LEONARD COLQUHOUN
Comment 32 is right to worry “that the public service [after all the advisors are all becoming highly qualified] are more and more removed from reality tempered only by the chance of the governing parties selection”.
Public service officers, or as some systems call them, civil service officers, ought to be highly qualified in their fields, and also at some remove from party political manipulation. Development in mid-1800s Britain removed, or at least severely limited, the chances for and the effects of patronage; similar reforms were effected across much of the Empire, notably in the India of the Raj. Professional cadres of skilled and trained experts were responsible for the day-to-day and year-to-year administration throughout much of the developed and civilised parts of the Empire, in place of ad hoc or hereditary ‘It’s who you know’ arrangements, whether in local aristocracies or new plutocracies.
Not that undue influence was 100% removed, or inaccessible – that’s human nature. But it was a huge advance.
It remained so in Australia until about the 1970s or 1980s^, when the public service was ‘reformed’ and ‘opened up’ to outsiders, who were supposed to be ‘breaths of fresh air’ in a ‘dusty system full of old fogeys’.
Since then, the public services have become more politicised, symbolised by terminations and restructuring (the source of most of the silly, and largely wasteful, name-changing) with each change of government. No doubt, some good came of some of this, but the main effect was to deprive incoming ministers of acquired skills, knowledge and expertise.
Hence the rise of the ministerial adviser.
If you want to see its results, look around you.
^ opinion is quite divided as to when this regression began – but all are agreed that it was either Whitlam or Fraser, with some saying both.
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