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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3568 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

In considering the coroner's comments, Mr Speaker, on the systemic failings within our Public Service, I have considered the history of public service in Australia, especially the Commonwealth Public Service, and the traditional role of public servants in general, in part to gain a better understanding of the principles of individual ministerial responsibility, and also to compare the current structure of the ACT Public Service with the historical traditional foundational values. The lazy, overpaid bureaucrat has been the butt of jokes for so long that they have almost become part of the Australian culture.

Nonetheless, I believe this image is false. I am sure that such people have existed and probably always will, but I accept that they are few and there are certainly not enough to substantiate the image. Public servants make convenient scapegoats while they go about their business of implementing government policy, such as increased fines, rates and taxes, and are easily blamed for the ever-rising cost of public expenditures. For too long they have had to unjustly wear the label of contributing nothing to production and the wellbeing of society. The fact is that public servants are no different from other members of Australian society and in a crowd are indistinguishable.

What differentiates them is their employer, the place where they work and the duties they perform. Even in these respects, the differences are more imagined than real. The conditions of employment in the Public Service are a little different from those in comparable occupations. Government workplaces are found in buildings indistinguishable from other workplaces, except that the Australian - or in our case, an ACT flag - flutters overhead. The nature of much of the work performed in the Public Service is exactly the same as that performed in private employment. I am sure that there are conflicts, rivalries and hatreds as well as friendships, loyalty and cooperation.

Public servants have their good days as well as their bad and, accordingly, are affected by what goes on around them. Their job is to either carry out the policies of the government of the day or to assist in the formulation of the policies as required, regardless of personal political beliefs. In 1974, after just over seven decades of operation, a royal commission was established to review the Commonwealth Public Service. A year later, Mr Speaker, the royal commission established a task force on efficiency to further investigate the service and to make specific recommendations for change.

In its first report, entitled Towards a More Efficient Australian Government Administration, the task force tabled an initial 50 recommendations to revamp the whole system, as it was described. The report recognised the common public perception of the service, one of numerous inefficient officials lacking in productivity and of governments becoming increasingly critical of the speed with which their policies were being implemented, and who had demanded the change. The report said that the Public Service in Australia worked too sluggishly, that technology was passing them by as they clung to the old ways and they could not retain their competent staff.

However, little mention was made in the report of the lack of criteria with which to measure the efficiency of the Public Service in the first place nor of the dwindling resources being allocated to the service by successive Commonwealth governments. The public was vocally discontent. The service was seen as elitist and the government of

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