It's not often public servants wonder whether they'll be taken out by a freak ceiling collapse but it's sure to be a scenario running through some minds after that exact thing occurred in one Civic building.
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Bureaucrats at the Education and Workplace Relations departments were locked out of their 50 Marcus Clarke Street office between late August and mid-November after an air conditioning duct gave way, collapsing the sprinkler system and decorative ceiling below it and flooding parts of the first floor.
And now, we can reveal the cost to the public purse.
A Workplace Relations spokesperson said around $200,000 was spent on environmental testing and the services of an additional engineer following the incident.
That's not including any costs paid for by the building's owner, property manager and developer Charter Hall.
On that note, we asked Charter Hall for their costs and an image of the damage but to our surprise, it declined to comment.
Following our story, a few former employees got in touch with their thoughts, referencing an infamous "Zumba" incident.
Apparently, some public servants when the building was first opened reported feeling the building was "swaying" with a Zumba class on one of the top floors presumed to be the culprit.
One public servant, who was in the building at the time of the "Zumba" incident, said she recalled loud bangs and her colleagues' water glasses shaking during that period.
The department brought in structural engineers to check it out as a "matter of urgency" before giving it the all clear.
Still, another former bureaucrat told us they wouldn't want to be near the building if Canberra was suddenly struck by an earthquake.
Census shaming a 'game changer'
Some agencies weren't thrilled when The Canberra Times ran a leaderboard of the APS Employee Census results last year, but Gordon de Brouwer and Renee Leon both gave enthusiastic thumbs up to having the results made public.
The journey in transparency has been a game changer, Dr de Brouwer explained. The first year's results were very hard to find on the Australian Public Service Commission website - and even harder to collate - making it a chore to spot problems like systemic bullying and discrimination.
He said transparency should go even further - if APS leaders want to change behaviour, they should make a public commitment to improving results, even if following through turns out to be inconvenient.
"It holds your feet to the fire ... We want to achieve it and we'll give it a red-hot go," he told the IPAA Work With Purpose podcast.
Ms Leon wanted secretaries to feel "career limited" if they allowed bad workplace culture to be ignored while chasing the delivery outcomes ministers demanded.
"If you damage your department in the process, there don't appear to be any consequences for secretaries," she said.
Consequences for officials earning near million-dollar remuneration packages? That would be a game changer.
Mandarins in Davos
While most eyes were on the high-profile political and business leaders gallivanting around the World Economic Forum in Switzerland's Davos last week, a few Canberra faces snuck in to the alpine resort town too.
The Australian National University sent a cohort of six, including chancellor Julie Bishop, vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt and Professor Genevieve Bell along with three professional support staff.
An ANU spokesperson said the three were allowed to attend free of charge despite reports suggesting other attendees were charged up to USD$250,000 for a ticket into the event.
We asked why the trio got in for free while others paid thousands, but our queries were deferred to the forum organisers.
Chief Scientist Cathy Foley and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant also joined as attendees, swapping the Brindabella ranges for Davos' Plessur and Albula ranges.
Spokespeople for Dr Foley and Ms Inman Grant say they too got tickets free of charge.
PM's 'no fun' APS Christmas party
If there's a time for senior public servants to let go and have some fun, it's surely the end-of-year Christmas party, right?
Wrong. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed on FM radio he called federal department secretaries together for a Christmas gathering last month, but apparently, an APS rager it was not.
"There was no fun to be had here," he told KIIS 106.5 hosts Kyle and Jackie O on Friday.
"We just went through, in a coordinated way, each of the departments, what they got right in the first six months of the new government, what their ideas were for the coming year and for the rest of this term."
It was productive, he said.
"Coordinated"? "Productive"? These aren't the words one associates with a party for the ages, but then who expects or wants their bureaucrats to be party animals?
Mr Albanese, asked to highlight some unadvertised "greatness" of his, chose to talk about his government's efforts to work more closely with the public service.
"There are thousands of really smart people who've gone into public service not just to tick boxes and fill in paper, but to contribute to their country. And they have ideas. And we need to tap into that resource," he said.
Kyle was on board with this: "If you worked for the government, you'd think that your ideas aren't cared about. But that's really progressive. And I like that."
Anyone ask for ex-soldier quotas in Parliament?
Former governor general Peter Cosgrove began answering an unasked question about parliamentary quotas for former soldiers during an interview on ABC about the late senator Jim Molan.
The former Defence chief, who never put himself forward as a political candidate, said no former soldier should be expected "to reserve a place" in the parliament by right of their service, or anyone else for that matter.
Given misinformation is already spreading about what the Voice to Parliament referendum will do, the comment was not entirely out of left field.
However, Australia would benefit if more bright and experienced soldiers followed Major General Molan's example as an "active and vociferous spokesperson for Defence in the parliament", General Cosgrove said.
"It's useful and probably necessary to have a few extra people in the parliament who understand the sinews and the needs of national security," he said.
Over to you
- Does your building make weird creaks? Is it just the resident office ghost?
- ps@canberratimes.com.au