Quality of life survey;

Beyond the essential ideas of broad access to food, housing, quality education, health care and employment, quality of life also may include intangibles such as job security, political stability, individual freedom and environmental quality. Through all phases of life, these countries are seen as treating their citizens well.

AUSTRALIA rates 8th in the world behind Denmark. and 5th in the Best Countries Overall. The leading countries mostly have relatively large public services, providing just that, public services, such as health care, education, transport, infrastructure, security, law and order, all that the knockers don't mention.

Paul1405,
Yes, the hands-on Public servants are of great value to society, it's the bureaucrats, those nameless, faceless seat polishers on huge salaries who remain unaccountable to their stuff-ups who are the real obstacles to a Nation.
I used to make the same mistake as many make by referring to all of them as Public Servants however, I've come to differentiate between Public Servants & bureaucrats !

Indy,

Just as in private industry, there has to be a management structure, the public service is no different. Any large organisation, private or public, will have a bureaucracy in place, these are generally the top decision makers. No large organisation can function without a management structure in place. AND, like in all organisations there are good employees, there are the lazy, the dishonest, the incompetent. The police force is public service, there are bad coppers, lazy, corrupt, dishonest, there is a bureaucracy, the top brass, does than mean the police force is totally incompetent? An army needs it Privates, but it also needs its Generals as well.

You have claimed on this forum that 95% of PS should be sacked, do you still support such outrageous nonsense? 95% of coppers, nurses, teachers, the ones who facilitate your aged welfare payments, the people who pick uo your garbage.

I understand you personally had a bad experience with your menial employment in the PS, I believe you were dismissed for incompetence, during the Whitlam years, and have hated the PS, Gough and the Labor party ever since. You should remember on which side your bread is buttered.

It just comes down to priorities. In a nation that is weighed down under mounting debt as far as the eye can see, one might think the priority would be to make the various levels of government as lean as possible.

Instead we have the usual suspects touting for ever bigger government. Strangely those same people will excoriate the previous government for increasing debt levels.

I guess they can comfort themselves in their beliefs on two fronts. First they can assert that the inordinately high levels of public employees provides a premium service. Of course that can never be measured so they can make the assertion in the knowledge that it can never be checked. Secondly they can comfort themselves in the knowledge that all of these people can be paid for by just picking a little more money off the money-tree out the back of parliament.

At a time when the private sector is using AI to improve productivity of the clerical classes, the Australian governments at all levels are increasing taxes on that same private sector in order to add to the national burden that is the bloated public sector.

How do you go bankrupt? Slowly, then suddenly.

When we get to the suddenly part, the usual suspects will look around askant.

Debt levels and public sector size aren’t necessarily the same question though, mhaze.

//In a nation that is weighed down under mounting debt as far as the eye can see…//

Countries can run relatively large public sectors and maintain low debt depending on tax structures and spending priorities.

//...the national burden that is the bloated public sector.//

The numbers you originally cited show that public employment is relatively high. What they don’t show by themselves is that this is the cause of fiscal stress or declining productivity.

//...the private sector is using AI to improve productivity of the clerical classes,...//

That may well be happening, but the same question still applies: where exactly has the growth in the public workforce occurred? Without a breakdown of roles it’s hard to tell whether the increase reflects administrative expansion or additional service delivery.

Oh good. Back to JD misrepresenting what I said.

Nowhere did I say that the rise in the APS caused the massive debt.

The debt exists because of a generation of mismanagement of governments state and federal back to 2013. The bloating of the APS is PART of that, and getting the bloating under control is PART of the solution.

Just hoping that the bloating gives us better service isn't part of the solution.