Silverhawk, our resident policy analyst has a new slant on the role of the bureaucrat.
‘Nugget’ Coombs was the chief adviser to a string of Prime Ministers a few decades back. And old-timers still sing his praises. He was quoted on occasions as saying that a ‘good bureaucrat makes other people’s dreams come true.’ Nice romantic ring to it.
There is an element of truth in what Nugget was saying. But these days we’ve lost the people who can massage ideas, and coax and prod people to a common position. Let me explain. Cockatoo is helping various councils to mount cases for funding of community centres, an agricultural college, an environmental/tourism interpretive centre, an industrial park, water recycling plants and green precincts.
The common factor in these projects is that the alignment of the funding is so uncertain – federal programs are patchy and have lengthy, mind-numbing assessment procedures, the state programs are mostly miserly, and local government looks to the others. When we approach federal officials to get past the website information and acronyms, it’s like prising a bone off a Doberman.
Why is this? The reason is that the program machinery is now so tight that very few federal officials are willing to assist in delivering dreams. Careers are at risk if there is a taint of picking winners, or getting too close to companies or local stakeholders. The blow-up of the Regional Partnerships Program hasn’t helped. So the end result is a federal bureaucracy that is constrained in shaping ideas, to bring fresh information to the table (and it does have the information!) and to be a player.
The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry (DAFF) is a good example. Its ‘constituents’ are doing it tough – agricultural industries are crying out for value-adding agendas, food exports are modest, farmers are walking, regional infrastructure and investment need a stimulus. It has a young, smart and ambitious Minister, but his portfolio has so few programs that it doesn’t need Dobermans. We can’t understand why he’s keeping such a low profile. (His name is Tony Burke).
The take home message is to appreciate the constraints facing federal officials, and look after your local champions and economic development managers, because they are the closest thing to a dream deliverer (and the Cockatoo Network of course!).
