The Albanese government has fended off an intensifying Coalition attack on the increasing size of the bureaucracy by crowing the passage of legislative reforms to the Australian Public Service (APS).
That put the kibosh on ministers being able to direct departmental secretaries to appoint those below them.
The Public Service Amendment bill, which contains a handpicked selection of recommendations stemming from the Thodey review of the APS, cleared the Senate on Thursday, to the clear joy of Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher and her lieutenant Assistant Minister for the Public Service Patrick ‘Possum’ Gorman.
The bill is relatively uncontroversial in that it adds a series of formal requirements for regular oversight, and adds the rather nebulous requirement of “stewardship” as an official APS value.
Gallagher used the passage of the new laws to talk up the importance of the APS and how the government is rebuilding it.
“The previous Coalition Government gutted the public service, eroded capability, and ran a shadow workforce of consultants and contractors,” Gallagher said.
“They systematically dismantled the public service for the best part of a decade.
“The need for ambitious APS reform is clear, and we need reforms that will endure, that’s why we’re locking in these important changes in legislation.”
That may be, but many of the more difficult reforms in the Thodey review have been given a wide berth, not least creating an APS tech cadre to re-establish internal systems development capability.
The preamble to the bill says that it is “responding to certain recommendations of the Independent Review of the Australian Public Service (the Thodey Review)” and that “the bill amends the Public Service Act 1999.”
The specific responses are to “include a new Australian Public Service (APS) Value of ‘Stewardship’; require the Secretaries Board to prepare an APS Purpose Statement; require agency heads to uphold and promote the APS Purpose Statement; provide that ministers must not direct agency heads on individual employment matters.”
There’s a law to “require agency heads to put in place measures to enable decision-making to occur at the lowest appropriate classification; require regular capability reviews; require the Secretaries Board to request and publish regular long-term insights reports; require agencies to publish annual APS Employee Census results and respond to relevant findings through an action plan; and remove the requirement to seek the APS Commissioner’s consent to delegate powers and functions to Australian Defence Force members.”
“These reforms are part of supporting the Australian Public Service to be truly world-leading, now and into the future,” Gorman said.
“This Bill is a key element of the Albanese Government’s APS reform agenda.”
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