Earlier this week at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) meeting, Tony Abbott reaffirmed his commitment to reduce the size of commonwealth government employment to more reasonable levels, as part of broader objectives to reduce overall public expenditures:
Now, the Coalition will get spending down. We will do it in ways which we believe are responsible. Some of the ways we will do it will be controversial. For instance, we’ve announced that the so-called school kids bonus will go because this is a cash splash with borrowed money that has nothing necessarily to do with education. We won’t go ahead with the 6,000 person a year increase in the refugee intake because that would send the wrong signal to the people smugglers and in any event, at the moment the people smugglers are determining that intake. We will trim back the Commonwealth public sector, not because we fail to respect the work of public servants – as a minister for nine years I very much respect the work of public servants – but there’s 20,000 more in the Commonwealth public sector than there were five years ago and there hasn’t been a commensurate increase in service delivery or efficiency. So, just those changes will save about $10 billion over the forward estimates period.
It hasn’t taken altogether too long for the Gillard government to critically respond to the expenditure‑reduction commitment. Today, it was the turn of the Special Minister of State (SMOS), Gary Gray, to wield his own special brand of ‘relentless negativity’ against what looks increasingly likely to be the next government.
SMOSie had this to say in an opinion piece published today by The Sydney Morning Herald:
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott often portrays the Australian Public Service as a bloated and slothful organisation that should be cut down in size. In talking about growth of the public service, he repeatedly includes growth in the Australian Defence Force and Australian Federal Police to fictionalise his numbers.
…
So, what’s the truth?
First, it’s important to distinguish between public servants working under the Public Service Act 1999 and divided into departments and agencies and Commonwealth entities outside the core public service such as the defence force, police, ASIO, the CSIRO, and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority.
Since the election of Labor in 2007, the core public service has grown by just over 13,000 to the latest available official figures in June 2012 (155,424 to 168,580). That is less than the population growth.
I suspect the Special Minister is playing a rather mischievous game here in an attempt to smear the alternative Prime Minister as some sort of bad guy and/or to cloud the judgments of the general public over the true size of public sector employment.
To be fair there is no one single source of reported statistics on the size of commonwealth government employment which, to repeat, I think is designed to deliberately add confusion into the debate about the appropriate roles and functions of government. In the interests of transparency, I report three key sources of statistical information on government employment:
Australian Bureau of Statistics public sector employment statistics (headcount) (coverage: all public sector employees, except defence forces, embassy and consular staff, and employees based outside Australia)
May quarter 2007: 232,200
June 2012: 250,000
Change: 17,800
Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) APS Statistical Bulletin (headcount) (coverage: Public Service Act employees)
June 2007: 155,424
June 2012: 168,850
Change: 13,426
Commonwealth government Budget Papers (average FTE) (coverage: general government sector including defence forces and employment in statutory authorities)
2006-07: 238,623
2011-12: 261,367
Change: 22,744
SMOS Gray is using the APSC numbers as the basis for his arguments, whilst Abbott appears to be using data drawn from the commonwealth budget papers.
At the outset I do not believe that Abbott has been deliberately misleading with regard to the government employment numbers he cites. He has drawn from a published source of information and, if there a problem with the underlying statistical coverage of that information, it is incumbent upon the government, and not Abbott, to fix it.
The broader question, to my way of thinking, is that it seems ludicrous to conceive the likes of defence, AFP, ASIO, CSIRO and APRA as representing anything but part of the organisational apparatus of government.
Take the case of APRA as an example. A prospective employee of that organisation would inspect its job opportunities webpage to find a document which states the following: ‘Established in 1998, APRA is a commonwealth statutory authority.’
For the fun of it, consider the organisational attributes of the Australian Federal Police. The AFP website describes the organisation as the ‘commonwealth’s primary law enforcement agency,’ and indicates that its strategic priorities ‘are set through Ministerial Direction and national forums such as COAG.’
The purpose of highlighting these examples is to emphasise the point that distinctions between ‘core’ and ‘non‑core’ public sector entities serve little meaningful purpose in circumstances when such entities are enabled through legislative authority and their operations are backed by, or even themselves enforce, state coercion.
The protective state and the regulatory state alike are firmly part of government, and the regulatory state in particular is quickly growing in terms of its reach over economic and social affairs. Legislative and definitional demarcations standing, I believe it is mischievous for the likes of the SMOS to abstract such entities from any proper discussion and debate about the size and scope of government.
On a final note, those interested in a more detailed mapping of commonwealth government entities to their relevant employment legislation can look at this chart and let their minds boggle accordingly.
Thanks for that, Julie, it is very useful.
And the whole thing is completely anamolous – eg. Productivity Commission is in Chart 112 but APRA, also a statutory authority, is not.
I go for the Budget figures as being the most accurate in the sense that is what taxpayers are forking out for.
Judith Sloan
19 Feb 13 at 11:20 am
I can tell you the Average Staffing Level for CSIOR
2007-2008 – 5700
2012-2013 – 5596
So that area isn’t growing.
ASIO got a big boost in funding so presumably they are hiring.
Grey
19 Feb 13 at 11:27 am
CSIOR = CSIRO
Grey
19 Feb 13 at 11:27 am
Ever notice that every time a Liberal government goes to fire a public sector employee they are suddenly a teacher, nurse, soldier or policeman?
H B Bear
19 Feb 13 at 11:34 am
Yes – that really annoys me especially when teachers, nurses and policemen are employed by the States and not the Commonwealth.
Sinclair Davidson
19 Feb 13 at 11:37 am
LOL, of course the true comparison is the last budget of the Howard Government (2007-2008) and the most recent budget (2012-2013) budget papers.
2007-2008 243859
2012-2013 258563
Change: 14,700
And the biggest component of that change?
Department of Defence
2007-2008 – 95,082
2012-2013 – 104,820
So of the 14,700 increase almost 10 000 are in the Department of Defence
By all means, Mr Abbott, slash away.
Grey
19 Feb 13 at 12:02 pm
‘Since the election of Labor in 2007, the core public service has grown by just over 13,000 to the latest available official figures in June 2012′
It’s important to remember that much of the growth of the Australian Public Service (APS: people employed under the Public Service Act 1999) under Howard occured in response to the recommendations of the Uhrig Review, where, to improve governance and accountability, a number of Commonwealth agencies staffed under their own legislation were transfered to Public Service Act coverage. This included Medicare, a very large public sector employeer.
This shift, of course swelled the number of APS employees, but in terms of overall numbers of Commonwealth public sector employees, it was simply a paper-shuffling exercise and it’s certainly misleading to compare APS growth under Coalition and Labor governments without mentioning it
Des Deskperson
19 Feb 13 at 12:40 pm
My Biggest Concern:
Does Gary Gray believe his BS or are the ALP willing to do anything to win?
I can live with the second one, but the first is too concerning to ponder.
Thats 1 public servant excluding states and local councils for every 130 Australians. Frightening
Adam Diver
19 Feb 13 at 12:45 pm
You get this all the time in government. We’ve just been through it in Queensland.
H B Bear is exactly right. Then, when someone points out they are fiddling with definitions they talk about the need for support staff, otherwise nurses, teachers and police can’t do their jobs. They don’t mention that many of those support staff; are the reason they are needed (through make work paperwork), aren’t available to ‘support’ staff most of the time (9-5 mon-fri is only some of the 24/7 roster), get paid more than the staff they ‘support’ but yet are not qualified to do their jobs. Are typically the reason the actual staff face cuts more often becasue, after all, the support staff have all the time in world to come up with the multitude of ways that they are more important than the actual staff.
A couple of years back in QLD the axe fell on Department of emergency services and it was discovered they had something like 3 ‘support’ staff for every ‘actual’ staff member like ambulance officers and firefighters. BTW they cut things like officers who provided first aid training etc. Again becasue those who decided the chop were those who most needed to suffer it themselves but were in the best position to justifiy themsleves and condemn others.
Luke
19 Feb 13 at 12:46 pm
@ Grey,
Whilst Abbott is not going for it directly, the issue is not the amount of growth in the last few years, its the ridiculous size of the APS to begin with.
I think Abbott has most of the right ideas, but is playing a small target game, am I being just a tad optimistic?
Adam Diver
19 Feb 13 at 12:49 pm
“Frontline Wukkas” is the current terminology. So look for pretty much every drone facing the axe in, for example, the “Department of Climate Change” to be suddenly spoken of in hushed and reverent terms as a “Frontline Wukka”…
Rabz
19 Feb 13 at 12:51 pm
Thanks for your comments so far.
Des Deskperson – by reporting the numbers as I have, in no way do I endorse the significant growth in the public sector after the first term of Howard. In my view, Howard should not have stopped in the encouraging, albeit partial, progress made from 1996 to 1998.
Luke – yes, I’m familiar with the Qld issues and the example you refer to concerning the Emergency Services Dept. Sometimes senior management within govt depts retrench staff that actually, genuinely deliver essential services to score cheap political points against the government which ordains the overall retrenchment policy.
Adam – it is unfortunate that political parties play small target games, treating adult voters as mugs. Agree the starting size of the APS and commonwealth public sector by the time Rudd became PM was far too great, but nothing was done about it despite earlier remarks about meat axes, stopping reckless spending, etc.
Julie Novak
19 Feb 13 at 1:34 pm
The ‘support staff’ thing is one of the oft-hidden issues. Every time a new pube with an alleged job is minted, they need a workspace, a computer and a bunch of other infrastructure to support them. When jobs change or disappear, the support mechanisms and costs rarely do – although they increase when the jobs are created.
Another aspect which is obscure and difficult to quantify is the well-known phenomenon of public servants generating work merely by existing. This was superbly explained in ‘The Peter Principle’ and related works many decades ago.
For example, I know from personal experience that large numbers of highly paid people in NSW Health and NSW Treasury spend all their time (and our money) trying to stay on top of the unbelievably complex funding arrangements between the Feds and the States. I doubt that there are more than half a dozen people in either jurisdiction who fully understand the whole thing, but there are dozens and dozens who sort of understand bits of it.
And every Budget, or interim announcement by a publicity-seeking Federal Minister, just adds to the complexity of what is already a vast collocation of intersecting mazes.
There is a lot to be said for just lopping things off at the base and starting again – as Nick Greiner did when he reduced the thousands of pages relating to public employment to an eighty-page Act and a few hundred pages of regulations. All that good work is lost now, of course. It’s something that has to be done every 20 or 30 years, at a minimum.
johanna
19 Feb 13 at 1:38 pm
One matter that understates the growth is the expansion of contractors and consultants. These range from security people and guards to policy advisers – whereas 10 years ago virtually all policy analysis was undertaken in house now nearly every major issue commands advice from one of the favoured politically correct consultancies that have hired former senior public servants.
To arrive at consistent fgures we would need to add in the contractors and consultants.
alan Moran
19 Feb 13 at 1:42 pm
There is no reason for the public service to grow in line with population growth.
wreckage
19 Feb 13 at 1:59 pm
Why dont we Privatise a lot of govt .functions,Health ,Education,Transport are all State Fuctions who actually needs Canberra.
Foreign affairs and Immigration are a huge Joke,we need small embassies in Europe ,the Americas,N.Asie andS Asia 4 small embassies could do the whole job.we dont need Immigration overseas ,one in each Embassy will do.In Defence all support and admin to be Armed Forces members,get rid of all seatwarmers.
Borisgodunov
19 Feb 13 at 2:44 pm
Dr Novak: My comments simply refered to Minister Gray’s rather misleading statement about the growth of the APS under Howard. Between 30 June 1997 and 30 June 2007, the APS had a net growth of almost exactly 20,000, but only some of it was a result of bureaucratic expansion. I suggest that at least half of this was the result of transfers of Commonwealth public sector agencies to PS Act coverage – Medicare alone brought in around 5000 staff – with the rest probably accounted for by new programmes and initiatives in the legal, security and border protection areas. These may or may not have been justified by unusual external events.
I’m not familiar with, and have not attempted to explain, any overall increases in Commomwealth public sector employment during the Howard Governments.
Des Deskperson
19 Feb 13 at 2:50 pm
Des D – yes, there is the question of definitional coverage changes over time, but nonetheless these are additional numbers of real people undertaking activities and functions on the taxpayer dime (value-adding or not is an entirely different issue; I suspect much of it being the latter!).
Dr Moran – yes, very good point. I have made something of a rudimentary attempt to add in contractor/consultant numbers to official public sector employment numbers in my thesis, a very challenging task indeed.
Julie Novak
19 Feb 13 at 3:23 pm
Dr J – human resources, IT and property management are three significant areas that were outsourced big time in the late 90s – early 2000s.
Of course, that generated a whole new class of public servants whose job it is to ‘manage’ the contracts. This often resulted in even greater expenditures, as most of the people who negotiated the contracts, and their unlucky successors, were babes in the woods.
Further, as I have mentioned elsewhere on this site, haggling with suppliers is not a way to win brownie points or promotion. It is, rather, seen as an indication that you are an unsophisticated hick who is not conversant with “the big picture.”
johanna
19 Feb 13 at 3:44 pm
Boris (1444) check the change in numbers of officers (some leaders, many managers) and other ranks (front line wukkas) in the ADF between June 1991, when major reform started in Defence, and now. The bosses remained, the wukkas got the chop.
Boambee John
19 Feb 13 at 4:18 pm
Johanna, I agree. As well as actually managing the procurement process and negotitiating the contract, there’s the ongoing support, in terms of information (often basic), advice, feedback, correction, evaluation, re-evaluation and general ego-massaging that every consultant I’ve had to deal with, or heard of, requires and in many cases demands. The cost of this baby sitting is never, of course, factored into the cost of the contract and has to be absorbed by the agency.
Dr Novak: IIRC, agencies are only required to report on consultancies in terms of the consultant employed, the purpose of the consultancy and the cost. Since many consultancies are awarded to companies (who may employ any number of full time or part time staff on any part of the task) rather than individuals, it would seem very difficult indeed to calculate individual numbers. How did you approach the issue?
Des Deskperson
19 Feb 13 at 4:29 pm
http://coallslcorp.com.au/
This is one public corporation that shouldn’t be needed, the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave Funding) Corporation.
kelly liddle
19 Feb 13 at 4:32 pm
It’s a joke really. The distinction Gray makes is really irrelevant. Some organisations have appointments made under their own Act (eg the RBA, APRA) but others are under the Public Service Act (eg ASIC, departments, the ATO, the Productivity Commission etc). This is essentially arbitrary. As for ASIO, yes, it has appointments under its Act. But not for the other national security agencies: DSD, ASIS, etc which are employed under the Public Service Act.
The websites make it clear too – it is apra.gov.au not apra.com.au
And many employees of the Department of Defence are under the Public Service Act too.
Let’s face it: these organisations would not exist without government.
Samuel J
19 Feb 13 at 7:18 pm
Yeah and 1,000 of them are setting the specs for our new generation of solar-powered submarines.
Steve of Ferny Hills
19 Feb 13 at 7:37 pm
That’s possibly true, but as redistribution and addressing market failures associated with environmental and other non-monetised concerns tend to be a luxury good, there are good arguments for it should expand over time, possibly faster than population growth.
Whatever the optimal size of the public service, Novak gives no robust reason in her post for presuming that a ‘reasonable’ size public sector would be smaller than the current one. That just a simplistic right wing rule of thumb looking for a robust rationale.
William Bragg
20 Feb 13 at 1:48 am
What an undergraduate load of crap. Mindless regurgitation of theory, no understanding of the argument and disconnected from reality like one of Mr Tanya Pilbersek’s clients.
.
20 Feb 13 at 8:41 am
William of course might know answer.
The tax to GDP ratio has fallen, the Government is doing less per capita and whilst it has grown recently. There is also the issue of many Government departments and programmes closing down under the application of a rigourous cost benefits test.
This was obvious to the rest of us. Poor old Billy probably spends longer washing his hands than the rest of us two, which is admirable for someone who shits into their clasped hands as well.
.
20 Feb 13 at 8:57 am
Understanding Libertarianism as deeply as I do – I studied the condition during my psychiatry degree – I fully understand the mindset of sore but still zealous loser like Dotty and her need to attack the thing – in this case- me – that has gotten under her skin. I thus forgive her for lnot being able to exercise much self-control and lashing out with the usual Cattallaxian grace.
, that something is apparently obvious to Libertarians, who also maintain that tax is theft and that free speech is an absolute right (except for some of the less unintelligent ones – and Dotty, by accident), is about as convincing a Dotty’s attempts to pretend that I haven’t gotten under his skin – LOL.
William Bragg
20 Feb 13 at 9:49 am
Psychiatry? Are you a psychiatrist?
wreckage
20 Feb 13 at 10:07 am
…and I’m the chief justice of the high court by day and ace marshal of the RAAF DSO AFC DFC MC MG VC GCMG GC KG and fighter pilot by night.
Bragg will never say what the appropriate amount of Government is – but he will always bemoan any cuts – he is a authoritarian little shit who as a citizen hating public servant ought to be unmasked and given a trial by media. His analytical abilities are far less than his scripted, mind numbingly fallacious and unintelligent rhetoric.
Um yes a “psychiatry degree” – you fucking deadshit. Your story is obviously fucking nonsense.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “PSYCHIATRY DEGREE”, AS THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “RADIOLOGY DEGREE”
We can tell this as we deeply understand authoritarian fuckheads such as Bragg. They are too clever by half then they lie beyond their Ken and scramble back down their ratholes for a few weeks.
You’re busted Bragg. You have to lie about your occupation to deflect criticism because you don’t have and have never had an argument to mount, other than smug, paranoid, far left wing spite.
From now on, your reputation ought to be thought of as unable to remove the taint of stupidity and dishonesty and your ideas ought to be flushed like the repulsive turds that they are.
.
20 Feb 13 at 10:27 am
Also presumably a doctor of medicine, since you have to have a medical degree to study and practice as a psychiatrist. We should respectfully refer to him as ‘Dr Bragg’ in future.
Des Deskperson
20 Feb 13 at 10:28 am
Remember, Dr William Bragg BSc (Hons) MBBS MD BEc MEc Ph D is the same “Dr” that called blood donation recipients “free riders”, the public servant who can tell us what our preferences are and tells us free speech isn’t a right but refuses to define what rights of expression we ought to have and leaves it up to the capable and honest hands of Gillard, Roxon, Thomson etc.
He also would have been a minimum age of 38 before entering the public service as an APS 5 if he never held any other job than his internship and did not do a residency. He’s also been in the APS for decades.
These far left wingers are sick. They want to control free speech and do not have an argument to do so and therefore rely on desperate ad hom based on lies about their CV. They want to control the economy despite have the economic, financial and project management literacy of children.
What a despicable bunch who ought to be run out of town with pitchforks and kerosene torches on the back of pick up trucks.
.
20 Feb 13 at 10:39 am
LOL. This is gold.
This is the same tool who was trying to tell a tax is a transfer and noted it was a lesson he learned in Economics 101.
Of course Economics 101 is part of every good “psychiatry degree”. Hahahahahahaha.
Token
20 Feb 13 at 10:40 am
a psychiatry degree……… oh dear Bragg, oh fucking dear……….
harrys on the boat
20 Feb 13 at 11:11 am
Fixed.
Eddystone
20 Feb 13 at 11:50 am
Well, I have to admit, you got me on that one and I see now that I have inadvertently been seriously misestimating the intellectual brilliance and forensic rigour of Cats. After all, who but those with only the sharpest minds and the keenest wits would possibly have interpreted the parenthetical statement that I had studied the ‘condition’ of Libertarianism as part of my psychiatry degree as anything other than an covert operation to subtlely pass off the notion as a totally serious statement of literal fact, warranting the greatest gravity and respect, except for the academic misclassification at the end.
Not those ‘sharpest of the sharp’ on the Cat, apparently, and also not dotty, who clearly have more self-awareness than I had previously presumed, and thus do indeed seem to see their condition as something warranting psychiatric study.
William Bragg
20 Feb 13 at 9:33 pm
Braggs
Please stop the incoherent babbling. You’re boring.
Go away, or to be more polite. Fuck off.
Jc
20 Feb 13 at 9:36 pm
So, Braggy still hasn’t figured out how those damned meddling kids found him out? Hiding behind a wall of text like a terrified octopus jetting ink?
He’s good for a laugh. But not the way he thinks.
wreckage
20 Feb 13 at 10:03 pm
Sorry wreckage, for your benefit, I’ll keep my words to one syllable or less and restrict my sentences to a maximum of half a line in future.
William Bragg
20 Feb 13 at 10:15 pm
It might also be a good idea to not lie. Particularly, you might want to avoid transparent and silly lies that flaunt your own ignorance.
wreckage
21 Feb 13 at 11:07 pm
Okay wreckage, since you actually, really, truly seem not to get it, let me spell it out for you real simple.
1) The statement that I had studied the ‘condition’ of LIbertarianism as part of my psychiatry degree is transparently ridiculous and was intended as pure spoof, as anyone with half a brain would have realised.
2) Nevertheless, and quite bizaarely, you and several other Cats took it as if it were true, or as if it were intended to be taken as true.
3) Certain Cats, most notably Dotty, then started crowing because they found an aspect of the statement that wasn’t true. (I guess, when you’re that far behind on the scoreboard, you’ve got to make the most of any victory – no matter how small – that you imagine you’ve had.)
4) But again bizaarely, what gave the falseness of the statement away to these brilliant sleuths appears not to have been the notion of Libertarianism as a psychiatric condition – which in turn is why I remarked that perhaps you Cats have more self-awareness than I’d hitherto appreciated.
I hope your collective stupidity is now clear.
William Bragg
22 Feb 13 at 1:37 am
Feeble defence William.It is ok to brag but not to lie.You have done it twice now. Still, not uncommon these days.
Bernie
24 Mar 13 at 12:36 am