Garrett’s under fire, but is it Julia Gillard’s turn next? Gottliebsen

The Peter Garrett insulation bungle is a symptom of a deep public service management problem in Canberra. It has already engulfed Penny Wong and Julia Gillard could be the next victim.

I must emphasise that I am not in the business of excusing ministerial mistakes, and Garrett and Wong could have done a lot better in handling their tasks and they have clear responsibilities under the Westminster system.

Nevertheless, the public service in Canberra is being asked to undertake tasks where it has little experience and that inexperience is contributing to the ministerial bungles. Penny Wong is lucky because opposition leader Tony Abbott is concentrating on the big picture in the emissions trading legislation. If he or his Climate Change Shadow Minister Greg Hunt ever begin to tackle the detail of the emissions trading legislation Penny Wong would be exposed.

It should have been possible to put forward an emissions trading scheme that worked, but the Canberra bureaucrats turned their back on State governments – led by Victoria – that tried to help them and listened only to the most vocal of corporate complainants.

The arrogance that affected the climate change public servants seems to have engulfed the related environmental department, which clearly received many warnings about the danger of what they were doing in insulation. In the end the buck stops with the Minister, but it has all the earmarks of Canberra moving into detailed management areas where it has limited knowledge and no experience.

Julia Gillard is a brilliant performer and she has handled the problems that have so far arisen in her schools building problem with the professionalism you would expect.

But, over the weekend, I talked with a number of small yet long-standing building industry contractors. They tell me many small building companies saw schools as a way out of their troubles, even though they were not familiar with the intricacies of education building. They won work with low tenders which had tight deadlines. As always, the next step in that process is that the builders or sub-contractors go broke in the middle of the job or do the work poorly.

If that happens it will present schools with big problems and they will be seeking money to complete the job. I must emphasise that these are anecdotal stories from building contractors who either missed jobs or who are working with these people. It will be some months before the stories are confirmed or proved wrong but I think there is a real danger that Gillard will be caught in the same trap as Garrett and Wong.

Both Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott are thinking up all sorts of ideas to give the public service in Canberra even more work to do as part of centralisation. Where the public service is operating in areas where it has proven expertise, ministers can look very good. But once the public service moves into new areas, it struggles and so do the ministers.

I know one or two ministers with good departments who regard this as the greatest long-term danger the government faces. What has happened to Peter Garrett – and what would happen to Penny Wong if the opposition focused on the emissions trading legislation detail – is merely a sign-post of what is ahead.

This article first appeared on Business Spectator.