Yesterday at Estimates hearings of the Economics committee, Senator Eric Abetz was able to extract from Treasury an admission that a senior officer had worked 35 hours straight in preparing the Government’s Fuelwatch for urgent introduction.
The committee required officials to remain until 11pm last night. Being cooped up in a room for that length of time with Abetz, who has the voice of one of those people who starts talking to you on the bus and won’t shut up, wouldn’t have exactly been fun either.
Abetz’s complaint is that this torturous example of poor work-life balance was simply because the Government wanted to seize control of the political agenda. Because, you know, the previous Government never did that.
Forgive the grizzled veteran act, but I worked under the previous Government, on some fairly high-profile legislation. I never did 35 hours straight but I recall times when I returned from Parliament late at night after spending the day there helping with the passage of a bill, and sitting down for several hours to go through my in-tray which had filled up during the day. Then coming back at 7am because there was a raft of amendments to work through before Parliament reconvened later that morning.
It’s not ideal but it’s what you get paid for — paid pretty well, at senior levels — in the public service. And you can’t beat the feeling that you’re genuinely contributing to key policy decisions. Not to mention it looks bloody good on the CV.
Moreover, it’s in the very nature of the public service, especially in policy areas, that there are times when things aren’t quite so busy. Or in fact busy at all. Work tends to balance out over time.
That’s the thing about the public service. It can be a lottery. There are, undoubtedly, many pockets of the APS currently where you can forget about this talk of everyone being overworked. Primarily in line departments, especially in areas where they’re waiting for the Prime Minister’s office to make up its mind on an issue, or where they run programs that can be left to tick over.
Others areas will be flat out, but it will partly be because of the APS-wide difficulties in attracting and retaining staff.
The only Departments that are likely to be uniformly under the hammer are the central agencies. Finance staff are permanently overworked — it’s just part of the reality of working there, although there’s usually plenty of leave taken there and in Treasury after the exertions of the Budget, which also demand a lot from public servants. And everyone knows that PM&C, in the direct line of fire of 24/Kevin, is running on No-Doze.
But don’t have too much sympathy for public servants. There’s a new government with a big agenda to implement, and a Prime Minister fascinated by policy. This is ostensibly what a public sector career is about. And if they don’t like it, well, unemployment in the ACT is 2.8%. Changing jobs has never been easier.
The Economics Committee resumed this morning with Graeme Samuel and the ACCC fronting up to an array of Coalition senators looking for a weak spot in the Commission’s defence of Fuelwatch. A well-briefed Samuel — still going at the time of writing — has given a strong, almost aggressive performance explaining the ACCC’s modelling and why Fuelwatch will work effectively, sufficient that Abetz and George Brandis have been reduced to complaining about the ACCC’s change of heart on the issue.
Reckon there’s any chance Samuel won’t get re-appointed?
I can’t help thinking that the compaints from public service about working too hard are actually being generated to further boost the governments public opinion. A straw poll I conducted in my pub didn’t find anyone that felt sorry for public servants being worked hard. If anything most people seemed to be pleased that the government was actually making them do something. Whether it is fair or not, most people tend to see public servants as having a fairly easy go of it. So a government taking a whip to them is bound to largely be seen as a positive. You can see my poll results at http://www.drunkensurveys.com.au
The problem for the public servants in Canberra is that there is a big agenda and they are willingly taking advantage of the opportunities that arise because they have management or policy development skills – they may but these are not necessarily of much help if they don’t actually have any knowledge. So some really bad decisions are being made after a lot of agonising and briefs which are read but not understood.
The hang over from the Howard years is that power has been very cetralised and departments are being run in exactly the same way as they were. Cosseted in Canberra makes the decision making process easy but then a great deal of energy has to be expended because the central bureaucracy doesn’t trust the advice of those in the states who are at a far lowlier level and therefore are not in a position to be listened to.
The running around in circles takes a lot of time but an approach which acknowledges that federal public servants working in the states can often provide answers and can be trusted and will save everyone work in the long run is not a feature of the current federal sphere.
However when you have a group of ambitious but ill informed people in charge and who will churn through before their mistakes are discovered you have a situation requiring long hours and ensure that the people who create the problems are long gone by the time the clean up team is required.
Whilst Howard created the problem it is unlikely to change under a control freak dictate. the problem with being risk averse is that it causes delays which in the end create more matters to be controlled.
Expect to hear more about the pressures of the public service. Like Bernad thought it is hard to be too sympathetic as nobody at the top does anything to ensure that key positions are filled long enough to build expertise and competence.
Damn good article Bernard, excellent insight from an insiders point of view. As for that voice on Abetz, it could very easily be put on a tape loop and played for hours as a torture device, would drive anyone bonkers well within 24 hours. Wow with Nelson glaring and Abetz voice combined arghhhh, what a formidable pair 🙂 Nelson (not the oppo leader)is on to it in his contribution, bet majority of the public couldnt give a toss how many hours the Public Servants put in. As Bernard points out it all tends to balance itself out. Incidently I notice in the Australian, Jack the Insider’s column suggests Mr Rudd may have suffered a mild heart attack recently, but its been blamed on food poisoning. Fact or fancy? Note Crikey hasn’t run with it.
My partner and I were listening to AM this morning (yes I know,when else) and I suggested she pay particular attention when I heard that Eric Abetz was going to be featured. I said to her that she has got to hear this guy speak…on came the grab and we both disintegrated into laughter…where do they find them???