In response to the Institute of Public Affairs’ report early this week on trends in commonwealth government employment, and reforms to substantially reduce public sector staffing, the Special Minister of State Gary Gray has presented to the media this little gem of mirth and hilarity.
After falsely accusing me of being misinformed concerning my calls to apply the meat axe to the public sector (although they themselves intend to reduce staffing by a measly 3,100 on an average staffing level basis this financial year), Minister Gray makes the astounding claim that the Australian Public Service ‘is a foundation for our prosperity, our economy and society.’
This statement is perhaps a close relative to the bizarre ‘you didn’t build that’ statement by US President Barack Obama, contending that non‑governmental actors (especially private sector entrepreneurs producing value‑adding goods and services that typically deviate from economic convention) could not exist productively without modern government.
Unquestionably a central element of post‑Cold War leftist thought insists that the state is antecedent to private initiative, and that individuals, families and communities cannot possibly live without government and its ever‑accumulating economic and social interventions.
Such thinking ignores the long view of history surrounding the emergence of the modern state. Here, a Faustian bargain was struck between the productive classes of Agricultural Revolution‑era humanity and one cohort among many predators – such that the chosen predator became a stationary bandit that warded off the remaining roving bandits. The modern state is essentially the institutional descendant of some roving bandit that was encouraged to stay put and discipline its perverted, productivity-sapping appetite somewhat. (For more on this, view this wonderful speech by Tom Palmer and learn much in 47 minutes!).
Under this scenario the implication is that it was, in fact, economic enterprises and understandings of private property which emerged first, and government strictly second.
The ‘you didn’t build that’ stylings of Minister Gray also ignores the historical evidence that a vast ecology of non‑governmental financing schemes and provision technologies existed and thrived in the absence of similar actions by governmental authorities. Roads, bridges, telecommunications, schools, hospitals and welfare are some prominent examples that come to mind. We see some remnants of these pre-government services today.
Perhaps more importantly, when governments intervened in areas catered for by for‑profit and not‑for‑profit entities on a large scale the incentive for communities to retain their own arrangements were progressively exhausted. An important aspect of classical liberal/libertarian thought is that if individuals, families and communities possessed the wit to finance and provide economic and social services in generations past, they can do so again in the future (and even more effectively and efficiently thanks to technological improvements, deepened capital markets, and the like).
Finally, I think it is useful to acquaint Minister Gray and like‑minded types with a quote by French classical liberal Charles Dunoyer in 1817 concerning the properly understood respective roles of non‑political and political actors in manners most conducive to wealth generation and prosperity:
Man’s concern is not with government; he should look on government as no more than a secondary thing ‑ we might also say a very minor thing. His goal is industry, labour and the production of everything needed for his happiness. In a well‑ordered state, the government must only be an adjunct of production, an agency charged by the producers who pay for it, with protecting their person and their goods while they work. In a well‑ordered state, the largest number of persons must work, and the smallest number must govern. The work of perfection would be reached if all the world worked and no one governed.
Clearly in the sentiments expressed by classical liberals such as Dunoyer, there can be no place whatsoever for conceiving the public sector as the fount of economic prosperity and social cohesion.
Now, to some more technical matters raised by Gray’s media release.
The Minister claims that I didn’t acknowledge the Coalition’s rampant public sector employment growth since the first and second terms of the Howard government.
Clearly Minister Gray and his staff didn’t read the report. I can only encourage them to read page 7 and then look at the APSC and Budget Papers data shown on page 9. If he wants to spell out the Howard-era numbers for me, that’s fine he’s doing work for me now!
Finally, Minister Gray accuses commonwealth public sector workers of being ‘hardworking.’
In 2010‑11 APS staff took an average 11.1 days off work, for explained and unexplained reasons, in 2010‑11. This is higher than the 9.4 days lost per annum due to absenteeism across the Australian economy as a whole, and about five days for corporate staff.
Absenteeism rates, including that of staff who seem to vanish from their desk for reasons unknown, have been so bad in the commonwealth public sector, for such a lengthy period of time, that departments and agencies have had to develop (on the taxpayers’ dime of course) corporate strategies to reduce unexplained absences.
This is not to say that a considerable number of government employees expend extensive hours in efforts to promulgate the government’s agendas. But such an observation misses the point that my paper makes.
In the private sector people provide their labour services producing bread, milk, mobile phones, cars, houses, and the like, which add to consumer satisfactions. In the government sector people provide their labour services to tax or regulate away private sector activities, or spend the proceeds to hire more bureaucratic colleagues, send a few kill-troopers overseas or spit out a few dole checks.
The MYEFO statement released this week should serve as a salutary lesson for all Australians that large government is bad for economic health and vitality. As a corollary to this, there are abundant opportunities to reduce the size and scope of government in a meaningful fashion.
If Gary Gray and his colleagues cannot identify more than 3,100 public sector employees, and functions attached to them, to eliminate this financial year they are clearly not trying hard enough.
lol….that was about the last time France had anoyone who could be vaguely described as a ‘classical liberal’. Even then, he’s dubious, with this little gem:
… which sounds scarily like something Karl Marx would have said. They just had different ways to get to their utopian end state – one that results in disaster another that generally works pretty well.
papachango
24 Oct 12 at 3:49 pm
He’s right you know. The gold rush would have been just a stately amble but for the traps collecting taxes via the “miner’s right”.
Pickles
24 Oct 12 at 3:59 pm
I wonder how many media liaison officers were required to come up with that piece of work? Funny how when anyone talks of cutting the public service they are all a nurse, police officer or teacher?
Gary Gray is just another ALP corpse wandering around the corridors of Parliament until the next election. Albeit one of the less offensive members of the worst government since Federation.
H B Bear
24 Oct 12 at 4:03 pm
Yeah fucking LOLs alright. None of them are pen pushers…
.
24 Oct 12 at 4:22 pm
Worst Government since Bligh or Hotham.
.
24 Oct 12 at 4:23 pm
You’ll all be relieved to know that MYEFO is funding the creation of 1300 full time jobs, while cutting the 3100. That a net cut of 1800. The newly created positions are in ATO and Customs – the revenuers in other words. More tax audits coming right up.
Link
Keith
24 Oct 12 at 4:27 pm
Nadine Flood, in charge of the PS union called this “a strategic investment”. rofl
Keith
24 Oct 12 at 4:35 pm
Thanks Keith, an important development showing just how much the govt is squibbing it on public employment reductions.
Julie Novak
24 Oct 12 at 4:35 pm
Funding wages and benefits (for government workers, funded by tax conscriptions) an “investment?”
Either the CPSU knows nothing about basic economics and finance, or are attempting to mislead the public by clouding perceptions of fundamental concepts.
I opt for a mix of the two.
Julie Novak
24 Oct 12 at 4:40 pm
To quote Thomas Sowell -
“If politicians stopped meddling in things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.”
“Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.”
Allan
24 Oct 12 at 4:50 pm
“kill-troopers”?
FM
24 Oct 12 at 4:56 pm
Richard D
24 Oct 12 at 5:01 pm
Didn’t the taxpayer make a “co-investment” in the Australian car industry?
George Orwell had nothing on these guys.
H B Bear
24 Oct 12 at 5:43 pm
Maybe they are (some of them, at any rate). But doing what? Gray is perhaps too young to have been around in 1955, but he should at least have heard of Parkinson’s Law.
Mother Hubbard's Dog
24 Oct 12 at 5:45 pm
Apologies, he’s west australian, we’ll try to vote the prick out at the next election.
harrys on the boat
24 Oct 12 at 5:47 pm
Ace article but one would need a warped sense of humour to describe Gray’s “little gem” as mirth or hilarity rather than ‘big heap of crap’, an insight into mental disadvantage and cause for serious concern.
Jim Dwyer
24 Oct 12 at 6:12 pm
An example from the 2009 annual report of the NSW Environment Dept:
DECC employees by classification
Policy, project and research 993
Administrative and clerical 844
Field 663
Manager positions 353
Ranger categories 303
Horticultural 146
Operations 136
Other 134
Senior officers and senior executive service 108
Trade 18
Total 3698
Of the 3700 staff, from what I can gather, only about 1000 actually do work with trees and flowers and furry creatures. The rest are driving a desk.
Amazingly, there are only 303 rangers. They are outnumbered by the 353 managers, and even more incredibly, there are 108 senior officers and executives (and they have grown from 83 in 2007 to 108 in 2009).
To add insult to injury, for a department that manages so much land out in the scrub, 55% of their staff work in the Sydney metro area – presumably in a nice office somewhere.
You could remove at least 2000 positions from this one Dept alone.
boy on a bike
24 Oct 12 at 7:21 pm
What matters is not whether a public servant is working hard. It is whether the public servant is doing something useful.
Samuel J
24 Oct 12 at 9:11 pm
Julie, you had me until ‘kill-troopers’. That’s a silly line, and probably disrespectful.
LM
24 Oct 12 at 10:28 pm
‘In 2010‑11 APS staff took an average 11.1 days off work’
This is largely a result of agency management failing to effectively control individual agency enterprise agreement bargaining processes.
Industrial ‘negotiations’ in the APS have traditionally been based on the (unspoken) premise ‘give the unions what they want cos its only taxpayers money’. This worsened under agency level bargaining, largely as a result of inexperienced managers who wanted to show how quickly they could stitch up an agreement.
When the Coalition tried – with mixed success – to have agencies link agreement wage increases with productivity, the unions responded by pushing for the alternative of more time off. Management caved in as always, so most enterprise agreements now include weeks of generous and loosley defined ‘personal leave’ and ‘carers leave’ entitlements.
A colleague of mine used to say that the net outcome of agency level bargaining in the APS was to give people more excuses not to come to work. IIRC, the average usnceduled days of work per employee per annum used to be around 4!
Des Deskperson
25 Oct 12 at 8:41 am
I think it’s a joke LM. You know, like the kill-bot factory.
It’s only one of a few functions of Government that are legitimate (and they are good at) and we can never forget how grave their job is.
.
25 Oct 12 at 9:38 am
Fair enough, but it lessens an otherwise fine article. I say this as an ex-serviceman (and also libertarian small-government hypocritical career public servant).
LM
25 Oct 12 at 10:23 pm