There will be those within the government congratulating themselves this week over the settlement with Department of Human Services staff of the long-running pay deal impasse. But those behind the government's hard bargaining campaign might like to reflect on the true cost of those protracted negotiations.
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The final bill will come to a lot more than the paltry six per cent wage rise over three years, or just two per cent a year, workers have voted to accept after three years of stonewalling by their paymasters.
The real costs need to be calculated in terms of rock bottom morale, dysfunctional staff and management relationships and a massive loss of trust in their leaders by the workers concerned.
Given these are the people the Turnbull Government relies on to implement its decisions in the highly contentious areas of Centrelink, Medicare and the Child Support Agency it may find it has shot itself in the foot.Those staff who work hard to keep the machine of government working, may well feel they have been treated with disrespect by their political masters.
A cynic might suggest the dispute was allowed to drag on for so long because it allowed the government to score some fairly trivial political points on how it is cracking down on "fat cats" in Canberra.
While this line may play well in some parts of the country, and fits neatly with Barnaby Joyce's narrative about the need to send public servants out into the "real world", it won't garner many votes in less bucolic marginal electorates.
As for the so-called savings that have been achieved by pegging wage increases at or below the current inflation rate, they are meaningless when viewed in context of the total cost of governing.
The only good news for workers is that the Community and Public Sector Union appears to have beaten off a grimly determined assault on the working conditions of its members.
A belated decision by the management of the Department of Human Services to leave most current staff entitlements in place was apparently the key to the "yes" vote.
"DHS management finally realised that retaining workplace rights and conditions was the key to settlement and, as a result, the CPSU did not oppose this agreement," CPSU national secretary, Nadine Flood, said.
It is hard not to conclude, given the determined way in which the Government stuck to its guns to the very last, that good workplace relations and efficient management practices were never high on its list of priorities.
What we have seen is an object lesson in how not to conduct workplace relations in 21st century Australia.
While it is good to learn that as a result of the DHS vote only 2.6 per cent of Australian Public Servants are still engaged in the bargaining process, we can only hope the Government has learnt outcomes, not ideology, should be the driver in these negotiations.
