The Business Council of Australia has called for a halving of the number of ministerial staff and a comprehensive audit of the scope and size of government.
In a pointed speech on Thursday, BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott said many politicians had lost sight of the fundamental role of the public service.
And she told the Institute of Public Administration Australia’s 2012 International Congress the authority of the public service was being undermined by “political gatekeepers”.
“Your custodianship of the long-term policy agenda has been eroded by short-term thinking,” Ms Westacott said.
“Good policy making processes are the last line of defence against the whims of short-termism and that is what a high-performing public sector can and must provide.”
In an apparent reference to the carbon tax and the minerals resource rent tax, Ms Westacott said major policies were “unravelling before our eyes”.
This was because the process was poor, the architecture was wrong, the assumptions flawed and the consultation “disingenuous”.
“The fiscal implications of these flawed processes is huge,” she said.
“And not only in financial terms. They squander the community’s appetite for reform, and its trust.”
Ms Westacott was previously the director of housing and the secretary of education in Victoria, and also the director-general of the NSW Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources.
