Can we Trust the Public Service? (Updated)

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon – Matthew 6:24, KJV

In representative liberal democracies, educational/professional qualifications are not required of candidates to public office. Take an aspirant to the Prime Ministership or the Presidency. There are neither schools offering “Prime Minister 101” courses nor licensing requirements, as there are for would-be plumbers or lawyers.

Sometimes candidates may have somewhat related experience: say, a former state Premier could wind up in the top job. But generally that experience is neither fully compatible (say, a Premier must prioritise public health, a PM focuses on the economy) nor, as far as I can tell, is that the usual situation (how many premiers do you know went on to become PMs?).

In countries under a parliamentary system, unlike those under a presidential system, that extends to Cabinet members: health ministers don’t need to be doctors, say.

That’s why the public service is important: public servants are supposed to provide the expertise their political masters lack. (No doubt readers have heard about the “checks and balances” included in the institutional design of liberal democracies to prevent dysfunction. Arguably, the bureaucracy is another such check and balance.)

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To their credit, PM Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, when confronted with the COVID-19 crisis, understood that (although Scotty from Marketing, in his recent dealings with VIC Premier Daniel Andrews, seems to have already forgotten it all).

Notwithstanding the inevitable mistake, their decision prevented a potential catastrophe. And that’s how Brendan Murphy (then federal Chief Health Officer) and Kerry Chant (NSW CHO) – to mention only those most prominent in NSW – became household names. A little earlier Shane Fitzsimmons, former NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner, had already been a protagonist in crisis management. All of them public servants, all of them performing well, with dedication and – most evidently in Fitzsimmons’ case – strength of character.

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However, to emulate those guys is easier said than done. Career public servants  – or Mandarins, as they are often called – at least in Australia could bear testimony to that. Ask Josh Krook:

Australian Public Servant Condemns Censorship After Blogpost Cost Him His Job
Three months after writing how Covid helped big tech, Josh Krook was given a choice: remove the post or be sacked
by Christopher Knaus (Aug 24, 2020)

Unlike Michaela Banerji, who last year lost her job for exercising her right to criticise the Morrison Government, Krook did not even voice a criticism.

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Fair-minded readers will understand politicians of all stripes refusing to be their advisers’ puppets, something would-be technocrats seem eager to ignore. Politicians were elected to represent their constituencies – whoever their real constituencies are. It’s to their constituencies that they are accountable.

Moreover, politicians may have a reputation for having a thick skin, but they – understandably as well – certainly don’t enjoy being criticised in public, however fairly, however sincerely, by their servants of the public: bureaucrats, therefore, are placed between God and Mammon, for there is no guarantee, let alone warranty, that God and Mammon want the same thing. And there’s no clear “sensible middle”.

Our Evangelical Prime Minister, for whom that quote should speak clearly, made it also very clear, last year, in a speech to the Australian Public Service what he expected of them. In his chosen sporty analogy, the APS and their respective Ministers are a team, where “Ministers set and drive the agenda of the Government” and public servants are “implementers”.

In other words, public servants’ job “is about telling Governments how things can be done, not just the risks of doing them, or saying why they shouldn’t be done. The public service is meant to be an enabler of Government policy not an obstacle.”

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Now, skeptics may think – rightly in my opinion – that by themselves, cases like those of Krook and Banerji are unimportant in the greater scheme of things. If that is the worst to fear from Morrison’s speech, then one can relax.

The thing is that those cases are not the whole story. This is closer to a half:

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Euan Ritchie from Deakin University, co-author of that report, is quoted as saying:

“Functional democracies rely on an informed voting public. If the best scientific data and information isn’t available then that’s a real problem.”

Indeed, that’s one of the problems I’m trying to highlight here. It’s not for nothing that Mandarins were often eunuchs.

Serious, honest bureaucrats like Murphy, Chant, and Fitzsimmons should be worried, for next time the public may be less receptive to their advise. Unfair and dangerous as that may be, I can understand where that negative comes from. Can we really trust them? And can you blame the public if they don’t? (think well your answer before you move on.)

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Those gagged scientists no doubt feel frustrated by Morrison’s rules of the game. Other bureaucrats, however, seem not only to have understood their role as Government enablers but are proving themselves willing team players. That’s the other half of the problem I’m trying to highlight.

For those with patience, here is a long and irritating, but highly instructive, exchange between Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Deputy Chair of the Environment and Communications - Legislation Committee, and Jo Evans, Deputy Secretary, Department of Environment and Energy.

It took place on October 21, 2019, in the mid of the Black Summer. The following day a group of independent and Greens parliamentarians were scheduled to table for discussion an official Parliament-sponsored petition, backed by over 400,000 signatures. The petition asked the Morrison Government to declare a climate emergency.

A couple months later or so, NSW Premier Berejiklian declared the first of three statewide States of Emergency. To the best of my knowledge, the petition fell on deaf ears and was forgotten.

Without further ado:

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: I’d like to start by referring to the growing community concern about emissions rising, climate change getting worse, and watching comparable countries around the world declaring a climate emergency. Has anyone in the department given any thought to briefing the government about the state of the climate emergency that we face?

Ms Evans: We regularly brief the government on the facts of climate science and the nature of the impacts, both for Australia and globally. Your choice of language about how you describe that is yours; we would stick to a factual description.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: What is the description? What kind of emergency are we in?

Ms Evans: Again, I’m not using the word ‘emergency’; you are. If you look at the scientific basis for climate change, in Australia you’re already seeing increases in average temperature of around one degree. We’ve already had eight of Australia’s 10 warmest years since 2005. We have evidence here that the sea level around Australia is rising. The Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO regularly put out a summary of changes in the climate around Australia. The last one of those was put out at the end of 2018. It’s called State of the climate and it talks about the frequency and intensity of various different types of extreme weather events. For example, very high monthly maximum temperatures that occurred around two per cent of the time in the past now occur around 12 per cent of the time, based on a time period comparison between 1950 and 1980, for when it was two per cent of the time, and between 2003 and 2017 for 12 per cent of the time. There are a lot of these facts; they are all on the public record. We have briefed the government on those in relation to Australia.

In regard to global impacts, you would be aware that there have recently been a number of special reports by the IPCC, one most recently in relation to the oceans and cryosphere. Before that, there was one on the impacts on land and, prior to that, there was a comparison or a look at what the impacts would be if we were to achieve a 1.5—degree increase in global average temperature compared to two degrees. All of those reports contain a large amount of information about the types of impacts that will happen with different temperature changes, which have impacts on the climate. We have certainly briefed the government on those.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Have you briefed the government on those with the clear indication that things are getting worse?

Ms Evans: We simply describe what is happening and what the scientific community says might happen in the future if emissions achieve different levels of outcomes. At that point, they are projections for the future.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Does the scientific evidence currently point to the state of the climate getting worse?

Ms Evans: It points to changes in the climate. Certainly, we have seen an increase in the average global temperature and various other changes in the climate that have resulted from the greenhouse effect. We know carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing, and has increased to date. We know that a large part or the substantive part of that increase in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is primarily from human activity, and we know that is adding to the natural greenhouse effect. These are the things that we advise the government on.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: You read these reports and you have to brief the government on them. Is the situation getting worse?

Ms Evans: The climate is definitely changing.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: For the worse?

Ms Evans: That’s a judgement call and it’s an opinion. The climate is changing.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: I’m not asking for an opinion; I’m asking for the scientific evidence.

Ms Evans: The scientific evidence says that the climate is definitely changing. It is changing in a direction that implies that temperatures are increasing. It implies that a range of climatic events that had certain probability levels in the past are likely to get higher in the future. Whether you choose to use terminology to describe that as ’worse’ or ’better’ depends on where you are on the globe. In some parts of the world, they will find some of those changes working to their advantage and some of them not so much. I don’t want to put a label across the whole lot. What I can describe is what the scientific community is saying will happen.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Do you believe that we’re in a climate crisis?

CHAIR: Order! Senator Hanson-Young—

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: I’ll rephrase that. With all of the evidence that we have before us, does the science point to a climate crisis?

Ms Evans: That’s not something that the department is going to put a view on. We simply advise on the facts of what is happening and what the view of the scientific community is.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: What is the view of the scientific community?

Ms Evans: When I say that—

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Is there a crisis or is there not?

Ms Evans: When I say ‘the view of the scientific community’, I mean in relation to the scientific facts and evidence.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Is the scientific evidence that has been presented—you’ve referenced the most recent report in relation to oceans as an example—having a damaging impact on biodiversity?

Ms Evans: Certainly, it’s been the case in Australia that climate change and the impacts of climate change have been identified as one of the key threatening processes associated with the decline in species and so on, and threatened species in Australia.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Is the change in climate, as you’ve described it from evidence in these reports, a concern for the economy?

Ms Evans: The need to be prepared for a climate that is different from what we have had in the past is certainly very important for our economy. Exactly what the impacts will be depends very much on the nature of our response to the changes that are coming, so it’s hard to quantify exactly what the impact could be. Certainly, both the response to the impacts of the change in the climate itself and the need for the economy to adapt to a world in which emissions are constrained compared to what they are today are both important impacts on the economy.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Extreme weather events are going to become or are becoming more frequent. Is that a fact?

Ms Evans: That’s correct.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Does that have an impact on the economy?

Ms Evans: Again, the impact on the economy of those events depends on how well-prepared we are for them and how we respond to them when they occur. The fact that those things are going to become more frequent doesn’t, in and of itself, mean that the costs will be higher, but we do need to have responded in the knowledge that they will become more frequent and be prepared to manage that in a different way than we have in the past.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Would one of those responses be reducing carbon pollution?

Ms Evans: At a global level, certainly the Australian government, like many others, has signed up to the Paris Agreement, which is a global agreement to make sure that we control emissions in such a way that we minimise or keep the temperature increase to well below two degrees and preferably to 1.5. In that global sense, acting to reduce emissions is certainly part of the solution to keeping the costs of the impacts on the economy at their lowest. Australia is an active participant in that process. We have a target, which is quite ambitious, to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, so we are playing our part in that global commitment to keep emissions lower.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Who defines those targets as ‘ambitious’?

Ms Evans: The government has described it that way.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: What’s the scientific fact that makes them ‘ambitious’?

Ms Evans: If you look at what other countries have done and compare Australia’s target to it, we are certainly among the strongest targets in the OECD. Even if you look at the way that different international agencies report on Australia’s challenge—and I might even refer to the recent report by the IMF, and the government has never indicated that it would ever consider putting in a carbon price—the fact is that that report, in comparing Australia and our task to other countries and their tasks, suggests that the cost of the action that we are proposing appears to be higher than for other countries. That’s an independent assessment that says that our target is quite challenging. So we take that view that it’s an ambitious target from a range of places: by comparing it to other countries; by thinking about the nature of the changes that would need to occur in Australia to achieve that, and they are quite substantial; and by looking at what other reputable agencies say about our target when it’s announced.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: But what about what the science requires? Is it ambitious in relation to what the science requires?

Ms Evans: The science doesn’t specify a specific target for Australia. What the science says is that, if we are to have a good chance of holding temperatures to below two degrees, then at least developed countries need to be at net zero emissions by sometime in the second half of the century. Whether Australia’s current target of 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 is in line with that, I think we are potentially in line with that, especially since it’s part of a global solution; it’s a collective action problem.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Yet if we’re using carryover targets, how does it make any of this ambitious?

Ms Evans: The fact that Australia has overachieved on targets that it has set in the past, and that’s always been a part of the international framework—

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Yes, but we did start this conversation with you saying that there have been a number of more recent reports that have said that the climate is changing even more than perhaps previously anticipated. How can using carryover targets fit with the claim that what Australia is proposing to do is ambitious?

Ms Evans: Using carryover fits because the intention always of the structure of the availability of carryover was to ensure that countries did not feel like they were being disadvantaged by overachieving on targets in the past. The whole mechanism of the Paris Agreement is that you ratchet up or you ratchet towards lower emissions over time. These targets for 2030 are the first set of targets that we will set under the Paris Agreement. There will be further targets set by Australia down the track. That’s what the intent of the agreement is. So carryover fits in that context, because we wouldn’t want any country to feel that they were being penalised for having overachieved any particular target as they consider setting the next one.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Is there any other country that has come out and said that Australia is more ambitious than others, as you’ve claimed today?

Ms Evans: As I’ve said, I don’t know if that language is used but, when they look at Australia and they calculate the cost of the abatement that might have to be taken here, we tend to come out in the higher cost categories and that says that our target is ambitious.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: What do other countries think about the idea that Australia is being sneaky?

Ms Evans: I’m sorry; what’s your question?

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: The carryover target is to alleviate Australia actually doing much more at the moment, isn’t it?

Ms Evans: No. The government is committed to the 26 to 28 per cent target, as it always has been.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Has there been any concern raised with Australia about the use of the carryover target?

Ms Evans: I’d have to take that on notice or perhaps come back to it when I have my team here who are more deeply involved in the international discussions, but I’m not aware of it being raised formally with Australia at all.

UPDATE:
14-09-2020. No comments:

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