I'm freaking out about one Trumpism coming here. An expert says we all should be
By Jenna Price
January 24 2025
This is what I learned about a man I barely knew, Vivek Ramaswamy.
Donald Trump named Ramaswamy in the run-up to the US federal election as one of two men to lead his initiative to cut "government waste". How would he do it? DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Ramaswamy would work with Elon Musk, user of the Nazi salute (not a Nazi salute? Please visit your nearest optometrist).
Working with Musk. That's what might be called a punishment. I knew very little about Ramaswamy until he threw his hat in the ring to compete with Trump for the Republican nomination. Weird judgement. Why would you put yourself in the midst of that bunfight?
Turns out his judgement is not all that weird. This week, Ramaswamy confirmed he will leave the cost-cutting project to run for governor of Ohio. A good move for Cincinatti-born Ramaswamy who wants to run for US president one day, a possibility not open to his co-conspirator Musk in the "war on waste". Ramaswamy has, ahem, doged a bullet.
From left, Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Peter Dutton. Pictures Shutterstock, Elesa Kurtz
Now Peter Dutton has joined the war on the public service. That does not at all surprise me. The revelation about the way the Coalition poisoned the public service (example? Robodebt) was a key factor in its devastating loss. Dutton will want to make sure we will never know anything again.
The move to centralise the public service is big in different forms of populist governments. Putin did it in Russia. Trump will attempt the same in the US. Will Partlett, who researches public law at the University of Melbourne, says authoritarians make their arguments this way.
"The elected leader claims a democratic mandate to centralise authority, including over the civil [public] service," he says. "The underlying logic is that the people voted for the leader and the leader has a mandate to govern and shall not be frustrated by an independent civil service.
"That independence has been seen as important ... [it provides] checks and balances and a democratic deliberation."
In other words, centralising all the power undermines what keeps us safe. Democracy is not just about the leader - it's about the independence of the institutions that make up civil society - courts, anti-corruption commissions - not just the public service.
Farewell "frank and fearless" advice and good counsel. I tell Partlett I'm freaking out about this prospect. He says: "We should all be freaking out."
In robodebt we have a "perfect" example of what can go wrong.
Sarah Ball, a University of Queensland academic with a serious expertise in the horror of robodebt, directs me to The Integrity Mismatch report by Marcial Boo, former chief executive of the UK's Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. He writes public servants have three choices when dealing with an integrity issue: follow instructions, raise concerns or resign.
Ball says that in times of low capacity and high politicisation, raising concerns can be really challenging (read Renee Leon's robodebt royal commission testimony about her demotion and the treatment of others, where she talks about frank and fearless advice).
Ball says that means "many may find the first option - following instructions - very appealing".
Frank and fearless. Ball says any cuts to the public service would make improving the integrity of that institution very tough. She cites the APS Integrity Action Plan, which recommends more training for staff, a focus on increased psychological security, more checks and balances, more cross-collaboration.
"This all requires time, capacity and a high degree of capability. Cuts would make enacting this very challenging," she says.
Plus while I love the idea of automation (washing, drying and folding please!), it didn't work for welfare recipients.
Dutton will campaign about cost-cutting within the public service and sell it to voters as saving our money. Do not be fooled. Barbara Pocock was an academic before she became a Greens senator and was pivotal in exposing the profligate spending on consultants by the then Coalition government. She reminds me the Morrison government spent nearly $21 billion on external labour in its last year in office (equivalent to 179,832 full-time jobs in the public service).
"For the past decade, too many in the public sector have watched overpaid consultants come into their organisations, ask for their watches and tell them the time at great expense," she says. Poor value for money. Generating corrupting conflicts of interest. She's not even joking.
"Dutton's threat of mass cuts to the federal public sector promise a return to that world," she says.
"It's wasteful and demoralising, and it does not generate savings. It cuts essential services and threatens more administrative [disasters] like robodebt."
Plus, how will public servants feel if we get robodebt redux?
Pocock is blunt:
"Dutton's plan to eviscerate the public sector is populist Trumpian mimicry. It doesn't add up to real savings and it won't work. It will rob taxpayers of the essential services we all depend on, the services that distinguish us from the kind of America Trump plans to create."
Speaking of Trump's US, Crawford School of Public Policy director Janine O'Flynn will deliver the Donald C. Stone lecture at the American Society of Public Administration conference in Washington DC in March this year. She will talk about the importance of valuing the work of public servants, at a time when the US President is trying to undermine the work they do.
She urges public servants to speak out: "Political attacks, and those from other groups, such as the US techbros, can fuel a self-fulfilling prophecy," she says.
"We are told that the public service cannot do its job, this can lead to cuts, and/or a diminishing of their status or involvement in the work of government. Then when problems or crises occur and the public service falters, it simply fuels the fire.
"When we do not know about the valuable work that is done by those in the public service, how can we value and protect it?"
She's right. But in the meantime, make sure you only vote for politicians who recognise the worth of the public service and our public servants.
