The 2004 federal election — party platforms toward the public service Australian Journal of Public Administration  63(4):119–122, December 2004 © National Council of the Institute of Public Administration, Australia 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing Limited COMMENTARY The public service emerged as an election issue some months before John Howard called the election, but was promptly drowned in the mêlée of marginal seat vote-bidding of the campaign proper. While this report will appear after the electoral outcome is known, it is important to record the policies of the various political party on the public service and to a degree the wider public sector. This includes what was said and what was not. Both main protagonists declared themselves supportive of a ‘truly independent public service’ with Labor critical of the alleged politicisation of senior levels of the service. As suggested in the commentary below, the proposed policy statements of intent tended to tinker at the margins rather than present a blueprint of significant change. John Wanna Sir John Bunting Chair of Public Administratrion The Australian National University Canberra The government’s policy statement The government provided its main policy state- ment on the public service in July 2004 when the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service, Kevin Andrews, delivered a paper titled ‘The Australian Public Service: Future Directions Under the Howard Government’. Andrews presented a summary of the Howard government’s decisions relating to the public service, including the down sizing that occurred in the second half of the 1990s. He reported that most of the government’s reforms to the public service were already made or underway and that these directions would be continued into the future. He emphasised the ‘cultural change’ in the service reinforced under the new Act, and trumpeted the number of individual Australian Workplace Agreements (approximately 10,000 out of 131,700 public servant numbers). He reported high levels of satisfaction (76 per cent) with the service and work arrangements and good working relationships. He also cited some exam- ples of innovation and service delivery improve- ments in specific agencies. Under the heading ‘the APS we want’, Andrews stressed the government’s desire for a ‘performance-oriented service’ that was ‘an agile, dynamic sector, comprising bright and committed public policy professionals’. The multi-agency response to the Bali bombings and the new arrangements to deliver services to Indigenous communities were singled out for special mention. The statement concluded with a short list of items to be pursued by a re-elected Howard government. Andrews stressed the government was cognisant of the need for greater flexibility in the public sector and over service delivery, would focus on developing a team-focused culture in the service generally and would seek to reduce cross-portfolio barriers. He applauded the introduction of the integrated leadership system as a way of ‘investing in future leaders’ and recommitted the government to support the Australia and New Zealand School of Government training initiatives and public sector research. Finally, the APS’s aid and assistance roles in the Pacific region were identified as evidence of high performance. Labor’s policy statements Labor had predictably more to say. According to Craig Emerson, the Opposition’s spokesperson for the public service, the state of the public service had become a ‘significant election issue — but for all the wrong reasons’. He claimed Labor ‘will wind back the Howard Government’s public Wanna.pmd 11/5/2004, 12:11 PM 119