30 March 2003
Email to
Hon Mr Peter Beattie, MLA
Premier of Queensland
Queensland's career public service serves all sides of politics?
I refer to your reported
assertion that Queensland has a 'career public service' .... 'who serve all
sides of politics' (Parnell S. 'Beattie gags bureaucrats', Courier Mail. 29/3/03).
You seem to have made this astonishing claim as a justification for
prohibiting bureaucrats from speaking to the media about politically
sensitive issues.
In this respect I should like
to draw your attention to just four out of dozens of indicators that your
claim is false:
- Matthew Franklin's 1999
article ('Only four survive Beattie's reshuffle', Courier Mail,
17/4/99) in which both you and the then Opposition leader reportedly endorsed
politicisation of the bureaucracy (to which I drew attention in a
letter of 28 April 1999);
-
The Growing Case for a Professional Public Service
(on my website)
which refers to many similar indicators, as well as to documents that
illustrate the breakdown in effective public administration which has
resulted from the Service's dominance by cronies and 'yes-men';
- the apparent acceptance by the Director General
of your Department that, amongst other things:
- the Department could
not provide any plausible justification for its blatant refusal to allow
merit to be considered in relation to the process of making a senior
appointment which has been the subject of a dispute [an action which
invalidated any pretence that senior appointments have necessarily been
based on merit]; and
- it is thus impossible
to prove that Queensland's Public Service is a professionally credible
entity.
- an outline of the history of the breakdown of the Westminster tradition
in Queensland (a
tradition which had been needed to protected an independent career service
from political bullying).
Queensland's current Public
Service has been built on a foundation of ineptitude and injustice. It is
simply laughable to describe it as a 'career service' ... 'who serve all
sides of politics'.
While this arose mainly as a
result of poorly conceived and incompetently managed 'reform' under the Goss
Government, several other governments (including your own) have contributed
to this disgraceful state of affairs.
Yours faithfully
John Craig