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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 10 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 2609 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

A significant concern raised by this proposal is the politicisation of the public service. The Government itself recognised this as an issue and raised it in the submission to the committee. However, in doing so, it harmed rather than helped its cause. The Government claimed:

Contracts do not in themselves politicise the public service. Under current employment arrangements, there is no clear specification of agreed things to be achieved or how they are to be measured. Governments can use this ambiguity to remove politically unsuitable people.

I will repeat that, Mr Speaker:

Governments can use this ambiguity to remove politically unsuitable people.

Anybody with an elementary knowledge of the public service and of the Public Sector Management Act, Mr Speaker, knows that the Government cannot appoint or remove any public servant, and the one exception to that is chief executives. The Government submission went even further, and said:

A recent suggestion by the Federal Opposition spokesperson -

it would appear, Mr Speaker, that Liberal Party frontbenchers do not even have names; if they do, nobody knows them -

on the public service that, if elected, it would seek to remove political appointments in the Australian Public Service suggests that tenure does nothing to reduce whatever is seen to be the perceived risk of politicisation.

The only thing that that statement proves is that the unnamed Liberal frontbencher has about as much understanding of the public service as do the Liberals opposite. Mr Speaker, nothing that was presented to the committee convinced me that the risk of politicisation would be lessened by a complete move to contracts. Indeed, the more likely outcome is that such a move would facilitate it.

Another issue raised, again by the Government's own submission, was whether persons employed on contract with a finite end date would always provide frank and fearless advice. The Government posited that this would be ensured by "making the provision of `frank and fearless' advice mandatory" in contracts. I have severe doubts that such words in a contract would lead a senior public servant to tell this can-do Government that it cannot do something, especially if the public servant's contract was nearing its renewal date. Perhaps the best way to express the concern is to go to an independent and respected source, Mr Tony Ayers, AC. He recently delivered the Garran Oration at the Royal Institute of Public Administration of Australia's national conference. Mr Ayers is the Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Defence and the most experienced secretary in the Australian Public Service. He said:

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