government instead of the public.
I believe that the Government has no major concern about the definition, and I commend to all members what I feel is a very important point - that, when we talk of service under the definition and throughout the Bill, we do not mean the Australian Capital Territory Government Service, we mean the Australian Capital Territory Public Service.
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