Numbers of Ministerial Staff by State and Territory in 2011-12

Numbers of Ministerial staff drawn from the most recent, most authoritative source publicly available (Post updated after Queensland figures were updated in week of 8 October 2012)

“War” on Cut and Paste?

Surely when a Parliamentary Secretary for Veterans Affairs, with a long record of military service, is called to speak on commemorative occasions, he could be relied on to string together a few suitable words of his own? Apparently not.

Over the past few years, Liberal Member of the Legislative Council, Charlie Lynn, has plagiarised articles and websites in making a series of Parliamentary speeches to mark significant military occasions and tributes. While he’s not alone in adopting these lax standards, the scale in conjunction with the nature of his responsibilities as a Parliamentary Secretary, are of concern.

Blue Books or Bland Books?

After months of wrangling, the O’Farrell Government has finally released several of the “incoming government briefings” – colloquially known as the “Blue Books” – given to it by government departments following the March 2011 election.

The Australian Financial Review had sought the release of these Blue Books under the Government Information Public Access Act (GIPA): the basis of NSW’s freedom of information regime.

Wild Dogs, Opera Houses and Empire Building

Every first term government in its first weeks and months wants to “do more with less” to the size of government.

In recent years, with the infiltration of the Management Mechanics, it usually starts out as, say, half a dozen Mega-Ministries and 8 or 9 Super-Dooper-Departments.

Well, the O’Farrell Government hasn’t let NSW down.

O’Farrell Govt Staff Numbers Jump 40%

It took only 82 days for the number of O’Farrell Government Ministerial staffers to swell by 40 percent.

Barely two and a half months after trotting out the usual post-election bromides of running a “mean, lean machine”, the number of staffers has bulked up quicker than a Spanish cyclist.