The contribution of a long tradition

In celebrating the achievements of the Senior Executive Service (SES) it is important to acknowledge that the SES is part of a continuum of a strong and enduring public sector leadership group. This leadership cadre—supported by the wider Australian Public Service (APS)—has played a pivotal role in key nation-building efforts and in doing so has made a significant contribution to Australia’s success as a nation.

The contribution started at the very beginning with the establishment of the legal and administrative foundations of the Commonwealth and the APS in 1902. Serving the Nation 100 Years of Public Service captures the optimism common among senior employees on Federation:

…we hold a unique position, in having an entirely new service, untarnished by any evil traditions. It is in our own hands to make history. We are associated with the birth of a nation.³

Key nation-building efforts the APS leadership has supported include Australia’s participation in the global conflicts of 1914 and 1939. In 1914 the fledgling bureaucracy took a lead role in co-ordinating the war effort. This was no mean feat—by late 1916 one out of every four eligible APS employees had enlisted.

The Great Depression impacted deeply on the APS and overall staff numbers were dramatically cut. In 1933 the then Minister for Trade and Customs acknowledged the efforts of APS staff:

The Tariff Board…could do no more than they are doing. By rare devotion to duty and reckless disregard of personal recreation and health, they carry on in a manner which, to my mind, is little short of superhuman…they have been struggling under a burden infinitely beyond their strength…Advancement to a senior or even relatively junior Customs post at Canberra, or to a Ministerial office, is more or less a sentence of premature death.⁴

Between 1942 and 1945 the APS leadership group also implemented the Chifley Government’s social welfare reforms which widened income security coverage to encompass widows’ pensions, funeral and maternity benefits, unemployment and sickness benefits, and tuberculosis benefits.

The growth and expansion of the Australian Government’s powers after the Second World War was reflected in the increasingly complex and diverse responsibilities of the APS and its leadership group. The APS became active in education, trade, industry, environment and conservation, and indigenous policies and programs. The APS leadership’s achievements in this regard are nothing less than remarkable. Like all industries the APS was affected by the acute manpower shortage—particularly ‘of officers with proved executive and administrative experience’.⁵

In the 1970s the leadership group worked with successive governments to implement major national policies in relation to Indigenous Australians, the environment, social welfare, and health—including the implementation of Australia’s first universal health scheme, Medibank (now Medicare).

Throughout the 1980s, the leadership group again played a significant role in developing and implementing wide ranging economic reforms that progressively enabled Australia to compete successfully in the global economy— reforms like reducing barriers to trade and foreign investment, commercialisation and some privatisation of government-owned businesses and increasing labour market flexibility.

In the 1990s and the new millennia, the leadership group has guided the design and implementation of a diverse range of major national policies such as the GST and the privatisation of government-owned assets, and implemented and subsequently dismantled the diametrically opposed workplace relations policies of successive governments.

More recently the APS leadership group has supported the Government’s response to the global financial crisis, including implementation of the national stimulus package. Prime Minister Rudd has acknowledged the strength and contribution of the leadership group to these initiatives:

Through the work on the nation building plan, I have seen a public service filled with capable and committed individuals, able to perform under intense pressure. ⁶

 

Next: The development of the SES—from humble beginnings