Dear Australian Public Service Commission,

I refer to Peter Riordan’s ‘Open Letter to the Australian Public Service on APS Bargaining’ published on the APSC’s website on 29 August 2023 here: https://www.apsc.gov.au/news-and-events/...

Specifically, I refer to the Mr Riordan’s statement that: ‘The improved offer remains the largest pay increase APS employees will have received in over a decade.’

'APS employees’ within the meaning given by the Public Service Act 1999, includes employees engaged under ss 22 or 72 of the Public Service Act 1999 with classifications of APS1-6, EL1-EL2 and SESB1-3.

Mr Riordan would be well aware that under the former government, SES or Senior Executive Service APS employees successfully partnered with their Coalition mates to implement massive reductions in living standards for APS1-6 APS employees and EL1-EL2 APS employees including by freezing the salaries of those APS employees for up to four years.

As a quid pro quo, SES APS employees were rewarded by their Coalition mates with annual pay increases in excess of CPI for each and every year that other APS employees had their salaries frozen or were otherwise awarded pay increases below the CPI.

SES APS employees, being led by their snouts, happily gave effect to the former Coalition Government’s guiding ideology of governing only for the 1%. Robodebt and other instances of public sector corruption that became endemic across the APS are a direct consequence of these arrangements.

That the APSC’s SES employee cohort actively covered up the corruption engaged in by former Public Service Commissioner and Liberal Party/IPA stooge, John Lloyd, is a case in point.

Under the FOI Act, I seek access to any document relied upon by Mr Riordan that the ‘improved offer’ referred to in his open letter to the APS ‘remains the largest pay increase’ that SES employees (those employees being ‘APS employees’) ‘will have received in over a decade’.

I note that if Mr Riordan is unable to substantiate his claim, he has necessarily contravened subsections 13(1), 13(2), 13(4), 13(8) and 13(11) of the Public Service Act 1999.

Yours faithfully,
T Nutt

Thanks

To assist I refer to this article in the AFR from February 2018:
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/abcc-...

titled: “ABCC bosses get bumper pay hikes despite government 'wage restraint'”

That article opens with:

“Top executives in the building industry watchdog received pay increases of almost 14 per cent last year, while the agency's staff averaged pay rises of just 1 per cent. Figures released by the Australian Building and Construction Commission under freedom-of-information laws show one senior executive's pay jumped from $199,000 to $222,500 and two rose from $185,000 to $210,000 in 2016-17.”

The ABCC was of course led, at the time, by Australian Building and Construction Commissioner Nigel Hadgkiss, a close friend of corrupt diddler, former Public Service Service Commissioner John Lloyd.

Mr Hadgkiss, just like John Lloyd, was appointed as Commissioner, not on the basis of merit, but on the basis of his affiliation with the Liberal Party and far-right extremist group, the Institute of Public Affairs.

And just like corrupt PoS John Lloyd, crooked grub Nigel Hadgkiss engaged in corruption within months of coming into office. And just like the APSC’s unscrupulous senior management group, the ABCC’s senior management group, despite being well aware of Mr Hadkiss’ corruption, covered that corruption up. Presumably because they got 14% pay increases while the non-SES APS employees that actually do real work got a 1% increase.

So tell me again, Mr Riordan, how a 11.2% increase over three years will be “the largest pay increase APS employees will have received in over a decade”. Because that’s certainly not true in respect of the corrupt SES APS employees at the ABCC.

Dear APSC

To further assist, this article states that SES APS employees in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet received annual pay increases in 2015/16 of up to 12%:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/...

(As an aside, it also states that dirty corrupt Liberal Party Robodebt instigator Kathryn Campbell got a 7.5% pay increase).

At this point, it's fairly clear that Mr Riordan's claim that "The improved offer remains the largest pay increase APS employees will have received in over a decade" is patently false.

In the interests of settling this matter, I’m willing to withdraw my request made under the FOI Act on 31 August 2023 if:
- by close of business, on Thursday 14 September 2023, the APSC publishes, on the home page of its website, for a period of at least 28 days, a statement acknowledging the factual inaccuracy of Mr Riordan’s claim and removing that claim from Mr Riordan’s ‘open letter’; and
- the APSC sends, by close of business on Friday 15 September 2023, a communication to all employer representatives at all Commonwealth agencies the subject of current EBA negotiations, an acknowledgement that Mr Riordan’s claim is inaccurate and requesting that employer representatives circulate the effect of that communication to all staff at their agencies (noting that many employer representatives regurgitated that lie to staff in an effort to con staff into agreeing to the less than equitable offer being made).

I’d urge you to consider my offer carefully, not just because the last election was meant to be an election about public sector integrity, but also because in the absence of a plausible explanation as to the accuracy of Mr Riordan’s statement, we’re plainly in the field of serious disclosable conduct on the part of Mr Riordan.

Yours sincerely.

So upon being presented with evidence that demonstrates, beyond any doubt, that Peter Riordan’s claim is entirely false, the APSC doubles down and delivers up a bunch of public policy documents that prove nothing. Even your own remuneration reports prove Mr Riordan’s claim to be deliberately false.

Peter Riordan is just another crooked, highly partisan, senior public servant - just like Hadgkiss, Campbell, Foster, Lloyd, Halton and Pezzullo – the very epitome of everything wrong with the APS.

You’re a pack of lying grubs – an absolute disgrace.