5 May 2002

Email to all Members of the Legislative Assembly

May 5: An Anniversary to Remember

Ten years ago today (5 May 1992) the professional standing of Queensland's Public Service and the ideal of natural justice were demolished by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

How this was done is outlined below. 

This case was only one of the abuses of power that hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of other competent public servants appeared to be subjected to in the mis-management of 'reform' under the Goss administration  whose collective impact has been to: 

• leave Queensland's public administration (and 'Smart State' potential) in an increasingly-obvious mess; and  
• lay the foundations for a long term loss of confidence by Queenslanders' in their democratic representatives, and also (so I am now told)  for a loss of some foreigner visitors' confidence in Australia as a first world country.  

This sad anniversary of the day when yet another nail was driven into the coffin of Queensland's public ethics should be marked by a sunset ceremony and a 2 minute silence.

John Craig

How It was Done

The professional credibility of Queensland's Public Service was lost, and the concept of natural justice (ie that a person should be entitled to a fair hearing before judgement is made) was ignored, when:

• an individual (myself) was not interviewed for a senior economic development policy R&D position similar to a position they had successfully filled for a decade;
• a grievance about this was terminated by (a) the refusal of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet to allow professional merit to be considered followed immediately by (b) the individual's involuntary retrenchment - even though:
  • the technical issues involved were complex, and heavy-handed politically-motivated 'reform' had eroded the Department's knowledge about questions of advanced professional practice at senior management level;
  • non-experts were ill-equipped to assess a major technical breakthrough (see below) that the individual had achieved through years of publicly funded R&D; 
  • the grievance investigator had declared himself unable to assess the merits of the matter;
• a Fair Treatment Appeal decided (in effect) that refusing to allow professional merit to be considered, and involuntary retrenchment to prevent the matter being pursued, were 'fair treatment';
• the Ombudsman's Office found that allowing professional merit to be considered would have been anomalous - because legislation prevented appeals against SES appointments. It also noted that this potentially permitted irresolvable injustices - but failed to draw this clear legislative defect to the attention of Parliament;
• the then Premier failed to acknowledge several requests to look into the matter;
• the Department of the Premier and Cabinet refused repeated requests to give reasons for its personally damaging actions, and for an explanation of how the individual had been expected to gain fair and just treatment;
• the then Public Sector Management Commission refused a request by the individual's union for an investigation of the matter;
• repeated raising of the matter with Members of the Legislative Assembly over many years revealed that few knew or cared whether Queensland's Public Service was a professional entity - and that leaders of the major parties actually endorsed its policisation. At the same time they pretended  that this was the fault of their opponents and that their favourites were 'professionals' despite clear and continuing failures in Queensland's public administration. 

When asked about this, the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (in the exceptional circumstances in which it deigned to reply) used to pretend that 'the matter had been fully discussed' - even though the Department always carefully avoided even mentioning that the dispute was about its refusal to allow professional merit to be considered.

Now however the Department seems more than happy to concede that it it could not provide any reasonable justification for its actions (noting that it expressed satisfaction with my explanation of its actions  as outlined on my web-site in a follow-up to my letter of 15/11/01).   The Department no longer seems even to pretend that its actions were not a gross abuse of power, or that the Public Service needs to be a professionally credible organisation.

The overall result has been that natural justice has been delayed (and thus denied) for many years.

The core of the particular technical breakthrough mentioned above relates to the effect that knowledge (widely regarded by both conventional and 'new' growth theories in economics as the key factor in economic growth) can have in changing the causal relationships in an economic system  - and thus in achieving very large changes in economic outcomes.

This concept is outside the framework of conventional ('positive') economics, and is of immense philosophical and practical significance in relation to accelerating economic development and succeeding with innovation.  The concept is also directly relevant to understanding the major features of profound cultural differences between Western societies with a classical Greek heritage (who use rationality and science in problem solving) and those with an ancient Chinese heritage (and a-rational means for problem solving). This potentially provides a key to: breaking down intellectual barriers to better relationships with major communities in East Asia; and to comprehending the ‘economic miracles’ which many East Asian countries enjoyed, as well as the factors contributing to the Asian Financial Crisis. [see also 1, 2 and Probable Breakthrough in Understanding Economic Development]