Public servants are accustomed to emerging from elections feeling a little unloved. However, the latest federal campaign was rougher than most. The Coalition inflated voters' negative perceptions of the bureaucracy and used them effectively against the Labor government. Indeed, the Australian Public Service featured very prominently in the election campaign - perhaps more than ever before - thanks to Liberal frontbenchers' repeated, if rarely accurate, claims about its growth and costs. Canberra-based public servants in particular were used as political chaff, with the Coalition promising to abolish many of their jobs and force others, and their workplaces, to uproot and move elsewhere (such as Gosford).
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
So prime minister-elect Tony Abbott's first message to his government workforce - his rhetorical assaults on public service ''waste'' - was hardly welcoming. His second message has also induced nervousness. Last week, before he had even decided on his ministry, he allowed Coalition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop to sack former Victorian premier Steve Bracks as Australia's consul-general in New York. Mr Bracks' appointment was open to question: some saw it as one of Labor's ''jobs for the boys'' rather than the result of a merit-based headhunt. Nonetheless, he was appointed formally as a senior public servant, and his sudden dismissal has left more than a few people wondering ''who's next?''
This week, Mr Abbott will establish a new Administrative Arrangements Order, which will determine the number of departments of state that serve his government. His next step will be to decide who will head those departments.
The ''night of the long knives'' that followed Liberal leader John Howard's 1996 election triumph is remembered well in this city. After more than a decade in opposition, Mr Howard had a deep distrust of the bureaucracy's political leanings. He and his new public service chief, Max ''the Axe'' Moore-Wilton, dismissed six of the serving departmental secretaries. The Howard government also came to be known for appointing ''outsiders'' to head its departments, such as Mr Moore-Wilton and former Liberal adviser Peter Boxall, who oversaw WorkChoices.
The next incoming prime minister, Labor's Kevin Rudd, opted for the opposite approach, saying he believed it was wrong to politicise the bureaucracy by appointing ''party people''. To the annoyance of some Labor supporters, he retained all of the Howard appointees.
Whichever path Mr Abbott treads, it will be interpreted as an important, early message to the public service: one of either trust or hostility. Mr Abbott said in January he had great respect for the federal bureaucracy. When asked how many department heads he would remove if he won office, he replied: ''Can I say that every single departmental secretary will stay in his or her existing position? No, I can't, but there certainly won't be anything resembling a night of the long knives or a bloodbath of the public servants, not at all.''
Even if Mr Abbott wanted to take Mr Howard's route, he may find it a little harder than it was in 1996. For example, under the Public Service Act, only the governor-general can sack a departmental secretary, while in Mr Howard's day the prime minister could do it directly. Secretaries now also tend to have the security of five-year terms, rather than three.
There may be a case for letting some secretaries go - such as if personal disagreements between a minister and secretary become insurmountable - or for bringing in expertise from outside the public service. But Mr Abbott would be far wiser to first rely on the experienced, professional expertise that is already at his command.
Sending a message of trust in the public service and its leaders may also help lead to an eventual rapprochement between the Abbott government and the city of Canberra, which remains bruised by the Coalition's election campaign.
