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Subject: The next Liberal leader?
Aussiegunneragain    6/7/2010 9:54:54 AM
Assuming, as I hope, that Tony Abbott loses the next election and gets consigned to the dustbin of political history, what do people think of Scott Morrison, the shadow immigration minister from NSW as a possible future candidate to lead the Liberal Party? I saw the guy on ABC's Q & A for the second time tonight and irrespective of what anybody thinks about the Liberal's asylum seeker policy I think his performance indicates a highly competant politician who is well across his brief. He also has age on his side (he's 41 years old), has 15 years of experience as a leader in industry bodies, is in a safe Liberal seat, comes from a modest conservative background (father a policeman and mother an office administraor) but got where he is through Sydney Boy's High(a selective public school) and is energetically involved in his community. He is probably a little more of the Christian conservative type than suits my taste but that plays well with a lot of Liberal voters and he comes across as pragmatic enough not to scare us heathans off (as does Abbott the Mad Monk). Apparently he also couldn't get on with Fran Bailey when she was his minister while he was working for Tourism Australia, which is a postive for him because from what I have heard people in her department considered her to be a completly unreasonable biatch. Thoughts?
 
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Volkodav    And again after proof reading   8/3/2010 8:18:10 AM
 Inside Canberra was predicting 2007 as the election to lose as the coming financial crisis would make who ever won look bad.  If they failed to avert a recession they were incompetent, if they averted a recession the measures they needed to take would get the electorate off side.  Either way all the opposition would need to do is sit back and snipe, but the Libs nearly stuffed that up with their musical chairs game for the leaders role.
 
On a different note the leaking from cabinet seems quite odd and self destructive and it got me wondering who actually attends.  For instance who takes the minutes it wouldn't be Godwin Gretches cousin by any chance?
 
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gf0012-aust       8/3/2010 5:33:28 PM

On a different note the leaking from cabinate seems quite odd and self destructive and it got me wondering who actually attends.  For instance who takes the minutes it wouldn't be Godwin Gretches cousing by any chance?

"High" meetings such as NSC do not allow notes to be taken - it's also a very very limited subset of people who can attend - at a uniform level its star level - at a non uniform level it's cabinet level.
Unlike PServants and Uniforms, politicians don't go through the same clearance requirements.
 
you don't have to scratch too hard to form a view as to how many people would know who's blurted.
 


 
 
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gf0012-aust       8/3/2010 9:28:35 PM


"High" meetings such as NSC do not allow notes to be taken - it's also a very very limited subset of people who can attend - at a uniform level its star level - at a non uniform level it's cabinet level.

Unlike PServants and Uniforms, politicians don't go through the same clearance requirements. 

you don't have to scratch too hard to form a view as to how many people would know who's blurted.
 

to clarify - at a non uniform level if not ministerial staff they have star equivalence. 

 
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Volkodav       8/4/2010 8:49:42 AM
Well Gretch was an assistant secretary wasn't he, what would that be equivalent to? The other one I can think or is John Stone who was Secretary of the Treasury although he did resign rather than serve as a mole.  I wonder if Labor would be better off if they had taken an axe to the senior levels of the public service when they were elected. 
 
What are the APS levels above EL2 these days?
 
I know when my dad was an ASO 6 he was equivalent to a Major under the old scheme.  That was back in the days when ASO went upto 8.
 
Not arguing just asking.
 
How do they work out equivalency for non government employees, for instance the was a meeting my old boss wanted to delegate one of us to attend but couldn't because the minimum required rank was CMDR.
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Volkodav   8/7/2010 7:12:47 PM

Well Gretch was an assistant secretary wasn't he, what would that be equivalent to? The other one I can think or is John Stone who was Secretary of the Treasury although he did resign rather than serve as a mole.  I wonder if Labor would be better off if they had taken an axe to the senior levels of the public service when they were elected. 

 What are the APS levels above EL2 these days?

 I know when my dad was an ASO 6 he was equivalent to a Major under the old scheme.  That was back in the days when ASO went upto 8.

 Not arguing just asking.

 How do they work out equivalency for non government employees, for instance the was a meeting my old boss wanted to delegate one of us to attend but couldn't because the minimum required rank was CMDR.


The Federal Public Service Levels for policy staff like Gretch generally work like this (top down to bottom).
SES Band 4 (Secretary)
SES Band 3 (Deputy Secretary)
SES Band 2 (First Assistant Secretary)
SES Band 1 (Assistant Secretary)
EL-2 (Director)
EL-1 (Assistant Director)
APS-6 (Senior Policy Officer)
APS-4 or 5 (Policy Officer)
APS-1, 2 or 3 ( basic admin roles - policy areas don't have many of these. Graduates are at APS-2 or 3)
 
Gretch was at the level in red. In policy areas like Gretch was in at that level you would be expected to manage a branch of perhaps up to 30 people, although some people like Gretch are technical experts have no team at all.  So, while Gretch was at the SES level he was right at the bottom of it, the "shit of the kings" so to speak. EL-2's could be considered the "kings of the shit" (sorry GF ;-)).
 
I seriously doubt that Gretch wouldn't have been privy to Cabinet discussions on a first hand basis. As far as I am aware the only PS's that generally attend those are the Cabinet Secretary, some staff from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (to take notes), and Department Secretary's on an as required basis. Sometimes you hear some things about what ministers have said in Cabinet, but I think that only PM&C get to see the minutes so I doubt that a journalist like Jabba (Laurie Oakes) would consider a second hand source like that good enough to leak (though you never know).
 
Apart from that its all Ministers and staffers in the room. My bet would be that it is one of them, probably our Kev given his previous relationship with Jabba (according to Mark Latham at least). I think he was sending a not so subtle message to Julia to the effect that you can either look after me or I'll fuck you over like you've never been fucked before. Given he's the man on the hustings in Queensland now, it looks like it worked.
 
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Aussiegunneragain       8/7/2010 7:15:09 PM

Anyone think that Peter Costello might make a come back when the dust from this election settles?

 

He would find that somewhat hard to do without a seat in Parliament.

 
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Aussiegunneragain    Volkodav   8/7/2010 7:24:34 PM

An interesting article I read the other day seems to follows AGs view of the world in that while the author believes we would have been better off had Howard been given another go and then handed over to Costello last year the simple fact of the matter is Tony Abbott is not Howard and his front bench is less experience and less capable than Labors current team.  The concern that an Abbott victory would cement the ultra conservatives in the upper echelons of the Liberals instead of them moving back to the centre and the majority of Australians hoped for was also mentioned.  Basically the conclusion was that the best thing for Australia was to keep Labor while the Libs sort their sh!t out and find a way to ditch the mad monk.


That was broadly my view of the World until Bigfella pointed out to me on another forum that the Greens are basically assured of getting the balance of power in the Senate, by winning lots of those seats that the Libs won in 2004. The prospect of a Labor/Green alliance introducing a bunch of economy wreaking policies during even one term makes a vote for Gillard far too scary for me. In contrast the prospect of Abbott's rotten social policy being hamstrung by Labor and the Greens in the Senate makes his election a lot less scary.
 
Don't get me wrong, I don't like the guy any more now than I did before I realised this and I don't like the idea of him being entrenched, but he has become the lesser of two evils in my eyes. At least he seems fairly committed to cutting debt ... or his party and donors may have told him that he has to tone back on the big government conservativism if he is going to get their support.
 
So, at this stage it's the Libs in the House and the Australian Sex Party in the Senate for moi.
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
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gf0012-aust       8/7/2010 8:21:14 PM

I know when my dad was an ASO 6 he was equivalent to a Major under the old scheme.  That was back in the days when ASO went upto 8.
ASO-5 = Capt
ASO-6 = Major
EL1  = LTCOL
EL2  = COL
SES-1/Branch Head = Brigadier/1 Star
SES-2/Div Head = 2 Star 
SES-3 = 3 Star
SES-4 = CDF

The old system went to Clerk Cl 9 - I guess the SES objected to being called Clerks... :) 
 
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gf0012-aust       8/7/2010 8:31:01 PM
 EL-2's could be considered the "kings of the shit" (sorry GF ;-)).

When I "left" AustGov in 2000 I was an El2.  It was a $chitty job then - but it's $chitt at the Band1 as well

My ex is SES2 and she has no life AH - esp as she's become a Ministers pet rock because they've worked 
out that she's driven to  succeed.

The layer where you can do stuff without seagulls doing continual harm is the APS-6/ASO-6.

Having spent a year in a Policy Secretariat role many moons ago, I can tell you that I would rather be cursed with hand feeding 
piranhas in an amazonian  school for sado-masochists than to ever do that job ever again...
 
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Aussiegunneragain       8/7/2010 9:08:58 PM


I know when my dad was an ASO 6 he was equivalent to a Major under the old scheme.  That was back in the days when ASO went upto 8.

ASO-5 = Capt

ASO-6 = Major
EL1  = LTCOL

EL2  = COL

SES-1/Branch Head = Brigadier/1 Star

SES-2/Div Head = 2 Star 

SES-3 = 3 Star

SES-4 = CDF

The old system went to Clerk Cl 9 - I guess the SES objected to being called Clerks... :) 
IMHO considering those those levels to be equivailent is bullshit and military officers are hideously underpaid for what they do. I have an ex school mate who has just been promoted to Major in the Army after a decade. He commands over 100 men in a combat role and has only just jumped over the pay scale that I was getting as an EL-1 policy wonk producing bits of paper for a living, two and a half years after graduating from economics. For that matter I have another mate who I graduated from nursing who now runs a hospital ward, a job he got after 7 years of stomping the floor. He only now gets comparable money to what I was in that two and a half years.
 
Basically while that is what you have to pay to get people with my type of qualification but I find it to be shockingly unfair that these very capable guys aren't getting at least twice as much as me to do what I consider to be much, much harder and more responsible jobs.
 
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