Senator COONEY (8:42 PM) —The words that have been said so far in this debate are all true. The attitude taken by the government in this matter is that the Public Service ought to be more competitive; that, unless you have the feeling that your job is not going to be there, you are not going to be as efficient as you might otherwise be. That approach appears from the second reading speech, and I want to go into that later on. The opposite proposition is that people need security, particularly in a profession such as public servant, to be able to give that independent advice and to be able to be conscientious about the task that they must carry out.

The selling of services and the selling of goods in the open market should, of course, be subject to competition. If somebody wants to produce a better lawn mowing service than another, so be it. If someone wants to sell cars at a cheaper price, so be it. If someone wants to do a cheaper job painting, fair enough. But that is not the nature of the Public Service. It is not a situation where competition ought to flourish; it is more akin to judging. Two great principles that we bring into our constitutional thinking are that judges should, firstly, have tenure and should not be able to be removed except in extraordinary circumstances and, secondly, that they should obtain a pension—not a superannuation payment but a pension—to be assured that they do not have to look to their future because the state will provide for them. Similarly, in this situation we have people who have to, in many ways, do the same thing as the judiciary—give fearless and competent decisions. Therefore the whole thinking behind this particular bill is wrong.

None of this material is supported by evidence. Clause 10 of the bill deals with APS values—all of which are very admirable. For example, according to clause 10(g):

the APS delivers services fairly, effectively, impartially and courteously to the Australian public;

How that would be produced by competition, I am not sure. In any event, who is the Public Service in competition with? I notice that in the second reading speech, Senator Ellison said:

We acted quickly to develop new legislation in three areas crucial to the competitiveness of the APS:

Who is the APS going to compete with? Perhaps one indication of that is what has happened with the Australian Government Solicitor. The Australian Government Solicitor is now in competition with firms outside the government, which sounds good except that the only work they are able to compete for is the government's own work. They are not allowed to compete against the big firms that operate in Canberra and throughout Australia for the work that BHP, the banks or any private organisation might want to offer them.

When we talk about competitiveness, what is meant by this? We are to make a very significant change; in fact, as somebody said before, we are about to gut the Public Service. We are doing it on a basis that has no support in evidence and is supported simply by allegations. The second reading speech bears that out very clearly, because it consists of a lot of populist rhetoric, polemic and oratory. If you want an illustration of that, just look at it. For example, it says:

The opposition amendments do not recognise the increasing need for APS agencies to be freed from central controls and to adopt employment arrangements which meet their particular needs. This bill provides that flexibility.

What evidence is there that the Public Service, once it is freed from these central controls, is going to be better under the regime that is to be introduced by this bill if it becomes law? On the first page of his second reading speech, Senator Ellison said:

The government will not be deterred—

It sounds as if the government will not be moved—

from completing its reform of the APS by the short-sighted obstructions of the opposition and minor parties. The effect of this obstruction is simply to frustrate the very many people in the Public Service who are keen to press ahead with a reform agenda in the development of which they have had an important role and which they see clearly is essential for building morale and opportunities for the future.

There is no evidence that any of that statement is true and correct, and yet it is on that sort of material that we are asked to change the Public Service.

Since I have been in the Senate, which has been for some years now, I have found that the Public Service does work well, it does give the advice that ought to be given and it is solicitous about the work it does. The evidence, from my point of view, is that the Public Service works very well indeed. There is nothing that I have heard in the debates—last year or in the second reading speech on this bill—to show anything to the contrary. What we have is a series of allegations without any indication of the basis on which they are made, and it is left as that.

Alan Kohler is quoted as supporting the proposition, but what does Alan Kohler know about the Public Service? What does he know, as distinct from some of the great public servants we have had in the past? In the second reading speech Alan Kohler, writing in the Age last year, is quoted as saying of the bill:

. . . the most uncompromising deregulation of the Public Service anywhere in the world. The bill lays down standards for ethical behaviour and impartiality, establishes the first code of conduct for public servants, sets up a process for accountability and scrutiny, and then lets the departmental heads run things as if they were corporate chief executives.

We do not want corporate chief executives running the Public Service; we want the mandarins. That is a term that was used, perhaps in a derogatory sense, but it does bear out what we are looking for: learned people who are dedicated to serving the public and serving it well, people who have learning, people who have had experience and have sat at the feet of great public servants before them.

We do not want a corporate chief executive who, as Senator Faulkner said, is out there to make a profit and to drive his work force to the point where more and more money is made at the expense of a true service. A corporate chief executive produced the result in Auckland. A corporate chief executive produced the breakdown of electricity in Queensland. A corporate chief executive produced the problem with the sewerage works in South Australia. A corporate chief executive is someone who does not go that little extra to make sure that service is given no matter what the cost. A corporate chief executive is someone who will only give the service in so far as the cost enables him or her or it to make a profit.

The whole philosophy behind this bill is a bad philosophy. This is a bill that could be improved. It was improved last year by a lengthy debate. As I remember, the debate went for hours and I thought it was a very good debate. Yet there has been absolutely no sign from the government that there was anything of merit for them in that particular debate. As has been pointed out, what they have done is to produce a trigger for a double dissolution. That produces uncertainty and it is a great illustration of why uncertainty is bad, because the country, the parliament and the government itself does not run well when there is uncertainty as to how long it will have a life for, when the trigger is going to be pulled, what is going to happen or who is going to be in government a year from now.

Somehow, uncertainty is seen as being good for competition—that if people are uncertain they will strive more. I think that is a proposition that just defies experience. People function better when they are assured that their efforts will be respected and that they will be able to keep their job on the grounds of merit and not on the say-so of a chief executive officer or someone who has the power under the Australian workplace bill or otherwise, whether in private enterprise or in the Public Service.

This bill is a real worry in terms of the basis it is put upon. If you look at the second reading speech, the second dot point at the bottom of page 3 says:

Australia needs a public service that can:

. benchmark itself against all sectors to determine what it does best, what it can improve, and what is more effectively delivered by the market;

What do you mean by that? Are you going to have judges put aside because the market can better deliver a decision? How is the market going to better deliver a reasoned and fearless piece of advice than is the present system?

I notice, too, that the rights of the public servants are going to be diminished. On the same page as I have just read from it says that this act is going to remove complex appeals arrangements. The idea of the appeals arrangements was to assure public servants that, if they did not get a job or they lost a job, there was a proper process by which their position could be protected, so that they could go about their job with a lot more confidence than they presently can. If you do not have an appeals process and you are simply hired and fired at the whim of a chief executive officer, then that certainty that you are entitled to—that certainty which is best for the public—disappears.

This is a worrying piece of legislation and a very worrying second reading speech. It is a second reading speech that relies in no way on evidence. It relies on a series of oratorical statements and a series of rhetoric which at times becomes quite popularist. There is much to be examined as we move into the committee stage.