For the first time in more than a decade, I bring a glimmer of hope for the financially and administratively broken state of Victoria.
And, all other states — and even Canberra — will be watching. The hope comes against an Australia-wide backdrop where the private sector gears up to slash administrative costs through artificial intelligence, even as for the public services in Canberra and in the states it looks too hard.
Sadly, Australian public services may not become efficient until there is a deep crisis brought on by pressure from the credit rating agencies.
Victoria has such a crisis, which is why what is happening has potential national significance. Premier Jacinta Allan is regarded as a joke around Australia and by many Victorians.
Allan took over as premier from Daniel Andrews in September 2023. Four months later, she appointed Helen Silver as deputy chair of the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority. That authority may be important, but that’s a later part of the story.
Meanwhile, Andrew’s discredited treasurer stays in office until December 2024, when Jaclyn Symes then becomes Treasurer. Two months later, Symes appoints Helen Silver to undertake an incredible task rarely initiated by politicians unless they give the task to useless political hacks. Helen Silver is no hack.
She came out of the private sector and served under ALP and Coalition governments between 2008 and 2013 as secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet — the most senior role in our public services. She was equal to the best in Australia at the job.
Allan and Symes appointed Silver to head an independent review covering the Victorian public service departments and their entities to:
• identify overlaps, inefficiencies, functions and programs that can be streamlined or eliminated, with a focus on entity consolidation;
• provide recommendations to increase operational efficiency and to deliver process improvements across all VPS departments and programs;
• provide recommendations on how to reduce the VPS back towards its pre-pandemic share of employment, including an examination of the appropriate levels of executives. She will make a report on June 30.
Silver probably understands how public services should work and the comparison with the private sector better than anyone else in Australia.
In the private sector, she has had senior executive roles in NAB prior to joining the public service and with Allianz after leaving the public service.
Under ALP premier John Brumby and the Coalition’s Ted Baillieu, she was an outstanding public servant and helped create the best infrastructure building team in Australia, and one of the best in the world. She set up a world-class crisis management system.
Andrews became premier in 2014 and quickly decimated the infrastructure building team because it used non-CFMEU labour.
During Covid-19, he refused to use Silver’s crisis management structure and embraced a completely different system. It was a total disaster. Andrews attempted huge infrastructure projects with a management team with inadequate skills. As was inevitable, the cost overruns were enormous.
The combination of the two events caused most senior public servants of calibre to leave rather than see their reputations trashed. The people who took their jobs were often party hacks who did not know how to perform their tasks.
In recent times, those private senior executives who have had contact with top Victorian public servants say most are out of their depth. This means even if Allan appoints a minister of calibre, the minister will find it difficult to operate because they are being given bad public service advice. Fascinatingly, the most senior recent public service appointment, the police commissioner, was recruited from New Zealand.
Naturally, at this moment Silver is in a communications cocoon, so my comments don’t have her input.
But, the Allan and Symes reference terms are very wide and mention “executives”.
Silver will have no difficulty writing a report showing where there is duplication in the public service and where there are 3000 positions the government has speculated may not be required.
That would of course be a great step for the beleaguered state. But, given her work in the public and private sector, Silver probably has more knowledge of public service structures and potential efficiencies than anyone else in the nation.
And those terms of reference are so wide that, if she wanted to, Silver could use her knowledge to create a structure for the Victorian public service which could make it the most productive in the country.
Neither the Commonwealth nor any other state has had the courage to take such a step.
Already the unions smell danger, so there is no certainty Silver will take up the challenge or that Allan could it implement it.
Why is the appointment of Silver to the board of the building insurance authority of interest? Allan has backed the CFMEU-involved suburban rail loop plan to the hilt, even though most who have looked at the details say it makes no sense.
The insurance authority has agreed to underwrite part of the risk. We don’t know the details, but Victoria does not have the management to run such a project, and there are much better alternatives to use the state's building skills.
It is a sign of danger; Silver might be too close to the Victorian Premier.
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