24/6/05

Mr Shane Bowering
c/- Sunday Mail

'C'mon Peter its time for action'

I should like to express support for raising concerns about bullying in the Public Service, as you did in a recent article. Anecdotal evidence suggests to me also that the problem is very widespread.

My interpretation of your article: There has been a flood of letters about public service bullying. Public servants believe they work in a climate of fear. When complains are made about bullying by supervisors, departmental investigations are a whitewash. Some believe that it is a waste of time to complain. Premier needs to consider creating an independent and transparent body which is removed from the umbrella of individual departments and reports directly to his office to investigate allegations of workplace bullying. This is about people's lives, not politics. Such a body should also coordinate all responses to FOI requests. Many complaints to CMC are now referred back to departments to investigate. The Premier needs to regain some of the confidence which has been lost in his stewardship (Bowering S., 'C'mon Peter its time for action', Sunday Mail, 19/6/05).

However the solution you proposed (ie putting responsibility for investigation of such matters under control of the Premier's Office to avoid departmental interference) would not work. Reasons for suggesting this are as follows:

• bullying within the Public Service is a product of bullying of the Public Service by elected governments - for reasons suggested in Intended Submission to Health System Royal Commission.
• it is futile to place responsibility with an 'independent' body subject to the Premier's Office because:
  • the Premier's own Department has a long history of 'bullying' behaviour - eg consider an unresolved dispute with that Department about its abuse of natural justice through refusal to allow professional merit to be considered in relation to making a senior appointment (see Crippling the Public Service - Again!, 1998). The latter referred to the likely emergence of an administrative and an economic mess in Queensland if professionalism was not valued - of which the former is apparent and the latter seems to be on the way (see The Growing Case for a Professional Public Service and About the 2005-06 Budget);
  • bodies which are responsible to the Premier's Office (eg a so-called Office of Public Service Merit and Equity) have repeatedly refused to investigate such manifest abuses (see A Preposterous Claim);
• the only real solution lies in re-creation of a genuinely politically independent Public Service which is subjected to serious professional accountability - as the absence of this is at the heart of the problem of bullying.

Regards

John Craig