Politicisation of the public service

The definition and identification of politicisation of the public service is a difficult task. As Weller (2001) notes, political neutrality does not mean serving the government and opposition equally or a commitment to an ideal policy position that is in the public interest. Between elections, the public service should be totally committed to serving the government of the day. Between elections, consideration of the political outlook of the government of the day is a vital ingredient in providing high quality policy advice. In terms of Australia's Westminster heritage, politicisation usually refers to public service appointments and promotions based in party politics or the beneficiary's identification with particular policy stances, rather than merit. According to Mulgan (1998), the United States is the best-known example of a politicised public service system, where around three thousand senior positions become vacant on a change of president and where there may be four or five echelons of political appointees between a career public servant and the cabinet secretary.

Today's claims of a more politicised Australian Public Service have their foundation in some of the public sector reforms of the Hawke and Keating governments. More recently they have focused on the immediate replacement of six department secretaries after the change of government in 1996, the appointment of Mr Max Moore-Wilton to head the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the 1999 dismissal of Mr Paul Barratt (Secretary of Defence), and the subsequent court finding that the government was not required to establish that the reasons for the Defence Minister's "loss of trust and confidence" in Mr Barratt were ...

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There is little disagreement that the public service is marginally more politicised than it was 30 years ago, but only in the sense of some departmental secretary appointments to suit the preferences of the government of the day and that security of tenure has reduced. Despite that, the questions that must be answered are whether this subtle change has had benefits, and whether it has caused problems. A long-standing concern of ministers from both political parties has been the loyalty and responsiveness of the public service to government policy. This concern achieved iconic status in the TV series, Yes Minister, in which the wily bureaucrat was able to bend the minister to his desires. From a minister's perspective, there can be little doubt that most ministers would consider today's public service more responsive to the government of the day than that of 25 to 30 years ago.

On the downside, public commentators are concerned about the quality of policy advice the government receives. Some argue that filing the senior echelons of the public service with yes-people and partisan toadies will reduce the necessary but politically inconvenient advice given to governments, and would result ultimately in poorer decisions. However, it is presumptuous to think that only an impartial public service can provide frank and fearless advice. This argument is also dangerous as it implies a role for an unelected bureaucracy against an elected government in deciding the national interest. Another argument against politicisation (especially the extent to which it occurs in the United States) is the loss of expertise and experience that occurs with each change of government. However, there is no suggestion that the Australian Public Service is anywhere near as politicised as the system in the United States.

While politicisation would undoubtedly produce a different type of public service, in all of these arguments it has not been demonstrated that greater levels of politicisation would be necessarily bad. For example, Canada is a Westminster-like system that has a substantially more politicised public sector. Unlike their Australia counterparts, Canadian public servants can represent their minister in Cabinet meetings, and quite a number have made the transition from senior public servant to politician. According to Weller (2001), in 1953 the clerk of the Privy Council Office began one Cabinet meeting as an official and ended the meeting as a newly sworn-in minister.

In Australia, the great majority of public servants, including secretaries, see themselves as politically neutral professionals, capable of serving alternative governments with equal competence and loyalty. By way of example, Senator Vanstone (2001) noted that when she became a Cabinet minister in 1996 the Secretary of her Department was a former chief of staff of a former Labor Prime Minister and another member of the Senior Executive Service had just come out of the Prime Minister Keating's office just a few weeks before the 1996 election loss.

Furthermore, the intention to retain an apolitical public service is reflected in a number of the values in the section 10(1) of the Commonwealth's new Public Service Act 1999 for the Australian Public Service (APS):

The APS is apolitical, performing its functions in an impartial and professional manner.
The APS is a public service in which employment decisions are based on merit.
The APS is responsive to the Government in providing frank, honest, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice and in implementing the Government's policies and programs.
The APS is a career-based service to enhance the effectiveness and cohesion of Australia's democratic system of government.