Dubious Public Sector Appointments are Old News - email sent 18/2/13

Ellen Lutton
Brisbane Times

Re: ‘Answers demanded in new Ros Bates scandal’, Brisbane Times, 16/2/13

Your article highlighted controversy about dubious appointments to contracting, board and public service positions by the current Queensland Government.

However the processes for making such appointments have been a joke for over 20 years (eg see The Decay of Australian Public Administration, 2002 and a chronological summary of many other documents in Towards a Professional Public Service).

Moreover, despite the many administrative failures and frequent crises that have resulted (eg see Does Parliament Also support Public Service Politicisation?, 1999 and Reform of Queensland Institutions or a Rising Tide of Public Hypocrisy?, 2004+), the state’s politicians have clearly believed that politicisation of public sector appointments is a constructive tactic (eg see Politicisation Lowers Public Service Standards and Performance, 1999 and note that the first step by the incoming Newman Government was to continue this now-well-established tradition – see Can the Commander Do?, 2012).

Dubious appointments in Queensland’s public sector should thus not be seen as ‘news’.

John Craig