Premium Columnists Election 2022: Add seven new secretaries and a couple of senior agency heads? Editors' Picks One more sleep to go. Or perhaps more, given the high number of pre-poll votes, the narrowing opinion polls and no certainty as to how
Premium Columnists APS stuck between a rock and a hard place February 18, 2022 By Verona Burgess Editors' Picks And so to the week’s additional estimates committees. They will be the last before the election, because hell will freeze over before the government will
Premium Columnists Omicron and policymakers’ supply chain headaches January 17, 2022 By Binoy Kampmark Australian Capital Territory Empty shelves, fewer available staff and supply chain disruptions. This has been one of the most conspicuous contributions of Omicron, a COVID-19 variant supremely more
New guide for election costings published September 24, 2021 By Tom Ravlic Federal The two government departments at the centre of election policy costings must be gearing for an election announcement, given they have just recently published a
Premium Columnists Machiavelli meets Sun Tzu: the knives are out, and they cut all sorts of ways July 16, 2021 By Verona Burgess Editors' Picks There are a few more audits in the pipeline that might cause shivers up public service spines, writes Verona Burgess. What a difference seven months
Premium Columnists The blatant nature of the car parks pork-barrelling is plainly embarrassing July 5, 2021 By Bernard Keane Editors' Picks Across the whole of the public service, election commitments are mandatory, even sacred. They must be implemented come what may, even the car parks pork-barrelling
Premium Columnists Car Park Gate: the most scathing audit report we’ve ever read July 2, 2021 By Verona Burgess Editors' Picks People have come to expect politicians to rort grants programs shamelessly. It is, however, the job of the Australian Public Service to ensure the moneys
Premium Columnists Opportunity knocks for those with Secretary ambitions (but mind your head) June 18, 2021 By Verona Burgess Editors' Picks As the departing Foreign Affairs secretary Frances Adamson rides into the sunset to become the Governor of South Australia with her AC in hand, another
Premium Expert briefings COVID ate-it: Public servants front a tough fortnight at Senate Estimates October 29, 2020 By Matthew Elmas Features A Senate Estimates like no other enters the final stretch today. With the COVID-19 pandemic still foremost in the minds of public servants and several
‘Reflecting poorly on all of us’: Treasury secretary on his role in $30 million airport land deal October 27, 2020 By Matthew Elmas News Former Department of Infrastructure secretary Steven Kennedy says he signed off on departmental financial statements before the auditor-general had completed its inquiries into the 2018
Premium Columnists Questions – and answers – matter over the Leppington Triangle October 23, 2020 By Bernard Keane Editors' Picks What a signal to send — if you’re big enough and ugly enough to take the commonwealth to court over long periods, it will give
Kennedy takes blame for $60b JobKeeper error June 10, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Economy & Industry The $60 billion JobKeeper overestimation was the result of errors in enrolment forms aligning with early estimates of the program’s take-up and cost, according to
Senate COVID-19 committee calls on Josh Frydenberg to explain JobKeeper ‘blunder’ May 25, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Economy & Industry Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has defended the government’s JobKeeper scheme amid calls for him to appear before the senate committee overseeing the government’s response to the
Australia ‘looking pretty good’ amid global gloom, says Steven Kennedy May 22, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Economy & Industry Australia has “gone well past the word recession” but it has handled the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic well, according to Treasury secretary Steven
