Dear Chrisgaff1000: I'd be interested to know the names of the public servants you know who are "gloating about their exulted positions funded by the public purse". I might go round and personally punch them up for giving all the public servants I know a bad name.

Since no-one's responded to my previous posts on this subject, I am coming to the conclusion that all the negative comments are based on rumour and prejudice rather than personal experience.

Cossomby,
Working for nothing is a 'SIW' (self inflicted wound) and most people do it, as any social scientist will tell you, either to protect their job because they can't keep up with the work load or because they are a true (psychotic) workaholic.
Why would you want to work for nothing making money for the boss?
Given there is a difference between the public service and private enterprise money doesn't seem to play a role but it can't be denied that the outcomes for the boss are rewards in his grade promotions which are generated for him by the productivity of his staff.
The Public Service Boss loves you dunderheads.

Chris: It didn't work like that in the public service I knew or in the one I still do contract work for. I was a public service middle management 'boss' and there were no 'grade promotions' for me dependent on bullying my staff to be more productive by working unpaid over time (I encouraged people to not work excessively, saying if we don't meet the deadline I'll carry the can. I once got an essential frozen position refilled, by stopping the program - when the Minister complained, I said well, we can't do it without filling the position - it was filled.)

Most people I knew and worked with were doing it for 'public service'. Yes they needed a job to eat and live, but they also wanted to do something useful for the community and for Australia.

In fact the kind of unpleasant attitude towards public servants exemplified in this thread undermines the genuine commitment of public servants. No matter what we do, we're hated, so why bother?

"Why would you want to work for nothing?" Lots of people do - they are called volunteers (St John Ambulance, Bushfire fighters, meals on wheels) - because some things are more important. You may need them someday.

PS The names of those fat cats gloating?

Paul,

Have you noticed that the greens have a somewhat Cultist look about them. Remember a Brown outranks a Green.

There are many hard working public servants a large portion are doing work that is irrelevant. There are also many bone idle ones.

There is the Domino effect to take into consideration as well. The many ineffective can not afford to let the first block fall onto the second, third & so on. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible for the good who do useful work to prove themselves.
The corruption that is now entrenched courtesy of the public service union will rather see decent people get sacked for the wrong-doing of their union-backed superiors & prolong this inefficiency. I am particularly appalled at the amounts of money being literally shoved at consultants hired by bureaucrats to do their work for them. One just has to look at the selection process for public service positions. People are literally forced to lie in order to get a position they're not even capable of executing properly. It really is a sickening show.

As yet there is no satisfactory explanation, or even an explanation, for the explosion in the levels and numbers of middle and senior managers in the APS.

The APS once had a preponderance of juniour staff servicing the public in regions, where the top manager, a regional manager could have been at the APS6 or EL1 level.

Departments like Veterans' Affairs once managed their own buildings, hospitals, rehabilitation and other services directly. Now the clients are largely gone and the hospitals and facilities have been sold. However, while juniour positions were decimated as functions and clients were lost forever, that has not prevented the continual reclassification of senior managers, where likely the same manager was upped levels for doing less of the same work. How does that figure?

Likewise, how does it figure that a function can be privatised yet the same senior manager who managed it so unsuccessfully before that it did not survive contestability is retained and even promoted to 'manage' the contractor? Reviews should look into history.

The other noticeable feature of the federal APS is the apparent favouritism taht occurs. How is it that