Mr  Pallas  (Tarneit)  —  It  gives  me  pleasure  to  speak  on  the  Public Administration Amendment (Public Sector Improvement) Bill 2013.

In so saying, I can indicate that the  opposition will not be opposing this bill but will place on the record some concerns it  has around  the stated objectives of the bill. We are pleased to see the amendment that has been circulated by the Premier this morning, which we think will go some way to alleviating some of the concerns that have been expressed publicly by a number of public  officials  and which are areas of concern to the opposition, about the role of oversighting the offices of both the Auditor-General and the Ombudsman and the capacity to do so.

The bill replaces  the governance structure  of  the State  Services  Authority, which includes the public sector standards commissioner, a chairperson and other appointed members. The  existing staff and  all projects will transfer  from the State Services  Authority to the  Victorian Public Sector Commission (VPSC), and the VPSC must  prepare a three-year strategy  plan which is to be  signed off by the Premier.

The  bill also  inserts a new  provision that  the VPSC  should advocate  for an apolitical and professional public sector.  These  are  critical objectives, and ones  that the opposition supports  robustly and unreservedly.  The  need for an apolitical public  service  — the capacity  to  ensure that frank  and fearless advice  is provided to  government  by a professional  public  service and  that public servants  are  assured that giving such advice will not impact upon their employment — is one  of the key tenets of an effective, functioning Westminster system. It is one of  the  reasons  the  Victorian  public  sector  is generally regarded as a well-structured, well-performing and insightful public sector, one prepared  to  give  its  views to the community and directly to politicians  and ministers even on occasions when  those  views are not necessarily ones that may be warmly embraced.

As I said, the need for an apolitical and professional public sector  capable of giving frank and fearless advice is important.

It is  an objective  of the  changes made  by the  legislation that we  robustly embrace, because ultimately  it  is necessary to  ensure that Victoria  is  well served by a public service that is performing effectively and has been given the tools through the safeguards contained in these processes to give advice without fear or favour.

The bill provides that the Secretary of  the  Department  of Premier and Cabinet will  be  the  chairperson of the advisory board meetings and  the  Premier  may direct the commission to conduct an  inquiry  into  any  matter relating to a public sector body other than IBAC or the Victorian Inspectorate.  The amendment that has been circulated today goes slightly further than those two bodies. As I said,  we are comforted by  the amendment the Premier  has circulated this morning  because it will  provide the  level  of independence of  both  the Auditor-General and  the Ombudsman that Victorians would expect.  The member for Lyndhurst  will no doubt go into those issues at greater length.

The bill makes a series of changes to public  sector  governance,  replacing the State Services Authority and the Victorian public sector standards  commissioner with one commissioner supported by an advisory  board appointed by the  Premier. The Premier must  have  regard  to  an  appropriate mix of knowledge, skills and experience  of board members  across  public sector  and  private sector  areas, service delivery and regional  diversity. However, I note with some concern that the bill does not provide for a recognition of gender balance.

It  seems, given the other issues for consideration  contained in the provisions such  as the  mix of  knowledge and  skills, that  perhaps gender  should  be  a consideration to be taken into account.

We  have  had  several  concerns  about  the  implications  of  the bill for the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (VAGO). Obviously that discontent  has led to the amendment the  Premier  has circulated  today.  These sorts  of  last-minute changes demonstrate that a better  way  of  going  about the development of this legislation would have been a more robust discussion with  the community and the public sector more generally  about how these oversight mechanisms could be  put in  place.  Indeed it demonstrates that making changes of this nature goes  very much to the heart  of, the performance of  and  the respect in which  the public sector is  held. It is  critical when  making changes  of this  nature that  the public sector is not taken by surprise.

There is no doubt that sources close to the  Victorian Auditor-General’s Office, speaking to the Age as recently  as 11  December, were  taken by  surprise. They described the impact of the review process  on  that  office  as ‘an unwarranted intrusion on the independence of the Auditor-General’s office’.

That  issue  is being addressed  in  the amendment moved  today.  Nonetheless it really goes more  substantively  to the way  amendments and bills affecting  the overall  composition, performance and review of the performance  and capacity of the public sector are handled. These changes go to not only  the professionalism of the public sector but the manner in which it perceives it role and the way it interfaces with  ministers,  cabinet and of  course  the principal  minister  of government,  the  Premier,  who  has  responsibility  for overseeing the  public sector.

The last-minute amendment was brought in to allay these concerns.

It clarifies that  IBAC,  the Auditor-General, the  Ombudsman and the  Victorian Electoral Commission cannot be  investigated by the new commission. In so  doing the government has made a number of statements to the Age newspaper which really go to the government  not believing  that the  Premier should  have the power to order  a review  by  the  Victorian Public  Sector  Commission into  independent officers of the Parliament. That is  comforting,  and  it is also an appropriate dissection of the way this Parliament should operate.

  Dr Napthine interjected.

 Mr  Pallas– It is good  to hear that the Premier  wants to talk about how we operated  in  government  and  his desire to ensure that we have an  independent public sector. Perhaps I will  talk  about the independence of the public sector he has created. The fact that this government has gone about — —

  Dr Napthine interjected.

Mr  Pallas — The Premier says he has copied what the previous government did. It is great to see that this government is excellent at doing nothing except for its  cheap  and  poor  imitations  of  a  previous  well-performing  government. Imitation is always the sincerest  form  of flattery, but the Premier should get it right if he is going to do it.

 The  objectives of  the bill  are stated  as being  about  the efficiency, effectiveness and capability of the public sector.

It   is  stated  that  to   maintain  and  advocate  for   the  public  sector’s professionalism and integrity it will replace the State  Services Authority with the  Victorian  Public Sector Commission. These new government structures really go to the question of how substantial these changes are. What are the underlying principles attached to  them?  One has every  reason  to question whether  these changes are  simply about providing for a more efficient and effective review of the way the public sector  operates or just about  increasing the centralisation and  oversight by the Premier  through  his  own  office  and  through  his  own departmental chair, who will oversee the performance of the VPSC.

Those oversight  arrangements will ultimately  have  to be  determined  on their merit and the way that they actually deal with  the reviews  they undertake, but it  will  remain  to  be  seen  whether  these  changes  drive  efficiency   and effectiveness  as stated in the  second-reading speech and  whether they support issues  relevant to public  sector administration,  governance, service delivery and workforce management.

One of the  greatest  challenges confronting the public sector in the context of the state of workforce management  is  how  the  public  sector  deals  with the substantial changes that are occurring right across the departments  in terms of job losses and numbers being cut.

The Department of Primary Industries had a reduction of 542 equivalent full-time (EFT) positions,  or  24 per cent.  The  Department of Environment  and  Primary Industries has had a reduction of 508 EFT, or 18 per cent.

The Environment  Protection Authority  has had a reduction of 94 EFT, or 22  per cent. The  Department of Education  and  Early Childhood Development  has  had a reduction of 648 EFT positions, or 22 per cent. The Department of Health has had a reduction of 285 EFT, or  18 per cent; Parks Victoria, a reduction  of 122 EFT or 11 per cent; and Victoria Police, a reduction of 244 EFT or 11 per cent.

The Department  of Treasury  and Finance  is down  105 EFT  positions, or 15 per cent. The  Department of State Development, Business and Innovation  is down 121 EFT, or 18 per cent. The Department of  Justice is down 486 FTE,  or 7 per cent. The  Department of Human  Services  is  down 659 EFT,  or  6 per cent;  and  the Department of  Transport, Planning and Local  Infrastructure is down 611 EFT, or 51  per  cent.  The  Department of Planning and Community Development has had  a reduction of 227 EFT positions, or 23 per cent; and Public Transport Victoria is down 83 EFT, or 16 per cent. The  Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) is one of the few performers not to have had a very substantial reduction.

It is down 12 EFT, or only 3 per cent.

Those sorts of changes, together with  the  continued  and,  might I say, almost obsessive use of consultancies and contractors by this  government, have changed the very  composition and make-up of the public sector and put great pressure on its  capacity to give advice to government in the timely, independent and  frank fashion that  is necessary. I hope that  one of the first  things  the VPSC will turn  its mind to is how in a  constrained environment  where numbers  have been squeezed and where there is consistent and continuing use of consultancies as an alternative  to  full-time  employees   there   can  be  apolitical  advice  and professionalism from a  public sector that constantly  feels it is  under attack from its political lords and masters.

The secretary of  DPC — one of  the  few departments not to  have had wholesale reductions in  its numbers, being down just 12 EFT — will be the chairperson of the advisory board. He will oversee the advisory board, and I hope that whatever changes are  made and  whatever oversight  is put  in  place  we  can  see  that consistency of treatment and an emphasis  upon efficient service delivery remain the key and constant concern of the VPSC.

The parameters outlined in terms of the  things to be considered for appointment to  the  advisory  group  leave some  things to  be desired.  The  role  of  the government in directing inquiries to VAGO and the Ombudsman, which has of course been  adjusted,  would  have  been,  I  think,  a  very  substantial   cause  of consternation for those  bodies. We  are glad  to see  that there  has been some substantial change to that.

Members  of the workforce are quite sceptical about the utility of this bill for them.  For  the Community and Public Sector Union, which represents many of  the public sector workers  affected  by  this  bill,  there are bigger issues in the public  service,   issues they  believe  need  to be  dealt  with, like managing increased  workloads  given the  reduction  in the  number  of  public servants. Thousands of Victorian public sector  employees have been sacked  over this term of government.  Tinkering around the edges  of the State Services Authority will not undo the impact of sacking almost 5000 public servants over the term of this government. These changes will not fix run-down schools — they will not fix one run-down school; they will not stop one TAFE campus from closing; they will  not unclog one emergency  room,  lessen  the congestion on our roads or mitigate the crush in public transport; and they will not grow any jobs for Victorians.

Hopefully what  these changes  will  be able  to do  is ensure  that the  public servants who give advice to government about bad policy do not come under attack for the robust expression of those views. We know of course that  there are many concerns in  the public sector about the shambolic approach  towards policy that this government has adopted and the arrogant and offhand manner in which in many ways policy is dismissed by government members as if they know  better,  without the  need  for  public  discourse  or  indeed  for  the  adequate and  effective consideration of internal bureaucratic views.

We have several concerns about the way the government has gone about the process of  addressing  departures from the public sector, from which it has  cut  quite profoundly. It has undermined  the fabric, integrity and  capacity of the public service to do its job. Members on this side remember that that was not as it was to be. On 26 November  2010,  just before forming government, the former Premier said:

Absolutely no reduction in public  servants. I  am not  going to cop this line  from the Labor Party.

Ultimately  public servants  had  to cop this  line  from the  coalition,  whose members walked  away from their  pre-election  commitments. On 22  June 2012 the former Premier said  that the cuts would not affect front-line  service delivery roles. We now know that the Chief Commissioner of Police has said that  they are Victoria Police’s ‘most significant challenges’ over the next two years.

Even  the chief commissioner  believes  cuts to the  public  sector and  service delivery are impacting on the police service and its responsibilities.

This is critical, because if the Victorian Public Sector Commission has any role at all  around  an apolitical and  professional  public sector,  then  workforce planning, the delivery of services and the impact of government policy upon that workforce  planning  and those  services  needs to be  open  and transparent and something that we as the community have the capacity to have some input into.

The  great  concern  about  this  bill is  really not  that it  does  any  great disservice to the public sector. In many ways  the uncertainty  about it is that it is tinkering around the edges  of  the  public  sector  and  the  fundamental challenges that the public sector  faces into the future. The bill does not undo the  impact   of  the  sacking  of  thousands  of  public   servants  under  the administration of the Baillieu and Napthine governments.

As I have said, it will not lead to  the  opening of a school or the fixing of a run-down school, and it will not stop one TAFE campus from being closed. It does not provide one jot more than the existing regime for dealing with the oversight of the performance of the public sector.

A matter that is concerning is that the  advisory board  to be  established will essentially  be  a body to be populated at  the  whim of the Premier. I hope the government sees this as an  opportunity to  ensure that  it gets  full and frank advice on the body that oversights the bureaucracy, the job  of which is to give the government full and frank advice. In that context it is critically important that the government embrace the  role of the advisory board as a body that  will encompass a level of skill, activism and  interest  in  the  public  sector,  in growing  the  public sector and in ensuring that the public sector is adequately resourced and capable of giving to government the advice that it needs.

Simply stacking an advisory  board with Liberal mates  — which this  government has  shown  a  propensity  for  with  other  statutory  boards  —  is  a  clear illustration that ultimately the principal  objective of this bill  to create an apolitical and professional public sector will be discounted at its inception. A stacked advisory board would lack  credibility as a  professional advisory board meeting the skills criteria laid out in the bill.

It is critically  important that the public  sector be adequately  resourced and that Victorians have  confidence  that we have a public sector that continues to perform at the peak of its abilities. The greatest way that that peak of ability and performance — that is, essentially the full potential of Victorian taxpayer dollars — can be achieved  is  not by cutting public servants and ideologically replacing them with contractors or consultants; it  is  by  making sure that the advice that comes to government  is from a public  sector  at the height of  its game and the peak of its performance.

It is  by  managing  the  career structures of public servants and ensuring that policy is appropriately developed and  delivered to government so that there are sufficient safeguards  around the development  of that policy. That ensures that government  can have some confidence that a mere idea or frolic of an individual in  the public sector will not  become policy. It ensures that a policy idea has been worked through in a coherent and collective  way that enables the input and expertise  of  public  servants   to  reach  government   and  therefore  to  be appropriately and respectfully considered by the government.

Too often we hear from those who tell us that which we do  not want to  hear and take  that  as some form  of  opposition or criticism.  A well-performing public sector needs to have people in a  position where they can provide advice without fear  or favour. They need to be able to do so frankly and be assured that there are safeguards in the way that system operates.

They  need  to know that  they  will  be protected in  their  role  and to  have confidence in the way the public service  is  structured.  It  is  a fundamental tenet  of  the Westminster system  that we have  a  well-resourced and confident public sector whose members can  give  advice  to  government  and not have that advice perceived  as  anything other than  provided at the  highest professional level.

The government  has  every  right to assume that the level of professionalism it expects is reflected in the  advice its members are getting. The opposition does not oppose the government establishing a structure such as that provided  for by  the bill and does not oppose the government replacing the previous  government’s systems of review through the State  Services  Authority, because ultimately the government must have confidence in its public sector.

Members of the public sector  must have  confidence that they will not have some adverse comment  or implication drawn from  the advice they  give to government. The community must have confidence that the public sector is not only adequately resourced but also capable of openly and robustly demonstrating that the thought processes that have  gone into the development of policy and  the implementation of service  delivery sit consistently with  community mores and  the community’s aspirations for the future. On that basis I indicate  that  the  opposition will not oppose the bill, and I wish it a speedy passage.