Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This government is taking the next steps in rebuilding the Australian Public Service by the introduction of this bill, the Public Service Amendment Bill 2023, and it's a very important bill because the broader Australian Public Service reform agenda is about restoring the public's trust and faith in governments and institutions. I suppose, when you think about it, there's not a single day when Australians—every single one of us, every single one of our constituents—do not have contact with our Public Service. Of course, the contact that they have could be through a pensioner trying to get their rebate back or dealing with a Centrelink issue. It could be a student querying his HECS fees et cetera. Every day, every single person around this country has some sort of interaction with the Public Service, and it's sad to hear that people have lost faith in governments, not just here in Australia but around the world.

The face of government is always the Public Service, and I know that in Australia we've had a very good system—a system that is impenetrable, a public service system that is professional, a public service system in which public servants take pride in their job of giving fearless advice to government and, as I said, in being impenetrable. But all this has weakened in the last few years. When we see millions of dollars being spent on outsourcing, on consultants and on companies outside of the Public Service to do even policy work, it asks a question of our public servants.

Where you once had public servants who were determined professionals doing good work because they were committed to a particular area in the office that they were working in, we've seen a lot of that work being outsourced and a lot of casualisation of the Public Service. If you're a casual and you don't know what's happening from month to month or every three months or every six months or even every 12 months, this has meant that you're always on the lookout for something else and you're not really 100 per cent committed to that particular area, and we need good public servants—people who know that their future is secure in a job where they will be able to contribute, and contribute in a way that will benefit the government of this country, regardless of who the government is, benefit policymaking and ensure that the flow of that spills out into the community.

As I said, there's not a single day when there's no contact between the Australian public and our constituents and the Public Service. We have seen a huge issue at Centrelink in the past few years in terms of the workload, the information that people get not being up to date or the information having to be re-requested. These are all things that this bill will try to combat to make sure that we have an Australian public that has confidence in its democracy, and the core of a democracy is obviously the way in which its public service operates. The casualisation, the consultants and the outsourcing haven't helped strengthen the Public Service. In fact, they have helped weakened it.

Having said that, I will say that there are many, many good people in the Public Service who work very hard and are very committed, and we want to make sure that we add to that and make it even better. As I said, there's a broader APS reform agenda that is about restoring the public's trust and faith in government and its institutions. This bill will strengthen the APS core purposes and values and build the capabilities and expertise of the Australian Public Service and support good governance, accountability and transparency. It will require the Australian Public Service to have a purpose statement—in other words, a common goal which will benefit this nation and that they should always be striving to reach. There are a lot of things in it. One of the things is to make it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads to employment matters. Another is to encourage decision-making at the lowest appropriate level. This gives people confidence. It builds their confidence, and it develops them as professional public servants. That is a good point, to allow decision-making at the lowest appropriate level without interference from others. It will also make regular capability reviews an absolute requirement. The bill will also require annual Australian Public Service employee census results to be published, along with an action plan responding to those results, which is a good thing.

Early last year, I think it was, Australia suffered one of the globe's largest falls in public trust. According to the Edelman public trust barometer, just 52 per cent of Australians trusted the government and its institutions to do the right thing. That was just above 50 per cent—52 per cent—which is very sad when you think about it. It was a steep nine-point decline from 2021. That's a massive loss of confidence in our governance system, our governments, our Public Service. This bill is really important in winning back the Australian public's trust, and it will be a key challenge facing our governments and our institutions. We must restore that trust.

I suppose the question is: what does good governance look like and how can we restore the trust of Australians in our government and institutions? That question cannot be answered without the Australian Public Service at its core. The face-to-face contact that everyday Australians have with the Australian Public Service is core to that trust. We know that good government delivers effective policy, is transparent and is accountable to the public. If we want to earn the trust of Australians, you must agree that you have to have an absolutely solid foundation in the institutions that assist us and help us. We need to recognise that the world changes, and so should our institutions.

We saw during the pandemic the reliance on the Public Service in terms of the health department and Centrelink and the work that they did. That was an incredible period where the number of people requiring assistance from Centrelink or from the health department shot through the roof, grew by thousands of people. That proved that we do have a Public Service that is very committed and works very hard, and that restored some of that confidence back into our system. The fact that we were able to mobilise people within the Public Service to assist and help was also very important.

What also needs to be looked at closely and focused on is workplace culture and to set the standard of Respect@Work. We've seen many reports in this place and other places which provide a blueprint for that respectful environment. The Public Service is the face of the Australian government; it's the face of our institutions. This bill will ensure that we are able to work with the Public Service, to make sure that they develop and become an even better Public Service than we've had for many years.

The Public Service values and principles that this bill talks about reflect the responsibility that public servants are entrusted with and apply across all agencies. When these laws are enshrined, the responsibility of stewardship in the Public Service Act will be absolutely crucial. As was referenced in the report of the Thodey review, stewardship can encourage building a service that is committed to the public interest and sustains genuine partnerships in the institution's knowledge—the ability to create that knowledge and keep it within the Public Service, not to lose it when Public Service employees leave. Rather than losing all that history and knowledge, there should be a system in place to keep it within the Public Service for ever and a day.

One of the other areas is preserving and enhancing our great social assets, the large social programs that have assisted people for many years. Whether it be Medicare or, in the last 10 years, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, or protecting the Great Barrier Reef, these are all areas of the Public Service that play a crucial role. Focusing on our health system is also fundamental, as is the way we innovate, collaborate and improve our Public Service for generations to come so it can continue to provide services to the people who need them and ensure they get their rebate back in a timely manner. The same goes for Centrelink. These agencies are the face of government, regardless of which side of this chamber we sit on; that is the reality. Out on the ground, in our electorates, when people have contact with government, it's usually through those agencies that they deal with every day.

We need to prioritise an Australian Public Service that puts people and businesses at the centre of policy and services. The public should be at the centre of every single policy. I know that government is going to work with leaders of the APS on a vision for a partnership between the Public Service and people, communities, business, the not-for-profit sector, universities, states, territories and others. Engagement and co-design with our partners have to become a natural and early impulse in the way we work. Each month, a thousand people across the country are surveyed on their level of trust in and satisfaction with the Public Service. This information should be published annually. We need greater transparency on what Australians are saying about their government. When I talk about government, I'm not just talking about us in here. People see government through the lens of the daily contact they have with the different agencies; it's their lived experience of the Public Service.

These are really important measures in making sure that we restore some confidence in the systems that we have in this country. As I've said, we have a great Public Service. It's renowned as one of the best public services in the world. In fact, many of the systems in our Public Service have been exported to other countries. We see the good work that's being done in countries in the Pacific and in new democracies. It's something we should be proud of, and it's also something that we can build on and make even stronger and better. This will deliver a better future for all Australians and a better experience when they have contact with agencies and services. I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned.

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