If there is a change of government in NSW on March 25, the new administration has the task of running Australia’s largest public sector with little ministerial experience.
With the Coalition government in power since 2011, only one person in the NSW Labor shadow cabinet has experience as a minister. Shadow attorney-general Michael Daley has previously been police minister and finance minister.
Ben Hubbard, Julia Gillard’s former chief of staff and principal at Creswell Advisory, said it can take a while for previous shadow ministers to find their feet.
Hubbard has been involved in several state and federal changes of government. His consultancy was engaged by the federal government last year to provide advice on their first 100 days of government.
Hubbard offered The Mandarin his advice to new ministers and public servants who might experience disruption after the election.
For ministers, Hubbard emphasised the importance of the first four days to get a new government off to the right start, with the first 100 days “critically important”.
“The first 96 hours can create momentum and frame a new administration; conversely, a tentative and shambling government will spend months recovering from a rocky first week,” Hubbard said.
“Beyond a hard, detailed schedule of the first week, a detailed 100-day plan should be in the top drawer for later revision as the government settles in.”
If the opposition is considering machinery of government changes, Hubbard cautions they should only be done if critical given how disruptive they are to the public service.
Ministers should ask themselves what the challenging policy outcomes are that they wish to pursue before making those changes.
“A good example of that is the establishment of the new [Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water],” Hubbard said.
“That’s a critical priority for the new federal government and they needed a department solely focused on those changes, rather than rather than a wider department doing a bunch of things.”
“There should be a small number of big challenges, rather than a large number of small and medium-sized challenges.”
It links to a key question for a new government: how would they like to govern?
“How traditional will they be as compared to how innovative they’ll be in public administration?” Hubbard queries.
“What is the balance between the centre — so, the premier’s office or the PM’s office and the independence of ministers and their departments? And the third bit is, what do they actually want to do in that term of government if they’re elected?
“If you can answer those three questions, you can basically build up a schematic on how they want to govern.”
An incoming government consisting of people who have never been a minister before has a different risk profile to that of experienced ministers, he added.
“A comprehensive induction process for new ministers is a good start, and also really clear direction from the centre around staffing integrity settings, interests, policy process can the process and office arrangements,” Hubbard said.
“They will play a role in mitigating those potential risks.”
This is part one of our interview with political adviser Ben Hubbard. Part two published tomorrow will have his advice for public servants.
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