Perhaps it's about time those in public office were made to take out, 'and pay for' professional indemnity insurance, so the likes of the recent mess with insulation, or the failed dam project, doesn't continue to cost the tax payer a fortune to fix while the perpetrators walk away 'Scott free'.

Accountants have it, doctors and lawyers as well.

So why not the people who make monumental, often 'life changing' decisions while in public office.

What do you think?

That would be one of the more laudable Ideas that has been presented for a long time; I often theorise if that if Individual people are held responsible for their actions that cause catastrophic repercussions in the future; And only when they are held accountable, you will then see a massive shift in responsibility to act in accordance to the PUBLIC Good and betterment ; instead of half cocked idiots and brainless Idealism fit for some sort of demented psychopath , that ought to be locked away for future study ; But we actually call them these days Politicians and Public Servants ; How Orwellian is that?

I can imagine that over a thirty year period; if we were to claw back all the wealth distributed to the Useless idiot Elitist sphere; It would probably equal as much as the welfare bill in this country; Considering the calibre of idiot we have had that is alleged to be representative and or Public Servants;

It should be made retrospective to the point where it was they had taken positions in public office;

just in an attempt for Reparations and recovery for the irreparable damage and the cataclysmic effect on a once prosperous and law abiding nation-

These People at some point in time would have been guilty of Treason and perhaps on a scale that has never been witnessed in recorded human times ;

It is now called politics- Hold them to account 100 percent.

It is already possible to sue Government. The government does hold some types of insurance and in some cases self-insures.

Individual insurance would not serve any purpose because public servants act on orders from Minister's offices or very senior bureacrats at the behest of Ministers.

Innovation may be stifled if the more creative thinkers become reticent to share good ideas that would help society. People forget that not all public servants are bureacrats (per se) some are fire officers, police officers, road sweepers, social workers etc.

The problem with insulation was too much money out there and too many greedy-eyed rorters cashing in without proper monitoring processes. This government is not good at ensuring there are enough people in place to do work at the ground level - they are too top heavy.

There should be more accountability and honesty that is for sure.

One idea that would keep the public servants honest would be for other public servants who are concered about certain issues/events to be able to put forward questions in Senate Estimates. Panels on Estimates committees do not not know the right questions to ask.

Another would be to make it easier for public servants to blow the whistle about corruption, fraud, maladministration. At the moment, despite a Committee Inquiry, public servants are still warned about "protecting the reputation of their departments" and breaching codes of conduct. Only the highly courageous would go to the media or to a non-government member of parliament.

In today's Canberra Times there is an article by Paul Daley (page 21) that reads Garrett was acting on instructions from the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. However, Garret as the Minister of the responsible department will take the fall, even though his department was ill-equipped to handle the scheme (according to article). The trouble is that if you are going to hand out money on schemes you have to budget for monitoring, policing standards and the like. It is very difficult to do this properly in any case, but without enough resources it is impossible.

Fully agree Rehctub- I would also suggest penalties to guarantee inability to get around their penalty through the taxpayer by having them pay their money back through a period of time of denial of perks and allowances, and better yet, their politician's pension canceled forthwith- which should also be applicable if they commit a crime after politics (it would save taxpayers a LOT of money having corrupt politicians getting their snouts out of the trough- especially if they're yesterday's hasbeens).

from my experience the present state of misappropriation in the public sector is still below the cost of jailing the bureaucrats, there are just too many but the gap is closing. FYI, I lost my employment because I drew attention to misappropriation in Qld Health. The Ombudsman, Public Service Commission, CJC, CMC & the AWU all splendidly failed to stand up in favour of the code of conduct. Integrity is a dirty word in the public service. You'll climb the ladder a lot faster if you lack integrity.
It's just about impossible to impose accountability because the rot is at the top.

Hi
Perhaps I can make a cynical comment.
I was in the Public Service for a few years, coming from private enterprise.
I found it frustrating to get decisions.
So who will you sue?
The workers or executive?
Most at staff and executive level have Masters Degrees in the lack of “Decision Making”, hence it would be difficult to lay the blame where it should be. Figure heads will be used as scapegoats but they are not necessarily the ones to be sued, although if it was done over a period of time they may not find anyone to use as a figure head and there would be better accountability.
The first rule of a department is to protect the Minister and department before the public. Failing this then let the Minister go. You can expect this to happen to Peter Garrett.
In my case I went out and resolve the problem and informed the department that the matter had been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. This fitted in with the culture as no one was being forced to make a decision and as everyone had come to an agreement it was no longer the department’s problem.

lest our leaders think they can feed the cash cow to their mates perpetually...see the search term...odious debt
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=gd&q=odious+debt&hl=en-GB&rls=MEDA,MEDA:2008-36,MEDA:en-GB

If a despotic power incurs a debt not for the needs or in the interest of the State, but to strengthen its despotic regime, to repress the population that fights against it, etc., this debt is odious for the population of all the State.

This debt is not an obligation for the nation; it is a regime's debt, a personal debt of the power that has incurred it, consequently it falls with the fall of this power.

The reason these "odious" debts cannot be considered to encumber the territory of the State, is that such debts do not fulfill one of the conditions that determine the legality of the debts of the State, that is: the debts of the State must be incurred and the funds from it employed for the needs and in the interests of the State.

"Odious" debts, incurred and used for ends which, to the knowledge of the creditors, are contrary to the interests of the nation, do not compromise the latter — in the case that the nation succeeds in getting rid of the government which incurs them — except to the extent that real advantages were obtained from these debts. The creditors have committed a hostile act with regard to the people; they can't therefore expect that a nation freed from a despotic power assume the "odious" debts, which are personal debts of that power

Rehctub:

Maybe that liability *should* exist.
Maybe that insurance should not be cheap.

My cardiologist, my accountant, my colleagues in science, etc do their professional best. I believe their insurers do too, hence they get agreeable rates, plus the promise that their professional best will be investigated in event of mishap.

I have no such certainty about idealogues in office, and neither should insurers.

Rusty

It's certainly an interesting thought, rehctub.

But the very nature of insurance is to "spread the load" across a broader community. Apart from those who make a living out of it - the salespeople, administrators, executives etc. - it is a zero sum game.

Let's say, for example, that Peter Garrett was held accountable for batt-gate.

Let's say that the compensation payments were in the region of a billion dollars. Bearing in mind the compensation payments to the relatives of the unfortunate victims, the cost of checking every single installation, the cost of reinstallation, plus the recompense for the installers whose livelihoods have been affected by the scheme's closure, lawyers' fees etc., this wouldn't be an unreasonable sum.

Before a typical insurance company could be in a position to pay out that amount, they would have to collect around $1.25bn in premiums (to cover operational costs).

Obviously, this money has to come from the taxpayer - so in a fully insured politician's world, it'd cost every man woman and child in Australia $50, just for that one instance.

Actually, that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Commercial firms can be denied insurance if they are bad risks. Therefore, they make every effort to put in place the governance that minimizes risk of cocking up.

What would happen in government is less certain. If insurance is required to cover their actions, whether at the ministerial, departmental or individual level, what possible incentive could there be for them to do even a passably competent job, let alone prevent them from giving free rein to their propensity for negligence?

It is a thought, as Poirot might say, quite terrifying.

The first step towards getting the public service to perform adequately is to allow them to be fired for incompetence.

Unlike today, where they are far more likely to be promoted.

>>The first step towards getting the public service to perform adequately is to allow them to be fired for incompetence.<<

You've nailed it there, Pericles. Although I did once know a PS staff member who got fired for incompetence. But only ever one - it's a rare event.

You would have to broaden the definition a bit as well. More like industry's definition of incompetence which includes people who do nothing (and never take any steps that would prove they were incompetent).

>>Unlike today, where they are far more likely to be promoted.<<

PS staff are more likely to get promoted for handing over a glossy video or nicely-labelled CD than doing anything of substance. The situation is terrible and getting worse, if that's possible. But my favourite was the guy who knocked up a powerpoint demo that purported to show that a data discovery system was working when it barely even existed! He got promoted. Piss in the manager's pocket, who knows even less, and you're already there.