Antinuclear

Australia’s public servants – be careful! or Abbott will sack you

With blood still on the carpet, a public servant in a senior position will need extra courage to provide objective and critical assessments about climate policy and other contentious issues. We should salute those who will continue to provide frank and fearless advice, and understand if some will be cautious

Australia needs climate institutions, whoever is in power, The Conversation  Frank Jotzo   Director, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at Australian National University 20 Sept 13     The new Australian government is sacking the public service heads who implemented Australia’s carbon pricing scheme, and is closing institutions for climate change information and policy advice.

It risks further politicisation of the climate change issue in the public service. Keeping at the very least the Climate Change Authority as an independent agency would send a positive signal about the government’s commitment to economically sound climate policy. Science and economics are needed to underpin policy choices, especially in a field where ideological positions now play such a big role in public debate.

Sackings

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has sacked Blair Comley, who was Secretary of the Department of Climate Change and recently moved to the resources portfolio. He was in charge of implementing Labor’s carbon pricing scheme.

Martin Parkinson, Secretary of the Treasury and Comley’s predecessor at the Climate Change Department, announced that he would depart next year (presumably he was asked to do so). He was in charge of developing the Rudd government’s proposed emissions trading scheme, and had started high level work on emissions trading in the last year of the Howard government.

Both have an impeccable reputation as economists. They have served previous conservative governments, including on big picture tax reform. Their credentials and integrity are above question.

Perhaps their downfall was due to faithfully implementing Labor’s climate policies. Perhaps it’s that they are on the public record supporting a price on carbon emissions as the economically efficient way of reducing emissions; although this is exactly what the very large majority of economists say.

Sacking public servants over issues of policy is unusual in Australia. The Westminster system of an independent public service is – or is supposed to be – in operation. Public servants are professionals who serve the government of the day. The last “night of long knives” was in 1996 when the incoming conservative Howard government sacked six Secretaries; when Labor took government in 2007, all were kept. This week three were axed, plus Parkinson and the head of AusAID.

With blood still on the carpet, a public servant in a senior position will need extra courage to provide objective and critical assessments about climate policy and other contentious issues. We should salute those who will continue to provide frank and fearless advice, and understand if some will be cautious……..http://theconversation.com/australia-needs-climate-institutions-whoever-is-in-power-18371

September 21, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics