Practice makes perfect in the world of government consultants

Janice Black writes: Once upon a time greedy criminals robbed banks. Now they find robbing taxpayers much easier (“A cartoon, Anzac day, a diary scheduler: the public service can’t go to the toilet without using consultants”), with the government looking the other way while these big firms have their hands in the till. It’s about time that till drawer was slammed shut, hopefully breaking a few wrists here and there.

The government needs to announce that PwC will never again be used as consultants, sending a message to other consultants by doing so. But does Finance Minister Katy Gallagher have the ticker for that? I doubt it. Too scared of a backlash. But she and the government don’t realise that there will be no backlash from voters — and there are many millions more of them than company executives. The public will be delighted to see some strength of purpose from politicians.

Where do these criminals come from that they can be so blatantly greedy, dishonest, vicious and bullying? How hard is it for these consultancy firms to separate consultancy to governments from their client base of tax dodgers? It beggars belief that a consultant to the Australian Tax Office could then sell the secrets to tax dodgers. Two separate arms of a business are not at all difficult.

We are worse off under this Labor government than we were under the Coalition. I am from a long line of Labor voters — Labor is our ancestral home, but no longer. We will be voting Greens next federal election unless Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gets some courage from somewhere to ignore the small segment of very noisy groups.

 The mainstream media do not have the power they once had to elect politicians. This was proved in the past few years by all the elections that Labor won despite the vitriol, or maybe because of it, that the Murdoch press threw at it — particularly the Herald Sun. Australia is a sea of red and the government seems not to understand what this means. It means we want change but are just getting more of the same.

Anne Robinson writes: I used to work at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, and it had a small but very effective team of people who organised commemoration ceremonies and events in Australia and overseas in battlefields where Australians had fought. I’m shocked but not surprised to hear it is now using consultants to do that.

So many roles in the public service have been done away with due to the efficiency dividend robbing departments of funding every year. Departments look at small, non-client-facing teams and just say: “Do we really need a commemorations team?” Of course we do, but it’s axed, and before you know it we are handing money to the private sector to do just that.

It’s a disgrace. I’m hoping the PwC scandal will change that, but we’ll see.

Greg Hodges writes: All well and good to propose stricter rules, regulations, fines, etc., but will there be an increase in the investigation and prosecution of these big changes (“Will Labor’s crackdown on the big 3.5 go the way of previous re-regulatory moments?”)? Or will they be reduced to ensure that the changes are ineffective? Stronger rules and penalties but fewer police and prosecutors?

Peter Barry writes: The conflict of interest between a firm advising government on tax law while at the same time devising ways for its business clients to avoid the full impact of any proposed law is clear and unacceptable. The talent to devise effective and unchallengeable law should be brought in-house.  

Such laws may need to be tweaked to rectify genuine “unintended consequences”, but the government must always retain the power to have the final say and counter cunning business workarounds that undermine the intent of the legislation. 

Even a 10-year-old could see the flaws in many of the too-clever-by-half schemes that have been used by big business to avoid tax in the recent past. 

Geoff Edwards writes: Guidance can help, but the bedrock of an honest, frank and fearless public service is security of tenure (“Robodebt proves public servants need guidance to stand up to abuses of power“). Australia is paying a bitter price for having scrapped security of tenure about two decades ago. Public servants whose jobs could be wiped out by a vindictive, dishonest, politicised or incompetent manager without formalised disciplinary procedures cannot be expected to stand up to said incompetent manager. It’s not just for want of courage; it is that insecure appointment bakes politicisation into the system. 

Security of tenure could be restored quickly by statute and policy, whereas cultural change and training to reverse two, three or four decades of politicisation will take many years. Security of tenure is not sufficient, but it is essential.