Australia Post remains an essential service provider. For as long as it remains under public control we all have a say in how it delivers it’s services. In particular those services outside of Greater Sydney and Melbourne.
It’s not surprising that there are regular calls to not privatise the NBN with similar reasoning.
The ABC has some challenging questions that need very transparent and honest answers. If “AP is not delivering”, the failures may go all the way to the two responsible ministers. At least that’s my take on what is being suggested needs to be investigated.
That is correct. And like any government departments or government owned corporations (like Australia Post), there is discretion within the management/board to pay bonuses for performance. Under the EBAs, these are usually structured as a cash bonus rather than gifts.
I wonder if the same reaction (or pub test outcome) would have been seen if the same staff were paid a bonus of $3000 for outstanding work that say saved or made Australia Post significant money. I think that because it was a Cartier watch, it is seen as being excessive when similar or more monetary value bonuses are often paid within the public service/within government owned corporations.
Possibly in these COVID-19 times when excesses of government, including substantial incremental pay rises, are on the nose. This is tye same time when the private sector is suffering from the government implemented controls and can’t afford similar offerings or even certainty of employment. This may be where part of the frustrations lies.
Part of the issue is gifts of reasonably expensive watches. Do any of the recipients need a watch? Do any of them like the design and style? Will they be worn, on-gifted, or store for eternity?
Such largesse is easily questioned whereby an outright bonus where a senior staff exceeds their KPI is above board. Therein lies a problem. The watch gifts superficially appear to be random gifts, not merit awards expressed in their contracts, regardless of the merit of the recipients.
This would be absolutely justified in a public or private company. But in a government owned company ultimately the government (and by extension the public) is the shareholder. And this sort of “incentive” program really needed some shareholder input before being implemented.
Isn’t this what the current government has asked of Australia Post? IE to be run and operate profitably.
It may not be what us the consumers expect or need.
Providing a reliable service at a cost the consumer can afford might require the service to be subsidised by the government as a service to the public.
It seems there has been a choice made by government. Are the responsible Ministers, and the Govt appointed Board now saying those they appointed are not doing what was asked? Private enterprise rewards performance in so many different ways. Performance that is measured by growth, by value and by profit. Happy consumers seem a distant last.
The issues now coming to light and largesse might seem extraordinary. It seems improbable the board and share holder Ministers knew little, suggesting complicity in the outcomes. If the knew so little it begs the question as to their competence. Especially if it has taken this long and a public reveal to focus their attention.
P.S.
Arguably something most shareholders in public companies rarely get to vote on. If the Govt wanted to run AP as a service to the public, why appoint someone from the private sector to lead. Better to side shift a senior govt public servant or retiring military officer more accustomed to making billion dollar decisions for less pay than a high court justice?
I think that this is just about the look of the reward. In times of recession, when people are laid off, the economy is needing pumping up, what purpose does an expensive watch serve? What was that CEO thinking?
We both know it is ideologically driven that anyone from business must be smarter, sharper, more accountable, more truthworthy, and more economical than any public servant, the latter whose only reason to exist is to rort taxpayers. There is no evidence to show anything other than that is how this and its preceding governments think?
While they do not state it, I suspect they use MP behaviour as a model to justify their belief in how public servants act.
AP abandoned it’s rural and regional and many urban post offices. The replacements have been franchisees who have bid for the opportunity. In those urban centres we know best every second PO has gone along with convenience of access to PO Boxes.
It’s far from the typical model of a loss making tax payer subsidised service. The service such as it is now comes at the risk of sending small businesses - franchisees and delivery contractors to the wall. All to ensure the tax payer is not out of pocket?
At the same time many consumers complain of receiving neither service nor value. What’s left to be said?
We applied for postal votes and as of today no mail with the enclosed voting material. We as of yesterday voted at pre-polling as we knew that we wouldn’t get the paperwork. How much faith did we have, a little I admit until about 3 days out from voting day, then it was nil, ziltch, none, nada, zero…
And we are Urban/Suburban in the Greater Brisbane area, so if remote and rural are missing out then they are just the same as the rest of us it seems…nothing like being fair and equal in treatment even if the treatment is unfair…they can at least say they are balanced in their failures to deliver.
Yup. And some Tall Poppy Syndrome. This kind of witch hunt is right in line with the dopy questions about the cost of potted plants.
She thought that she was the head of a money making concern that was able to reward employees and had some discretion about how. This is not the public service but a multi billion dollar enterprise but spending $20,000 by the boss is not OK. Scotty from Marketing says she doesn’t have that level of authority. Maybe she ought to have asked nicely first.
It’s really not fair, is it. Scotty from Marketing slams her for some $20K in gift giving from a few years ago, yet defends every single one of his minsters as they ineptly preside over public service departments that squander hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars every year.
I am sure Ms Holgate will bounce back very nicely in another job. Hope so.
One truly hopes that, if accurate, people can correlate the quotes attributed to her with her position and experience and see it for what, to me, it really is …
Weeds often grow taller than desirable flora - the lawnmower distinguishes not …
expensive “gifts” can be sold
Maybe the authoriser of the “watch gifts” thought they would not get scrutinised as much as a “cash gift” coming out of the government owned AP coffers (ie the publicly owned coffers).
Another aspect to the “did the recipeints need a new watch” and “expensive ‘gifts’ can be sold” is that simple things such as a thank you letter, an appreciation certificate, an inexpensive object (eg an excellence badge or pin) are the types of things that recipients do keep, and display, and talk about.
Is this really about the nature of the recognition given or about whether the CEO was entitled to make such a decision?
There was a highly paid CEO of a commercial organisation, not the public service, who made a decision. She thought out of the millions or billions involved a few thousand dollars was at her discretion. The government told her, in retrospect, that she did not have such discretion. There was nothing that made this plain beforehand. But millions of citizens cheered as another tall poppy hit the dust.
If she was otherwise competent why treat her that way? Why allow the mob to bring her down?
