Government accused of 'making policy on the run'

Markus Mannheim The public servants' professional association has damned 10 high-profile federal policies as failures, including the national broadband network and the school building scheme.

Public service to cut 1500 jobs within months

Markus Mannheim The federal bureaucracy will shed almost 1500 staff in coming months, most based in Canberra, as it struggles to cope with pending budget cuts.

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Markus Mannheim

The faceless men who are supposedly 'public' servants

Markus Mannheim Our dapper Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, receives free suits from a Sydney tailor, Max Liondos. He also gets lycra bodysuits from Cycling Australia and is paid a trickle of book royalties by...

Albanese, 10 others breach rule on grants

Markus Mannheim THE Infrastructure Minister, Anthony Albanese, approved more than $31 million in grants for his own electorate or against his department's advice, in breach of government policy.

Consultants are Labor's $500m a year spending habit

Edmund Tadros, Markus Mannheim THE federal government has spent $500 million a year on consultants since Labor won office 4½ years ago, an analysis of contracts shows.

Markus Mannheim

Russell's war on accountability

Markus Mannheim I don't know retired major-general John Cantwell; I've neither met him nor heard any notable anecdotes about him, other than that he enjoys motorbikes and plonk.

Markus Mannheim

Nation of pessimists will finally enjoy a real petrol panic

Markus Mannheim Mankind's compulsion to whinge, and to believe the grass is greener elsewhere, is wonderful for journalists. It's the endless spring from which so many stories flow.

'Implementation' and other ways to say nothing

Markus Mannheim Australian raconteur Clive James once wrote about ''the perfectly bad sentence''. He'd spotted it in Britain's Sunday Telegraph in 2001 and put it aside for several years until, in his words, he was...