No Ideas we Know - Gearing up for an Early Election?
The Desert Rat notes in today's The West Australian, that Jim McGinty has advertised for 15 "Policy" positions in his two Departments.
Ideas have never been a feature of McGinty's record. In fact the Desert Rat can't think of one significant original initiative he has ever generated in Opposition or Government. Power is paramount, but using it wisely for the benefit of the wider community has not been his strength. Burke and Grill have imagination and problem solving abilities, talents not valued by our legislation and brick and mortar obsessed Emperor who incessantly tells Parliament about his majestic "vision".
Today West on page 36 and 37 of Professional Appointments, McGinty's Attorney General's Department has advertised for 11 policy officers. Six have salaries of over $100 000 each! The other 5 have salaries of up to $88 000!
The advert doesn't say what policy areas of expertise are required, so the Desert Rat assumes McGinty has no idea either. Is this the suffering taxpayers funding the ALP "reseach" for the upcoming election campaign? Does McGinty want policy ideas generated for the State election to showcase his fabled "vision" that he rattles-on about in Parliament?
The Desert Rat asks McGinty, "What happened to your secret project to build a prison for mentally-ill offenders?" That was a meritorious initiative (albeit poorly conceived) - that he failed to deliver. He couldn't get out of his "bad" news prisons portfolio quick enough, so he split off the Justice part so he could keep control of the Corruption and Crime Commission and retain his Atorney General status to add puff and flatter his majesterial demeanour.
Over the page in "The West" there are 4 more policy and project officers for McGinty's Department of Health. Two policy officer at a salary of $78 000. Two project and program officer at slightly lower levels are part of the advert. You can safely bet there is a cast of hundreds of other policy officers already creating havoc in the public service - most without life experience.
At this rate McGinty will have more policy officers than journalist staffing his Ministerial Office and Departments. McGinty already has more than his share of the Government 640 media-trained ex-journalists and hacks, churning out the spin. They continually write and feed hospital stories and photographs to the local media - to the extent that they now often need one journalist for a throw-away. All feel-good stories to bolster McGinty's image. It is all about superficial presentation but lacking in content.
The Desert Rat suggests that Jim McGinty focus on what needs fixing in his Departments? If he doesn't know, get out of the cocoon he shelters in and talk with the staff in your departments - the staff that do hand-on work. Not the managers, and not your media hacks and policy, program and project officers.
The public are tired of politicians' visions, particularly the majestic visions of self-appointed Emperors. We just want the things that don't work fixed or improved. That's where the effort should be. The Desert Rat's advice to McGinty is to forget the incessant spin.
The Desert Rat believes the prodigal McGinty's greatest contribution to public policy would be an extended taxpayer funded holiday in his beloved Italy. That way less taxpayers money would be wasted.
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