The Gaming Den

What the fuck is the difference between the government taking 9% and investing it in the share market, and the government forcing me to take 9% and invest it in the equities or securities of my choice?

Except that A is entirely worse than B because I have no control over my investment portfolio.

No it isn't. You having control over your portfolio is bad in this case. It means that some people will be winners, and other people will be losers. That's fine and dandy for the winners, but from the standpoint of society, having winners and losers is bad. We're talking about maintaining a standard of living for the elderly, not creating financial empires for the lucky or skilled investors in the population.

The larger the disparity between those whose pensions are performing the best and those whose pensions are performing the worst, the worse the system is being handled. With more space between the minimum and maximum, the government will have to throw more money at the problem, because what's supposed to be guaranteed is the standard of living at the bottom. So if you set up a system where people are making personal bets against the market with their funds, some people will get very rich and other people will lose just about everything. And that means that whatever social safety net you have beside that will have to cover the entire standard of living you wanted to guaranty in the first place - which puts an enormous strain on public coffers.

The fact that you personally could win a particular government program to support pensioners is not a point in its favor. It's bad through and through, because people who win the stock market aren't the people who need these programs in the first place.

I'm deeply out of my depth when it comes to Australian Pension Programs, but any pension program that gives personal power to succeed or fail is by definition a shitty idea. Simply because for a pension to do its job, money has to be poured into the system until the person doing the very worst on that pension is still able to maintain the desired standard of living as they age. One with winners and losers is by definition either less effective or more expensive than one where everyone is doing the same.

-Username17

cthulhu wrote:So you don't think the Government hires GHD to build roads? Man, do I have some news for you.

So you think, that I don't think the government doesn't buy roads like they buy other goods.

That's one thing. And has problems enough as it is.

An actual widely trumpeted flag ship of PPPs in Australia is another thing.

Of course I could point to similar debacles involving pilot PPP examplars of toll ways, tunnels and major infrastructure projects in more than one region of Australia.

Oddly the government managed to build the harbour bridge fine back when those sorts of things were in fashion, despite a depression, a hostile federal government, and god damn fascist revolutionaries!

But privatisation parasites like you find it easy to ignore the elephants in the, *cough*Victorian Blackouts Yet Again*cough*, room.

PhoneLobster wrote:

cthulhu wrote:So you don't think the Government hires GHD to build roads? Man, do I have some news for you.

So you think, that I don't think the government doesn't buy roads like they buy other goods.

Yes, as you said

Governments can build roads

Which it doesn't, in a discussion of how the government purchases goods and services, and how they ineffectively use the services of the private sector, particularly after I said the government isn't good at turning policy (e.g. making the princes highway safe) into a reality (actually doing that)

FrankTrollman wrote:

What the fuck is the difference between the government taking 9% and investing it in the share market, and the government forcing me to take 9% and invest it in the equities or securities of my choice?

Except that A is entirely worse than B because I have no control over my investment portfolio.

No it isn't. You having control over your portfolio is bad in this case. It means that some people will be winners, and other people will be losers. That's fine and dandy for the winners, but from the standpoint of society, having winners and losers is bad. We're talking about maintaining a standard of living for the elderly, not creating financial empires for the lucky or skilled investors in the population.

Sure, but that is the role of the social safety net - the pension. That maintains the standard of living.

Essentially Australia has a two part system

A) You get a minimum pension, high quality health insurance and a number of other services

B) If you have enough assets by yourself, you lose some of those things (mostly the access to the pension and some of the health benefits), but if you become poor - i.e. living long enough to run out of money, you get onto the government minimum scheme.

There is a mandatory savings scheme that you have to pay into and distributions from are controlled (you get a lump sum and a pension paid from your savings scheme on retirement typically, I understand it works much like a 401k plan or a Roth IRA.)

The larger the disparity between those whose pensions are performing the best and those whose pensions are performing the worst, the worse the system is being handled.

Doesn;t this apply with incomes as well? I'm in favour of a hybrid economy so my opinion includes this - but seriously, without banning private savings, how can you achieve this?

PhoneLobster wrote:An actual widely trumpeted flag ship of PPPs in Australia is another thing.
*cough*Victorian Blackouts Yet Again*cough*

"Lalalalalalalala" you can't hear me!

What elephant, you see no elephant!

The good news is, your side has lost the war. Privatisation is massively unpopular, it's flaws so self evident in practice that the population at large despises it (and by extension despises those that continue to blindly push it). To the point that for a premiere to utter the word is the same as bringing down his own cabinet and destroying his political career.

But then you know that since you are using the weasel like (failed) attempts at rebranding like "PPP".

Why do you think I am advocating for privatization? I've consistently been arguing for more extensive use of professional services.

You decried the use of them - for example, the government purchasing investment advisory services in support of the future fund - but now your supporting them?

I'm lost: Is it good for the government to buy

A) Investment advisory

B) Road construction

C) Legal Services

D) Systems implement

Still can't see the elephant... PPP was your term in this discussion... It has elephants...

sigma999 wrote:Also, how is Sweden doing? I'm insanely curious about that nation as it's like some parallel-evolved cousin of America that somehow succeeded in many ways that America has always, and will probably continue, to fail.

Sweden is doing only slightly worse than Finland, I believe. They are a bit deeper in the mess, so their situation might still escalate. Seeing how they owned the recession of the early 1990's, I wouldn't wonder even if they managed to pull themselves out of this one relatively unscathed as well. In Finland we are paranoid after the aforementioned recession nearly wrecked our country due to some of the worst political decisions we've ever had, so we are playing this one pretty well. We even have a governmental series of TV ads that warn people about the recession and inform how to act.

PhoneLobster wrote:Still can't see the elephant... PPP was your term in this discussion... It has elephants...

Sure, but you condemned the government buying any sort of professional service, so I am somewhat confused. If buying investment advisory services is feeding the corporate fat cats, how is that different from buying engineering services?

And once you accept you're going to buy engineering services, this leads to a few conclusions that seem contrary to your previously stated position

A) Whats the difference to investment advisory services? You previous stance condemned the entire process of purchasing professional services, be they management consulting, technical, engineering or finacial.

I don't care about PPPs or privatisation, so lets them take off the table. They are irrelevant to the broader question: You stated an objection to purchasing services entirely.

Lets just establish this issue up front: Is it good policy for the government to purchase professional services in all fields? If not in all fields, is it acceptable in some fields? Or is it not acceptable to purchase professional services in any fields?

If it is only acceptable in some fields, what defines the difference between the fields?

cthulhu wrote:I don't care about PPPs or privatisation, so lets them take off the table. They are irrelevant to the broader question: You stated an objection to purchasing services entirely.

Contracting is in general anathema to the purposes and strengths of government. Contracting exists because the amount of money charged for the services exceed the cost of providing those services. Corporations and individuals hire contractors because they have a one-time use for the specialized equipment and skills and don't have the ability or inclination to make the entire needed investment to produce those things in-house. Contractors exist to be hired because there are many such corporations and individuals who need that sort of work done. So it makes sense for the contractors to invest the time and capital to be able to provide that service and then shop it around to each needy organization in turn. And it makes sense for the hiring bodies to rent the time from the contractors for as long as they actually need it and let other groups hire out the same contractors for the rest of the time.

Permanent and exclusive contracts don't make any sense. They don't make any sense for corporations, and they don't make any sense for individuals, and they don't make any sense for governments. It makes sense to hire contractors to clean your office if they are spending the rest of their time cleaning other offices. If you find yourself hiring someone to clean your building full-time, you should cut out the middle man and just hire a full-time janitor directly. That is the case regardless of whether that building is a corporate office, a private mansion, or a government base.

I am openly dubious about the government hiring contractors to plan the futures for retirement pensions, because the future by definition never ends. Thus, any such contract would by definition be permanent rather than transient, so the only possible justification would be if the government were just purchasing some of the time of these financial analysts. But unfortunately, financial transactions are very much about winning and losing, and it is undeniably true that hiring just part of the time of a contractor entitles you to - at best - part of their loyalty. Which is probably not something you want of someone negotiating wagers with your future financial solvency.

-Username17

cthulhu wrote:If it is only acceptable in some fields, what defines the difference between the fields?

Frank has it covered, meanwhile ELEPHANTS!

You used the PPP language in an apologetic manner to support your position, so deal with the elephants or shut the fuck up.

There is another reason to hire contractors: the government pay scales cannot attract skilled non-management workers. The obvious solution would be to have different pay scales so that government jobs actually pay as much as the contractors, but union rules and things probably prevent it. The US has the hilarious solution of having a not-for-profit contractor that has permanent contracts with the Defense Department, the IRS, and some other agencies. It basically exists so that the federal government has a way to pay market rates to senior technical people without making pay scales that the unions won't accept.

zeruslord wrote:here is another reason to hire contractors: the government pay scales cannot attract skilled non-management workers.

I have to say that I was really surprised at how many really well-accomplished and intelligent people were working in the intelligent robotics group at NASA, given how little they seem to be paid there (I keep getting job offer emails for positions there now and the pay is not exactly inspiring, to say the least). From what I've seen from the postings for entry-level positions, the guys in biology have it even worse. I guess there's something to be said for the workplace not sucking.

Then again, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. Like a week after I left one of the guys there went off to become the CTO of some start-up.

zeruslord wrote:There is another reason to hire contractors: the government pay scales cannot attract skilled non-management workers. The obvious solution would be to have different pay scales so that government jobs actually pay as much as the contractors, but union rules and things probably prevent it. The US has the hilarious solution of having a not-for-profit contractor that has permanent contracts with the Defense Department, the IRS, and some other agencies. It basically exists so that the federal government has a way to pay market rates to senior technical people without making pay scales that the unions won't accept.

Yes, exactly. Also, because the culture is so hidebound and risk adverse it makes advancement and innovation very difficult, so star performers have massive incentives to leave the organisation: You can get promoted faster and paid more now and later.

@PL: You need to accept the other elephants in the room too: Your view is nice, but you need to accept Ian Henry's and the APSC's view of their own capability. When you're being actively advised by the treasury secretary not to innovate, take risks or try new approaches, you know you have problems.

PPPs, outsourcing, contracting, etc, are all vehicles used by the APS to outsource risk, because the culture is risk adverse. The reason for PPPs is that the public sector is incapable of accomplishing the objectives by themselves. Can the private sector do better? Maybe, maybe not - but the public sector cannot do it at all. Incidently, please get off the PPP's are always bad train. A PPP produced

Mr Brumby stated that the largest road project in Australia – completed in just 39 months – made EastLink the most successful ever delivered in the state.

And then crows about it being a leader in Australia. Sure PPPs haven't worked, but they also have worked.

Some government departments are obviously the exception to the rule in some areas: The more prestigious the department, the more male the more capable it is. For example, the policy side of DFAT and treasury are good and prestigious. FaHCSIA is niether of those things, as is Centrelink and the ATO.

FrankTrollman wrote:

cthulhu wrote:I don't care about PPPs or privatisation, so lets them take off the table. They are irrelevant to the broader question: You stated an objection to purchasing services entirely.

Contractors exist to be hired because there are many such corporations and individuals who need that sort of work done. So it makes sense for the contractors to invest the time and capital to be able to provide that service and then shop it around to each needy organization in turn.

Exactly: But the government characteristically refuses to involve contractors like this, and instead prefers the mode you decry: Of hiring them as employees, because it doesn;t have the culture of payscales to support innovation.

Its fucked.

I am openly dubious about the government hiring contractors to plan the futures for retirement pensions, because the future by definition never ends. Thus, any such contract would by definition be permanent rather than transient, so the only possible justification would be if the government were just purchasing some of the time of these financial analysts.

-Username17

Why its done: Cannot pay them enough, desire to outsource risk, and unable to grow them within your own culture: The department doesn't have the scale to train these guys up within their own organisations, and once they want them, they tend to be entrenched in other organisations.

What really gets me is that none of you have any appreciation for how risk adverse the government is. The desire to have your backside covered by abrand name drives the entire market for legal services for government. If you have the Australian Government Solicitors, why do you need Clayton Utz?

Answer: Because Clayton Utz give you more risk protection.

It is retarded.

One problem is government pay grades. Governments can't just pay people competitively against private enterprise Despite having worked on multi year contract my brother would never take an actual job with the government because he won't accept a salary less than the top pay grade for a computer programmer according to government hiring practices. SO he takes a contract and sits in a government office exactly like a snivel servant would, only he gets paid a boat load more and is on contract. Why? because they can't get someone of his experience3 any other way

It goes beyond that. There are literally no non-management federal employees involved in high-level decisions on the IRS computer systems. Everybody technical and in the room is a contractor. Now, most of them are MITRE employees, which means they are essentially permanent fixtures in the process, or at least as permanent as anyone else in a large organization, but MITRE is an organization set up purely to circumvent the standard federal pay system without bringing in anything with a profit motive.

cthulhu wrote:And then crows about it being a leader in Australia. Sure PPPs haven't worked, but they also have worked.

So you accept that Victoria can't build power plants and has been suffering significant blackouts because of PPPs. As if that is some minor thing.

That PPPs are responsible for the most hated and inconvenient major road works project in Sydney today with multiple failures ranging from unwarranted toll fines to road closures designed to produce toll profits ahead of practical use to actual tunnel collapses beneath private properties? As if that is nothing.

Then you present your own much touted "Elephants". Ian Henry, a guy google can't even find, and the ASPC a government organisation tasked with reforming the Australian public service, that oddly releases mother hood statements about how much the Australian Public Service needs its reforming agency. But which also may as well not exist outside of their own web site as far as any kind of newsworthiness is concerned.

Try "Lane Cove Debacle" in google. And that's with the word "Debacle" added. Try Victorian Blackouts. You are throwing empty crisp packets and declaring them the equal of ICBMs.

Some government departments are obviously the exception to the rule in some areas: The more prestigious the department, the more male the more capable it is.

I do hope that is some sort of typo, or are you even crazier than, scratch that I don't think it's possible.

Two typoes: But actually there is a point, due to sexism in the public service, the more prestigious departments also have more men. I also meant Dr Ken Henry, Treasury secretary, not Ian Henry, Treasury secretary. Getting the last name and the job title right probably would have helped you find it, but obviously not.

You'll find he is quite newsworthy, and makes the papers on a regular basis. I assume you read the details of the speeches he makes? If so, you'll be familiar with the DMO speech to which I refer as it made the front page of the AFR.

Also, your not exactly proposing solutions: As the Australian Government notes, the Australian Government is unable to actually manage the performance of its own workforce. It is unable to accept risk. Any organisation that refuses to accept any risk and does not have any performance management capability is, as I am sure you'll agree, a bad organisation.

How much do you actually know about the public sector? You have a very idealistic view and do not seem to consider any of the actual acknowledge, well published weaknesses of it. I'm saying the entire public service is deeply flawed and dysfunctional organisation that is incapable of discharging its duties to the taxpayer, and you think that is an empty crisp packet.

I mean fucking hell: I take your sydney roads and raise you railcorp. Which one causes more disatisfaction ? Not that connex isn't fucked, but then again, the gungalin drive extension was government driven and as a percentage has overrun the cost budget by more than double, and has delivered half the orginal spec, and remedial works have been specced that cost as much as the orginal budget.

But please: Address the other points - the entire federal government IT is run by for profit contracting agencies because the federal government and public service cannot deliver, costing the tax payer hundreds of millions of dollars. I laugh at your assertion that handing it all to the government will coat things in magic and fairy dust.

The federal government has consistently never delivered anything. Look at healthcare. We had a national e-health strategy developed a year ago. Do we have any progress? Nope. Is anything happening to save the lives of all the patients that could be saved by simple technological measures? Nope. Is the government actively killing thousands of people a year through preventable deaths due to poor infomation sharing through the health system? Yeap.

Compared to fucked up engineering projects, I consider the deaths of hundreds through preventable medication errors worse/.

cthulhu wrote:It is unable to accept risk.

Actually PPPs are the disproof of that particular piece of propaganda.

Private companies won't take the risk to build more power plants for Victoria.

Private companies signing on to PPPs regular demand a government backed guarantee of profit!

The government when making PPP deals regularly shoulders all the risk of those deals (often more risk than it would have in the first place without the private component).

You are fucking crazy if you think the government can't accept risk, isn't the best equipped to deal with risk, or for that matter should be regularly creating and courting risk.

But then since you are pro PPPs and they are all about governments absorbing Risk from drooling corporate aristocrats, well...

raise you railcorp.

And I raise you... Railcorp!

You see you privatization hacks have already got your hands on Railcorp and had it "Corporatised"! You know, that euphemistic bit where you pseudo-privatise in order sabotage the efficiency, government control and general accountability of a utility as a preparation for doing what you are now, pointing at it and whining about how much better it would be if it were entirely privatised.

So sorry, Railcorp counts in my favour. All the more so because having learned some lessons from attempts to privatise the corporatised power utility in NSW the state government is instead taking the path of sanity and Decorporatising Railcorp to regain control of it.

The "privatisation policies have turned it into a mess, only MORE privatisation policies can save us now" is a lie, especially in regards to RAIL I mean. Britain, all of it. HELL!

But then why would they Privatise Railcorp? They would just have to do (at vast expense) what your Randian paradise of New Zealand had to to get the trains running on time again and Renationalise!

Look at healthcare... I consider the deaths of hundreds through preventable medication errors worse/.

OK, lets look at health care. Up until the institution of the parallel private health care system in Australia we had a public health care system considered almost unsurpassed in the world. Foreign governments from such utopias as "Canada" used to send their experts here to ogle in awe.

Now we suffer from a lack of funds. A lack of doctors and nurses. A parallel private hospital system not accessible by the general public but also more prone to spreading infection and suffering from similar malpractice issues. Costs for users are rising as are bad outcomes.

The Federal government, sitting on a vast fortune from a regressive tax pumped it into the inferior PRIVATE system (indeed mostly pork barrelled it as private health fund membership rebates promptly eaten by private health fund fee increases as a pure gift to those for profit entities) and let the public system languish for a decade.

The Federal government, seeking to create a more user pays, more private system of higher education also cut funds to our universities and our medical students and declared "There was and would be no doctor shortage".

Federal health ministers even used their corporate ties and insider information on medical equipment acquisition tax rebates for private clinics to make small fortunes for themselves.

Yeah. Sure lets mention Health Care. Privatisation fucking loses on health care.

I am now deeply out of my depth as regards specific people interacting with specific Australian projects or the culture of employment in Australian government. Not having ever been to the Southern Hemisphere, I genuinely have no input on that particular shouting match.

I can say that if the government's hiring protocols are sufficiently non-conducive to succeeding at their appointed tasks that it is better to give the money you would spend on hiring people to a third party and then give them more money on top of that in order to hire people on your behalf with more sensible protocols - that perhaps a better solution would be to change your hiring system and not give that extra layer of money to a third party.

On account of then you'd have hired the same people with the same protocols for the same money and you wouldn't have been giving a large pile of money to an otherwise unrelated third party in order to do it.

Just saying.

-Username17

SO Frank, with most of nations largely full of grossly inefficient snivel servants (you know why snivel servants aren't allowed to look out the window in the morning? Because the need something left for themselves to do in the afternoon) whose livelihood depends on bad practices and inefficient work ethics, how exactly is any government suppose to correct their protocols? I know one lop of a cancerous limb, but what of a cancerous body?

PhoneLobster wrote:

cthulhu wrote:It is unable to accept risk.

Actually PPPs are the disproof of that particular piece of propaganda.

Except that it isn't the privaisation hacks putting out that piece of propaganda, it is the career civil servant and secretary of the treasury Dr Ken Henry putting out that.

Until you address this issue, I am un-intrested in your remarks. You refuse to address the public services own opinion peices on the issue and instead resort to straw man arguement, when I have cited evidence produced and endorsed by the civil service itself.

PS: PPPs are a device to outsource risk, not to embrace it. Most of the benefits and risk rides with the private component.

Look at healthcare... I consider the deaths of hundreds through preventable medication errors worse/.

OK, lets look at health care. Up until the institution of the parallel private health care system in Australia we had a public health care system considered almost unsurpassed in the world. Foreign governments from such utopias as "Canada" used to send their experts here to ogle in awe.

Wrong. You should do some basic research on the topic. For example, there is as much funding in Canada as we have here - almost exactly per captia, and as a % of GDP. Even more laughable is when we consider that the purely public healthcare system going: The NHS - is not better on any of these metrics. Did you know that when an NHS hospital audited doses of Herparin given to children, the majority of them got the incorrect dosages? Not a significant minority - the majority. Over 70% of children attended to by a non pediatrics specialist got the wrong dose!


According to NHS funded research published in the BMJ anyway. I suppose they are privatization hacks spewing propaganda and their argument is invalid. Or something.

Of course, massive medication errors pervade all health systems, but you're not going to be able to demonstrate that the public sector is better overall on any set of metrics.

What you can demonstrate though is that hybrid models do offer the potential to be better though, pretty easily. Lets consider the two extremes - America and the UK because they've been bench marked against each other extensively, and America is the most expensive system going, and the UK is the cheapest.

What the UK does really well is preventative medicine. It delivers when it comes to Hep C, Aids, etc. It does really badly at treating cancer.

On the other hand, the US is absolutely shit at preventing anything. It has the highest Hep C infection rates in the world, because it is a total joke. On the other hand, if I had a rare cancer, I'd go to the US for treatment because they are the best in the world. By a lot.

Of course, you seem to think joining forces and combining the best of either sector is actively evil, so I'm not sure what to say when it is clearly going to result in the best long term health outcomes.

Now we suffer from a lack of funds. A lack of doctors and nurses. A parallel private hospital system not accessible by the general public but also more prone to spreading infection and suffering from similar malpractice issues. Costs for users are rising as are bad outcomes.

Wrong. You know why we have a shortage of doctors and nurses? For the same reason we have a shortage of fucking plumbers and electricians. Skilled labour is hard to come by. The ACT's unemployment rate is less than half the all time low ever achieved in California. Does that make it surprisingly difficult to make people take less desirable occuptations? You bet your ass. Same for doctors - who the fuck wants to live in whoop whopp when you can get good money and live in sydney. We don't actually have a doctor shortage - except of some rare specalisations. What we have is a shortage of doctors that want to get paid less than if they lived in sydney and instead live in Bendigo. This is a fact of life that you just have to deal with. You could pay them more I guess, but Australia's social contract isn't really equipped for that to happen, because the amount of money has to be much higher to overcome the lifestyle disadvantages. Like, more than double. In some areas, it may be more than triple.

Yeah. Sure lets mention Health Care. Privatisation fucking loses on health care.

hahahaha. Wrong.

Sure, america is fucked up, but seriously, we're not talking about america as they are clowns- but remember, aside from the NHS, every health system in the OECD delivers on public pays, (to a greater or lesser degree) private sector provides. Hell, once I consider primary care, so does the NHS. Do you even know how the health system works?

As Frank has pointed out before, the best performing patient and doctor system is france - how does it operate? >Private sector provides services based on a public sector insurance scheme. What have I been recommending the entire time? Hybrid models of private and public sector co-operation.

Seriously, there is a model for compromise that is somewhere between what you want - the massive public service were one third of workforce or more is in the public sector,Australia, and the US who take tings beyond retarded right into crazy town.

I honestly think that we have some of the best positioning on all metrics, and that isn't just jingoism. We do great healthcare, great social security, high life expectancies, great quality of life, decent productivity and the only people who get the short end are the indigenous Australians. Who really do get fucked.

cthulhu wrote:Also, your not exactly proposing solutions: As the Australian Government notes, the Australian Government is unable to actually manage the performance of its own workforce. It is unable to accept risk. Any organisation that refuses to accept any risk and does not have any performance management capability is, as I am sure you'll agree, a bad organisation.

The problem is partially due to legislation mandating practices that make firing people hard. Its also quite tough to hire someone who is provably good because permanent positions must be publicly advertised and current on job performance is not allowed to be used as part of the decision process. Obviously this is done to increase transparency/reduce corruption though so it can't be removed entirely.

Your point about pay scales is somewhat wrong, there are several pay scales. Admin work is paid using the AO scale, stuff thats more technical is on the PO scale for example. All scales are less cash than private enterprise for the same job though. OTOH working hours and flexibility are in favour of the government job.

FrankTrollman wrote:I am now deeply out of my depth as regards specific people interacting with specific Australian projects or the culture of employment in Australian government. Not having ever been to the Southern Hemisphere, I genuinely have no input on that particular shouting match.

I can say that if the government's hiring protocols are sufficiently non-conducive to succeeding at their appointed tasks that it is better to give the money you would spend on hiring people to a third party and then give them more money on top of that in order to hire people on your behalf with more sensible protocols - that perhaps a better solution would be to change your hiring system and not give that extra layer of money to a third party.

On account of then you'd have hired the same people with the same protocols for the same money and you wouldn't have been giving a large pile of money to an otherwise unrelated third party in order to do it.

Just saying.

-Username17

Oh I agree, but due to the electorate not being entirely rational voters, this is unlikely to happen.

Consider this case that actually happened and caused horward some great discomfort, but is entirely retarded.

4 very highly paid people were being flown in from one city to another. At the end of the week they had to return. Their contract allowed them to be paid for time spent in transit to the airport from the work site.

So they left the worksite, and rather than catch a taxi through peak hour, they instead hired a helicopter. This resulted in the government saving a significant sum of money, as it did not have to pay the high hourly rate of the men while they spent an hour in the taxi, and the helicopter flight is very short and in a competitive market place so it is quite well priced.

However, this made the news, and the public backlash against contractors being transported in helicopters forced the government to ba helicopter flights, at considerable cost to the government. If the government was a rational employer, it would not hesitate to pay for the flights.

However, due to public opinion, they discontinued the flights, and paid more.

This is a problem, and this mode of behaviour is at the root cause of many of the problems. Senior public servants are consistently underpaid, making attracting talent very difficult. The Australian social contract will not wear the pay increases required though.

The other downside is that the significant benefits are piled onto the compensation package, and many of these are abused, such as travel allowances. A systems of controls and performance management combined with higher pay would be much more effective.

Your point about pay scales is somewhat wrong, there are several pay scales. Admin work is paid using the AO scale, stuff thats more technical is on the PO scale for example. All scales are less cash than private enterprise for the same job though. OTOH working hours and flexibility are in favour of the government job.

That isn't the case in the Federal Government: In the Federal Government, all workers are on this pay scale: APS 1-6, EL 1-2, SES 1-3, with special contracts for 3 public servants (DMO, ATO, and some other bloke).

Some departments have elected to 'band' serveral pay brackets together to attempt to deal with the fact that pay is strictly linked to your position in the management heiracy.

For example, in an APS team, the team leader will be an EL 1, and his team members will be low ranked than him. This leads to a problem, because it makes it impossible for the team leader to be supported by a technical expert.

Also, the public sector actually pays considerably more for junior positions. An APS6 worker is a a graduate with 1-2 years experince. His total package is in the order of 80k, including benefits.

In a large private sector firm such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, the same employee would earn considerably less, between 65 and 70k.

However, the next promotion band for the PWC employee would run to 120k max, and he can achieve this with 1-2 years more work. The APS employee on the other hand either has to be a superstar or he can reasonably expect achieving pay parity to take ten long years

So they quit. Leaving the APS with stars - who get fast tracked, people who strongly desire the secondary benefits of APS employees (i.e. those who do not wish to be part of a demanding performance culture) or below average workers.

This structural problem is part of the reason the APS is terrible at implementation - all the implementers leave or get promoted to middle/upper management.

The problem is partially due to legislation mandating practices that make firing people hard. Its also quite tough to hire someone who is provably good because permanent positions must be publicly advertised and current on job performance is not allowed to be used as part of the decision process. Obviously this is done to increase transparency/reduce corruption though so it can't be removed entirely.

This isn't even the worst part, the stupid stuff is things like interview panels being the only mechanism for interviewing. What? Where is the 1 on 1s? What about checking for a cultural fit?

Plus APS interview panels are universally impolite. When I was interviewing for grad positions, the entire interview panel from two departments didn't shake my hand (Attorney Generals and Tax) Seriously, I know your sick of interviewing grads, but making eye contact and making me feel welcome would be, you know, nice.

Contrast this to my last private sector recruitment experience which was a series of one on ones were they would take you for coffee, keep it low key rather than confrontational, and they elicited a lot more information.

But seriously if you don't think known good performers are back doored in, I have some news for you - it happens all the time.