30 January 2004

Email to ...
Mr Craig Johnstone,
c/- The Courier Mail

State Elections and the Influence of the Queensland Public Service - A Reality Check

I should like to thank you for your article about the influence of Queensland's Public Service on state elections ('Vengeful workforce a recipe for disaster', Courier Mail, 27/1/04), as it raises some very important questions.

In particular you suggested that:

• those now expecting a protest vote have ignored the fact that in 2004 the Public Service is not 'vengeful' as it was in 1995;
• the Public Service had been a major factor in the electoral defeat of the Goss Government because it had been conservative and had objected to being given a 'good shake-up'.

However your description of the cause of the Public Service's earlier electoral reaction seems likely to be quite wrong.

Queensland's public service had NOT been merely conservative before the 'shake-up', and the shake-up administered was anything but 'good' - for reasons which are presented in more detail below. A term that better captures the essence of what happened under the Goss Government is 'rape' - and a desire for vengeance against a rapist, while perhaps un-Christian, is at least understandable.

While I have no political expertise, it seems to me (for reasons detailed below) that, though Queensland's Public Service has continued the decline that was started by its 'rape', a protest vote might not be factor in 2004 because of apathy, 'bribery' and a lack of any positive alternative.
 

DETAILED COMMENTS

Public Service Conservatism?

Queensland's Public Service prior to its 'shake-up' under the Goss Government had had conservative elements. And this was appropriate because every organisation needs (a) people who are happiest with routine jobs and (b) a diversity of viewpoints. But it also had progressive elements.

Moreover the public sector had been through extensive reforms during the 1980s with similar goals to those of the Goss Government in 1989. Moreover progressive elements in the Public Service had themselves personally developed, or endorsed, much of the reform agenda. Thus the goals which the reform agenda addressed were widely accepted by the public sector as a whole. All that would have been required was to encourage the Public Service to see itself as part of `the solution'.

However the potential for progress which existed was destroyed by the undeclared decision of the incoming Goss administration to over-ride the protection of the Westminster tradition of an apolitical professional Public Service in the hope of a `quick fix' to the public sector, as it was naively seen as the main problem. The result was that the Public Service was persecuted for prior problems, rather than being allowed to help in solving them in a realistic way (see also Section 5 of Towards Good Government in Queensland).

The Shake-up was not 'Good'

It is easy to tell when a shake-up is 'good'. However you are not having a 'good' shake-up (despite the opinions of an unrealistic media) when:

• the dominant faction in the Government is the AWU which:
  • had a rorting tradition for filling important political positions (according to evidence to the Shepherdson inquiry);
  • had been investigated in relation to the apparent use of 'thuggish' internal practices for gaining and maintaining power - see Fifth Report of Commission Appointed to Inquire into the Activities of Particular Queensland Unions - Australian Workers Union of Employees - Vol 1 - July 1991, and inquiry which was closed early by the Goss Government;
• numerous staff are transferred to what was called the 'Gulag' (where neither work nor facilities were available) - a practice which became a public scandal at the time;
• political insiders apparently believe that it is all about jobs for them (Griffith C., 'Inquiry told of jobs for the boys', Courier Mail, 12/10/00);
• legislation is enacted to prevent appeals against Senior Executive Service appointments;
• hidden manipulative practices are applied eg: Ministerial refusal to listen to anything existing staff say; assigning staff to positions which do not suit their skills, so those skills can't be demonstrated; and not creating positions until almost all persons with relevant skills have been eliminated;
• gross abuses of power and natural justice occur (see Autocratic Ignorance purges the Public Service). And other institutions (eg administrative review machinery, Ombudsman, unions, MLAs) take no serious action to challenge such abuses, even though they undermine the foundation of the Westminster tradition on which Queensland's Public Service had been based (see McDermott P., `Tenure of Senior Queensland Public Servants', Australian Journal of Public Administration, March 1993);
• the Chairman of the then Public Sector Management Commission eventually reportedly states that bullying of the public service will no longer be necessary (Koch T., 'No more bullying of Queensland Public Service', Courier Mail, 29/7/95);
• there is serious erosion of Public Service knowledge and skills - resulting in:
  • the widespread failure of practical administration (see Towards Good Government in Queensland);
  • an unexpected electoral loss by a populist government on a protest vote (see The Origin and Spread of the Queensland Effect); and
  • political instability as a reaction to the social stresses in margin regions which arise due to the incompetent management of pressure for economic change (see Assessing the Implication of Pauline Hanson's One Nation).

And this 'not-good shake-up' started a decay in Queensland's system of government which has continued to the present (see The Growing Case for a Professional Public Service - noting particularly the evidence quoted of administrative dysfunctions).

Why no 2004 Protest Vote

A protest vote seems futile in 2004 even thought the situation in the Public Service is bad.

The main reason for this is apathy. The situation has been bad for years (see Anecdotes, History of the Breakdown of the Westminster Tradition and the Growth of Public Service Bullying, and About the Review of Public Sector Enterprise Bargaining), and:

• the present Government has merely continued rather than causing the problem; while
• the Opposition (which also appears to endorse public service politicisation) has made it clear by its prior statements and actions that it does not intend to improve the situation - so there is no point in supporting it.

Moreover, some 'bribery' was applied in the form of meeting Enterprise Bargaining claims (even though it had previously been claimed, perhaps rightly, that Queensland's tight financial situation did not really permit them to be met - see Growing Pressure for Increased State Taxation).