Check against delivery
Introduction
Dhawura nguna dhawura Ngunawal.
Yanggu ngalamanyin dhunimanyin.
Ngunawalwari dhawurawari.
Dindi wanggiralidjinyin.
In the language of the traditional owners, this means: This is Ngunnawal Country. Today we are all meeting together on this Ngunnawal Country. We acknowledge and pay our respects to the Elders.
We’re fortunate to be able to come together in person as well as virtually.
Today, I want to spend a little time reflecting on the year that’s been. But more than that, I want to look forward to our aspirations for 2022. We know it will include an election.
And while positive vaccination numbers have shifted our focus on reopening consistent with the National Plan, the Omicron COVID variant is an emerging risk.
Reflections on the year: a privilege to serve
But first, let’s look back on 2021. This event provides an opportunity for the APS to celebrate what we have done this year to improve lives in Australia.
It’s been another challenging year, marked by lockdowns, separation from loved ones and the numerous challenges that come with continuing to serve our country through the pandemic. I pay respect to your hard work and dedication, and on behalf of the APS, recognise the privilege and responsibility we have to advise, implement and deliver to make a difference to people’s lives. These are the things that bind us together to drive through these extraordinary times.
I want to highlight a few achievements in cross-cutting areas that demonstrate the value of OneAPS.
- On COVID: The vaccine rollout is one of the largest logistics exercises ever seen in Australia’s history. Close to 40 million doses of vaccines have been administered in Australia. 88.5 per cent of people aged 16 and over are fully vaccinated, and it’s well over 90 per cent in the ACT, NSW and Victoria. This would not have been possible without everyone in the APS – both in Australia and working at posts overseas – working together with the states and territories, and with all the many health and service providers at the pointy end who put jabs in arms.
- On climate change: The announcement of a target to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and participation at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change conference in Glasgow was historic. An enormous effort was made within the Industry, Science, Energy and Resources portfolio and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, along with others in the APS and beyond, to enable Australia to shift from a decade long caustic climate debate to tangible action and quantified goals.
- In our strategic global position: The foundation of our global positioning is a focus on increasing domestic resilience, including through establishing the Office of Supply Chain Resilience. Building on this foundation, we are expanding and leveraging our international relationships by cementing strategic partnerships like AUKUS, the Quad and G20. We again participated by invitation to the G7+. We also continue to promote international rules-based order, to ensure access to markets for Australian goods and services. An outcome we can be extremely proud of in 2021 is Australia being the first country to lock in a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with ASEAN.
- On our own capability: APS reform continues in a practical way through the Secretaries Board and the APS Reform office. In July the APS Academy was launched to invest in the capability of the APS, so we can keep on delivering and be a modern and attractive workforce.
We have done all this, of course, while adjusting to shifting conditions in our working environment. We’ve had to cope with a tenfold increase in digital demand, so we’ve massively increased our APS digital infrastructure capacity. We’ve also improved our cyber infrastructure, to meet a significant increase in cyber risks.
These improvements have allowed us to focus on delivering government priorities regardless of workplace, circumstance, location and whether decisions are made face to face or virtually.
I am proud of the strong progress we made during this remarkable time. Each team and each division throughout the APS has their own stories to champion, whether serving a key role as part of the response, or business as usual — both are critical to keep our country strong.
Just as we rolled up our sleeves for vaccines, we also rolled up our sleeves to keep the economy going. As well as macro measures like Jobkeeper and Jobseeker, we increased flexibility in the economy through micro-economic and deregulation initiatives, like removing curfews for trucks so shelves could be restocked overnight; like making it easier for nurses to come back into the workforce; like enabling AGMs to be conducted online — to name just a few practical examples.
Through National Cabinet we also drove longer-term micro-economic reform through starting a new national scheme to allow workers to use their existing occupational licences to cross borders for work. We also committed the Commonwealth and states to a wide-ranging reform agenda to address the burden of overlapping regulations. Another quiet reform that has been progressed this year is the New Payments Platform and reforms to our payments system, which ensures our financial system remains world class, supports innovation and encourages competition to deliver better outcomes for Australians. Within the APS, we are improving the accountability of regulators through setting clearer expectations of performance as well as providing greater support through the regulator Leadership Cohort. These are practical and sensible reforms that will generate income growth while also protecting Australians.
We’ll remember 2021 for many reasons — but it’s certainly been a significant year for reform.
Looking forward: delivering the strategic priorities of the Government and serving Australians
Election
With the last days of 2021 approaching, what’s in store in the next 6, 12, 18 months?
With a budget scheduled for 29 March 2022 and an election due by May, we already have a couple of large milestones in next year’s plans.
In the accompanying caretaker period, we must maintain services to the community consistent with the longstanding conventions which apply to the APS in the lead-up to an election. The caretaker period is also the time for us to finalise preparations to support whichever government is elected, so that we are in a position to understand and implement the promises made.
Reopening/resilience/growing our economy
I preface this forward-looking section of my remarks by acknowledging that many of the priorities I refer to will remain so after the forthcoming election. But some may change and that will be managed through the caretaker period as just mentioned.
Currently, and for the foreseeable future, we will be focusing on how we can live with COVID, including through learning more about the Omicron variant. With high vaccination rates, more knowledge about track, trace, isolate and quarantine, public health measures, and medical treatments, we’ve shown it is possible to manage cases without overloading our health systems. Hopefully, shutting domestic borders is largely behind us and — subject to Omicron — we can continue reopening our country — and manage the opportunities and challenges that come with that.
I am cautiously optimistic about our economic outlook, notwithstanding complex global economic and strategic trends. Our domestic resilience is underpinned by strong business and consumer confidence data. The prospects for employment are good. Data shows that household savings and business balance sheets are strong, and this should also support a rapid rebound.
Supporting the social recovery from COVID-19 has and will continue to focus on gender equality and eliminating violence against women. The new Cabinet Taskforce committed to Women’s Safety and Economic Security is already working on the successor of the National Plan to end Violence against Women and their Children, which will commence in July 2022.
It will also be important to deliver already-announced mental health and suicide prevention reforms in 2022. These reforms focus on comprehensive, consumer-focused, and compassionate support to benefit all Australians.
We are committed to the safety of children and young people, through the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse which was launched in October this year. In 2022, the National Office for Child Safety, along with a range of Commonwealth agencies, will begin implementing measures from the National Strategy, many of which are world-firsts. Early conversations show us that these measures are already changing how policymakers approach child safety issues on the global stage, by taking a public health focus on education, prevention, support for victims and survivors and data and research.
We have a critical responsibility to improve the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. I will draw specific attention to Priority Reform 3 of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, which commits us to Transform Government Organisations to identify and eliminate racism and improve cultural safety. This will require effort from all of us.
And 2022 will see us implementing the $17.7 billion package of support provided in response to the final report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
On the fiscal outlook, I would expect future budgets to require the APS to change focus from the supports underpinning the pandemic response to wider prioritisation that takes into account preparing for future shocks.
We will continue to shape and enhance Australia’s strategic and national interests. We will be working closely with the US and UK to progress nuclear powered submarine arrangements, and AI, cyber and quantum initiatives under the AUKUS partnership. We’re already preparing for a Clean Energy Summit in Australia in 2022, as announced at the QUAD leaders meeting in Washington. We will finalise the FTA with the UK and continue negotiations with the EU.
On Critical Technologies, we’ve set the vision and outlined our efforts in our recently-released Blueprint. We’ll work with industry and the states to progress projects that will facilitate economic and jobs growth, secure our manufacturing and agricultural competitiveness, improve our health outcomes, enable our energy transition, and strengthen our defence forces.
Career reflections/aspirations for the service for the future
Finally, in keeping with this moment of looking back and looking forward, I want to reflect a little on my own career, and look forward to my aspirations for the future of the service.
I arrived in Canberra on Anzac Day in 1977. I was a grad fresh out of Flinders University, and Canberra was about a fifth of its population now. Over the 44 years since then I have served in several roles whilst in the APS — including in line Departments, working in Parliament House as the Senate Parliamentary Liaison Officer, Chief of Staff to two Treasurers, as a diplomat with APEC in Singapore. While on leave without pay I also worked in the South Australian and New South Wales governments.
In each role I have enjoyed ups and downs, but all provided for rich and positive experiences and memories.
I have been fortunate to lead a State Treasury, the Australian Treasury and now PM&C. In these years of leadership and in prior roles, I have always tried to put the systems in place or institutionalise things that make the public service stronger, that support the values of the APS and empower us as public servants to give frank advice within a respectful workplace.
Collectively and individually, we should always call out behaviours which undercut these values—most recently there have been public comments made with the intent to undermine the public confidence in the APS, through personal attacks on public servants and accusations of politicisation. I will always call out the inaccuracies of these types of comments and reiterate the importance of our impartial and committed public service. Most recently the Public Service Commissioner and I wrote to the President of the Senate to raise concerns on exactly those issues. That letter was tabled in the Senate.
In South Australia, I led a team in the Treasury and Finance Department that developed a shareholder performance scorecard of government business enterprises. This was a surprise to Ministers and the senior executives in the utilities as previously they reported directly to the relevant portfolio Minister — there was no understanding of the difference between policy and shareholder advice and direct dealings between the utility and the portfolio Minister.
As Secretary of NSW Treasury — noting a State Treasury is more akin to Finance here in Canberra — I had to restore trust between Treasury and the line Departments in the budget process, after a lengthy period of poor financial management where growth in expenses far outweighed growth in revenue. A CFO network was established, and after a tentative start, it developed to become an open cooperative forum that played a key role in achieving the budget surpluses that were able to fund state infrastructure in conjunction with funds raised from asset recycling and Australian government grants.
The COO Committee we have today in the APS was inspired by my experience in NSW with the CFO network. Bringing the COOs together helped knit key individuals together to work organically, sharing information and experiences,with a oneAPS purpose, and lift the level of focus from a single department to the APS enterprise level.
I am pleased that Peter Woolcott, in his role as Head of Professions, has also adopted a network approach to the HR, Digital and Data professions, to strive for excellence, to attract, stretch and retain our talent, and to offer opportunities for all of us in our own careers, as well as improving the capability of our delivery power as oneAPS.
In conjunction with the Secretaries Talent Council, I’m also proud that we’re making sure we have a strong pipeline to fill senior APS roles through succession planning, matched with capability development. The Talent Council, in conjunction with all Secretaries, no longer talks about succession planning in general terms but takes a more evidence-based approach to identifying individuals who show potential to become a Secretary. This brings private sector best practice into the APS to assist in the selection of Secretaries which, under the Public Service Act, is the domain of the Prime Minister.
It’s natural for us to feel reflective as the year draws to a close, and I encourage you to consider what you have achieved and be proud of it. While you recharge over the summer, think about what will inspire you for the year ahead. What would you like to share with your teams to inspire purpose and meaning? How can you keep the Australian people at the heart of what you do?
But for now, it’s time to look forward to spending time with loved ones and reset for the New Year ahead. Let’s look forward to new opportunities and challenges to work on together, remember our strengths, work together as oneAPS, and deliver for all Australians.
All the best, Happy Christmas and good evening.