Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sadly, we've seen revelation after revelation about a conga line of dodgy decisions coming out of the Morrison government. It's what happens when a government treats the Public Service like his own political plaything rather than a source of frank and fearless advice. The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments trashed trust not just in government but also in our public service, whether it was the sports rorts, the Urban Congestion Fund, the commuter car parks for stations that didn't exist or, of course, the most recent Auditor-General's report finding that the $2 billion community health and hospital program was treated just like another slush fund. Imagine that: using health like a slush fund. To make matters worse, the public servants supposedly in charge of the program had to monitor the media to keep track of the Morrison government's announcements. You had senior public servants sitting at their computers, waiting for the next announcement in their area of portfolio responsibility, waiting for decisions to be made by a press release. Sadly, their expert analysis was being ignored or not even sought, because the money was being used for what was in the interests of the seats held by the Liberal and National parties or of targeted seats, not what was in the best interests of the Australian taxpayer. Again, the public were treated like mugs.

The Public Service lost the trust of the Australian people. How about the public servants who knew that the former Prime Minister had five secret ministries and didn't think to tell the nation? Can you believe we have that as a political fact that we now accept? How low those opposite dragged our democracy—right down into the gutter. This is why change is needed. Just like almost every area of government, it's up to the Albanese Labor government to clean up the mess of a decade—a decade of wasted opportunity and dreadful mismanagement.

During the last decade, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments set about diminishing and sidelining the Public Service through cuts and ignoring their advice and did so proudly and gleefully. Instead, they relied excessively on contractors, consultants and outsourcing policy decisions. Consequently, policy expertise withered on the vine. These legislative changes in front of the chamber are part of the Albanese government's agenda to rebuild the Australian Public Service. Most of the amendments contained within this bill are recommendations from the 2019 Independent Review of the Australian Public Service, the Thodey review, or go to the intent of the Thodey review. These are responses that are sensible, unlike how the LNP operated when they were in government for that wasted decade—those three squandered terms that had little to show for it but debt and disaster.

The Albanese government has consulted widely on these changes, including with employees, representative groups, agencies, experts, the Public Service and the CPSU. At the heart of this bill are three guiding principles of change which aim to make the APS work better for the Australian people. They are: strengthening the APS's core purpose and values, building the capacity and expertise of the APS and, lastly—something that has been missing for way too long—supporting good governance, accountability and transparency.

How will this bill strengthen the APS's core purpose and values? It will do this by adding a new APS value of stewardship that all APS employees must uphold. Stewardship will be defined as 'the Australian Public Service builds capability and institutional knowledge and supports the public interest now and into the future by understanding the long-term impacts of what it does.'

When the APS doesn't meet these expectations, through either not understanding their importance or being set up to fail, it is ordinary Australians who suffer. Just look at the devastation reaped by robodebt. It damaged lives. In fact, it took lives. Government decisions implemented by public servants took the lives of Australians. They were our most vulnerable Australians. I will never forget or forgive some of those opposite for what they did. I do, on this occasion, think of the poor public servants who were forced to implement this dastardly LNP policy. The scheme rolled on and on and on, raising and chasing debts that were not owed, wrecking lives—and we're yet to receive an apology from those opposite. Sometimes I wonder if they have any shame at all. Robodebt was a failure of leadership to listen to its own employees, who had correctly highlighted the fact that simply averaging income over 12 months instead of every fortnight would yield incorrect outcomes. Sadly, some of the Public Service leadership failed to recognise or reconcile the impact these decisions were having on some of the most vulnerable people in Australia.

The amendment bill will also require the Secretaries Board to oversee the development of a single, unifying APS purpose statement and review it once every five years. It will also require all agency heads to uphold and promote the new APS purpose statement, in addition to the APS values and employment principles. This will make sure that the APS looks at itself to make sure that it is delivering the right outcomes for Australians. The bill will clarify and strengthen these provisions in the act to make it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on individual APS staffing decisions. We don't want to see ministers having their fingers on APS staffing decisions. It's time to reaffirm the APS's apolitical nature.

The second component of this bill will be to build on the capability and expertise of our wonderful Public Service. The bill will do this by having the APS make regular independent and transparent capability reviews a five-yearly requirement for each department of state, Services Australia and the Australian Taxation Office. These mandated five-yearly capability reviews will assess organisational strengths and areas for development, with reports and action plans responding to findings required to be publicly released. The public needs to have confidence and trust in these organisations and, where improvements have been identified, that these are then being made.

The bill will also require the Secretaries Board to commission regular long-term insight reports to explore medium-term and long-term trends, risks and opportunities facing Australia. These reports will ensure that the APS can build trust in its expertise and understanding of cross-cutting issues that matter to all Australians and can be a leader in innovation and change.

Lastly, in terms of these guiding principles, the bill, just like the Albanese government, will help restore and support good governance, accountability and transparency. We will require the publication of the agencies' APS census results and an action plan that responds to results. Again, making this information open to the public will foster a culture of transparency and accountability for continuous improvement within agencies.

We will also require agency heads to implement measures to enable decisions to be made by employees at the lowest appropriate classification for those decisions. This will ensure decision-making is not raised to a higher level than is necessary. Not only will this reduce the unnecessary hierarchical nature of the Public Service but it will also be empowering to APS employees.

Let's look at those three guiding principles again: strengthening the APS's core purpose and values; building the capability and expertise of the APS; and supporting good governance, accountability and transparency. It is not a mistake that many of these changes come back to two simple words: trust and confidence. The government and the people of Australia need to have trust and confidence in the APS to do their jobs, the jobs that they are paid for, and trust and confidence that they will deliver the best outcomes and services for Australia, especially to those who most rely them. I commend this bill to the House.

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