Yes Minister 2

In relation to our article public-servants-pay-lambies-on-the-money

Bob Pearce, Adelaide SA, Feb 6, 2025

For some time, my teacher mate sang the virtues of the US system where the president got to tap into the expertise of highly credentialled people from all around the country when appointing heads of departments and I must admit that I didn’t disagree with him.

Then came Trump who unashamedly appointed mates. So much for that idea.

In Australia, with its ongoing war against anything old that works, we too started to appoint highly paid (unlike with workers where qualifications and capability are not portional to the amount you’re paid) experts as heads of departments on contract.

It then became normal to renew that contract with a pay rise just before each election so either your head of department with your political bias stayed on when you were re-elected or stayed on as a thorn in the side of the incoming government or the taxpayer footed the bill to terminate the recently signed multimillion-dollar contract.

Perhaps “Yes Minister” wasn’t a comedy, it just worked, successfully controlling the democratically elected career parliamentarians at a significantly reduced cost to taxpayers.