Posts By steve davies

Open Government Australia – Betrayal and Corruption

In May 2010 Nicholas Gruen of the Australian Gov 2.0 Taskforce published The last post: now for the main event – you! In July 2010 Lindsay Tanner issued the Declaration of Open Government. In many ways Australia was leading the way. We all knew hard work lay ahead, but the outlook was rosy. Open data,Read… Read more »

Open letter to Mr Stephen Sedgwick AO, Australian Public Service Commissioner

Dear Commissioner The purpose of this open letter is to articulate a number of issues relating to the apparent thinking of the Australian Public Service Commission and, indeed, the way the Commission goes about its work. In particular, it is a matter of concern that the Commission’s stance perpetuates a repressive corporate management culture. Self-limitingRead… Read more »

Submission to Bullying Inquiry : The Totalitarian Practices of Corporate Human Resources

The Australian bullying recently announced an inquiry into workplace bullying. The public service should be leading the way in putting a stop to workplace bullying. Sadly, the reality is that there is a gap between what is espoused and what actually happens in the Australian Public Service. Ticking the boxes on administrative processes is notRead… Read more »

Australian Taxation Office : Awesome abusive managerial culture exposed

What is awesome – in a negative sense – about what is described in this post is the fact that abusive cultures such this are allowed to flourish in the first place. Over the past month and a half I have been working with Serene Teffaha and others as a result of disclosures that pointRead… Read more »

FOI Update : The Pro Disclosure Culture of the Australian Taxation Office

Now how widespread is this issue? This may be regarded by some as one of my more controversial posts. After a lot of thought and conversation I have decided to go ahead and publish this post. I decided to so as I do not believe it is right for public sector agencies to hide informationRead… Read more »

News from Australia : The paranoia that will ‘shut’ government

Now how true do these observations hold for America and elsewhere? The Canberra Times kindly published an article of mine in the Public Sector Informant magazine. The informant itself is not available on line so I’ve provided it in pdf below. You sometimes hear people complain about how the press alters the what they sayRead… Read more »

Digital Destruction

An excellent video from Erik Qualman. A progression from the death of the wrist watch to the emergence of the Digital Leader. Destruction may seem a harsh term to some. After all, these devices and services have been replaced by something better. All of it social. However, that being said the way some of theRead… Read more »

Workplace socialisation in the Public Service

In the course of examining data from the current Australian Public ServiceState of the Service of the Service Report the previous report. It contains an interesting chart showing employee satisfaction or engagement by length of service in the APS (see at the end of this post). What is interesting is the reduction in engagement overRead… Read more »

Social media and the 21st Century Enlightenment

Some time ago I wrote and presented a paper advocating the need for a Public Service Renaissance. A philosophical kindred spirit recently drew my attention to the work of Matthew Taylor and the RSA. In particular RSA Animate – 21st century enlightenment. Some historical context. The Renaissance saw advances in literature, architecture, humanism, and aRead… Read more »