Coked up in Canberra
Myles Peterson
The Daily Telegraph
January 26, 2013 12:00AM
CANBERRA '13: Stop the Coke. Nothing epitomises the current state of Canberra's economy better than a pair of cocaine-addled public servants spouting unwanted, acronym-laden rants at anyone unfortunate enough to fall within hearing range.
This is not a bad-taste Chaser joke. It is a real and regular occurrence, repeated across Canberra's bars and clubs on any given weekend.
This year, Canberra's local government will sacrifice a mountain of public cash (both local and federal) on the altar of celebrating itself. Hired spinmeisters have already labelled the expenditure a necessary, no, inspired act designed to bring a sense of pride in the nation's capital to all Australians.
When it first came into being, the Australian federal government employed 40,000 public servants, three-quarters of them postal workers. Since then the rise of Canberra's working-rich executive class has been arrow swift.
Today, the federal government boasts a quarter of a million employees, augmented by tens of thousands of public servants who report to the Australian Capital Territory government directly. Chances are, statistically speaking, most of them earn more than you do.
The Australian public service is graded in paramilitary fashion, complete with enlisted and officer ranks. But unlike the army, there are no longer any privates.
While the entry-level position of administrative service officer grade one (ASO1) still exists on paper, operationally, there are none. ASO4 represents the starting point for the majority of newly-minted public servants.
In the absence of junior positions, ASO levels 4 to 6 perform the role of worker bee, average salary $60,000 to $80,000. They keep the records, file the files, stamp the stamps and carry out orders handed down by the executive.
Above the ASO corporals and sergeants sit the executive classes, the "officers" who make up one quarter of the entire federal public service. One particular band, executive level one, or EL1, recently multiplied like a virus. An EL1 commands a salary of at least $100,000 (excluding incentives, allowances for parking, technology, travel, living away from home and the many, many junkets).
Between 2001 and 2011 the number of EL1s grew by more than 100 per cent - an epidemic of highly paid bureaucrats for whom million-dollar homes, a coastal holiday house and the odd cocaine binge are well within their price range. Thanks to the EL1 scourge, low-paid Canberrans suffer just as much as the public purse in a city labelled the 12th most expensive in the world in 2012 by Eurocost International.
EL1 bloat and the laissez-faire attitude to spending taxpayer dollars that underpins it has warped the entire Canberran economy. Utility prices are obscene. Housing prices worse.
Cashing in on the torrents of taxpayer cash flowing on to Canberra's gold-paved streets, local retailers and supermarkets charge prices found only in South Yarra and Vaucluse. Low-paid Canberrans have been steadily priced out of the city. Students cannot afford to rent anywhere, often taking drastic measures just to put a roof over their head. Many visiting undergraduates flee long before completing first year.
Savvy former public servants have taken the exploitation to absurd, some would argue corrupt, levels. Government-owned land is selectively released to cartels of ex-bureaucrats, who then make out like bandits on-selling postage stamp-sized blocks to Canberra's housing-desperate underclasses.
Panels, the only way to bid for a government contract, are stacked with insiders, making it impossible for outsiders to even put in a bid, no matter the competitiveness of the tender.
Canberra's elite regularly host opera events for themselves in a $100 million artificial forest, doomed to burn should the firestorm of 2003 - which cleared the site in the first place - ever return.
Dependant on government advertising for much of its revenue, local media rarely draws attention to these problems, themselves addicted to the public purse as a last remaining source of revenue.
Cocaine busts in Canberra have been spiralling upwards. Late last year, kilos of the stuff was discovered within just 1km of Parliament House. If frequent police and Customs claims that only 1 to 2 per cent of the illicit drug trade is uncovered are to be believed, hundreds of kilos, with a street value gauged in the millions, are potentially wandering the capital's streets looking for cashed-up buyers.
Canberra is a beautiful city. Hectares of manicured lawns and small forests surrounded by august and occasionally gaudy architecture. Life expectancy is world-first. Warped by the executive bubble, average incomes soar higher than any other city in Australia.
But that beauty disguises a dirty secret. Canberra rides a wave of federal money with only the not-so-focused eyes of our federal politicians to keep it in check. Canberra will never go bankrupt. It obeys no economic rules bar those loosely and ineffectively imposed upon it. Failure is measured in charts and spin and the quiet, oft unreported tones of a minister dumping an initiative, program or entire department, not commercial failure and bankruptcy.
Whichever coalition seizes government at this year's federal election, Liberals and Nationals or Labor and Greens, they would perform the Australian taxpayer, and many of the people and small businesses of Canberra, a great service by conducting a root-and-branch review of the country's public service.
Stopping the rorts, stopping the scams, stopping the EL1 scourge would benefit every Australian except those currently benefiting. And for pity's sake, Ms Gillard, Mr Abbott, whoever should prevail, please: Stop the coke.
Myles Peterson is a Canberra-based writer. Twitter: @MylesPeterson
