“Public servant, private citizen”? Not anymore. The Coalition has made the national economic debate all about Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, says Glenn Milne.
Public servants
A peek inside the PM’s office
Katharine Murphy spends 24 hours inside the Rudd batcave, meeting the notoriously industrious — and overwhelmingly young and male — spinners and staffers who keep the country running.
Podger’s public service: the threat to good policy
Former Health Department Secretary Andrew Podger’s new book offers an intriguing insider’s perspective of how the Australian public service has both improved and regressed in recent decades.
Public servants serve the public interest, period
Public servants have a direct responsibility to act in the public interest in all aspects of their work, writes former public service commissioner Andrew Podger.
Crikey Says: Should our public servants serve the public interest?
What is the role of our public servants? Should bureaucrats serve the public interest, or is that a task that should be left to those who have to answer to the public?
Godwin Grech: the loneliest man in the world
Grech, a man of almost Dickensian visage and name, chose absolute honesty in talking about the Utegate affair, an approach that, unless you’re very confident in your own evasive skills, is probably wisest.
Crikey Says: Utegate unravelling fast
Events are moving rapidly in Canberra. Godwin Grech’s residence has been raided by the AFP, with reports that a “concocted” email has been found.
Preferential treatment for pollies’ mates? Happens every day
I’ll let the non-public servants amongst you into a dirty secret. Government backbenchers and mates of the Government get preferential treatment from bureaucrats, at the request of Ministers.
Tips and rumours
Alan Stockdale and David Kemp are running around like headless chooks trying to find a candidate to replace Peter Costello. The scenario that has them scared is that the ALP will preselect a “favourite son” of Higgins like Tim Costello or even Hugh Evans, and the Liberals will lose a large chunk of their base […]
Time for ALP to act on Indigenous jobs promise
Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory have been given an undertaking by the federal ALP to commute the death sentence hanging over the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) Program. So where’s the action? asks Graham Ring.
MacCormack: Public servants have hands out for Kevin
Kevin Rudd’s pledge to cut “bloating” within the federal bureaucracy will delight public servants. Razor gangs inflict cuts, and cuts mean redundancies, and for long-time public servants, redundancies are highly rewarding, writes David MacCormack.
Tips and rumours
You might want to confirm whether equine influenza is actually in Victoria. Apparently there is a property under quarantine in Ridells Creek, which I think is near Woodend. According to “horse people” that I know, it is being hushed up until after the spring carnival.
Once again the astounding incompetence of the Department of Immigration and […]
Tips and rumours
Why are the Fairfax board members flying to their board meeting in New Zealand in a private jet owned by Richard Pratt, given the pasting the Fairfax press has just inflicted on the self-confessed cartel participant? Apparently Pratt agreed to let the Fairfax board use the Visy jet before coverage of his admission started, and […]
In Canberra, a weird calm settles on the public service
It’s less a phoney war than a phoney peace. The country is in a political twilight zone rarely experienced: the Government ensured it was prepared for an election weeks ago, but when the Prime Minister declined to fire the starting gun, it stayed in the blocks, unsure what to do with itself.
Putting the poo bum dicky wee wee into Wikipedia
Kevin Andrews smells strongly of Roquefort cheese and hate. Or, at least, he did until some upright soul thought to reverse my amendments to the Minister’s Wikipedia page, writes Helen Razer.
