Monday, June 15, 2009

Constant Name Review - Constant game review

This name well symbolised the highly destabilising of effective governance of the environment in Victoria for the past 20years ( Department of Conservation and Natural Resources CNR ). What was once a World leading edge integration of planning and rural infrastructure is a complete cot case . DOPI and DOSE ; the divorce is complete and we are back to them Vs us .
Let me suggest that after so many name changes any professional cutting edge focus in those departmnets could be expected to be completely subject to the whims of the day- You don't believe me test to see if any mentoring of the original sciences and arts is left in a professional form - that the bigest threat to environmental planning is its obfuscation cost - its nearly broken the Tasmanian government via Launceston .

Politicians may have got what they wanted ( not really its governance by the silly marginal indecisives ) but has the public got what they needed - objectivity and balance ? You be the judge
So what advantages are there in changing the name? As Yes Minister so well demonstrated " Ministers get reshuffled , so why not cabinet secretaries and their portfolios - why should departments be exempt. the 64 question .
I say permanence is well worth preserving because a strong public service is needed to curb the wind driven politics of change for changes sake . The huge wastage in public service focus resulting from the "government is business" saga (with its change everything often CEO masthead is a clear example. The libs have played their part in the nonsense - yet as we all know, the environment should be bigger than politics!

"Circulation is castration. Permanence is Power" The departmnet secretary said to sirH . Many times in the last 20 years I wonder if Anthony Jay should have let that simple secret, of all the simple things that polys can latch onto, out -

No time here to discuss it further -except to say that the choice was there and made and remade -and must be restored; Otherwise we castrate SirH completely. As someone more intelligent and experinced than all of us once said " while he is a great brick he is the best brick of all those that have been tried " .You want to be smarter than him and the hard lesson that it is for most polys?
Permanent public servants have some chance of making politics work on the ground .
If we don't use its staying power, we just have politicians and parties cloning themselves and alienating themsleves from people who used to be able to warn them that their clothes , rather than their conversation , is a matter for ridicule rather than respect.
In a consumer society - what costs the earth and doesn't work, gets' thrown out
we cannot afford that . Copyright EA june2009

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