Recent reports suggest Kevin Rudd’s staff are leaving “in droves” due to the PM’s unrelenting work ethic:
THE pace of the 24/7 Government has taken its toll. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has lost about 40 per cent of all new appointments to his private office since last December, and his deputy, Julia Gillard, has lost almost 50 per cent.
About one-quarter of ministerial staffers appointed between December last year and October have fled, figures provided to Liberal frontbencher Michael Ronaldson reveal.
“At a time when the international financial markets are in free fall, there is a complete lack of stability and leadership in Kevin Rudd’s own office and ministerial wing,” the shadow special minister of state said.
In response to parliamentary questions, the Finance Department revealed to Senator Ronaldson that there had been 65 departures out of the 270 new ministerial staff appointed since December.
The number of departures among another 64 staff who were carried across from Labor’s time in opposition were not in the figures given to Senator Ronaldson.
The Prime Minister has lost 12 of his 29 new staff members. Ms Gillard has lost seven of her 15 new staffers.
Others with high turnover rates include Ageing Minister Justine Elliott (five out of nine), Veterans’ Affairs Minister Alan Griffin (four out of nine), and Human Services Minister Joe Ludwig (three from eight).
“When Julia Gillard, who as the Minister for Workplace Relations is supposed to be setting the benchmark for good workplaces, has a staff turnover rate of nearly 50 per cent in just nine months, then you know there is something seriously wrong in her office,” Senator Ronaldson said.
The bulk of those who wilted under the unrelenting pressure and hours were advisers, assistant advisers and executive assistant-office managers.
Perhaps it’s because under the former government administration staff were pre-occupied with not keeping the PM and senior ministers informed of important events?
A new broom sweeps clean as they say…
reb.
UPDATE: Apparently the story is all bollocks.
Filed under: Australian Politics, Julia Gillard | Tagged: Australia, Julia Gillard, kevin rudd, politics
Turns out to be a load of crudd.
Insiders just broke down the staff numbers leaving and the makeup of those leaving. This is nothing unusual and normal for the numbers and of the positions of those who left, especially in the first year of a new government. The core and dedicated staff remain in place.
Glenn Milne on Insiders claimed he personally knows a Rudd staffer who hadn’t seen his family in a month, whilst Rudd gets to see his family all the time. Of course Milne doesn’t back that claim up with any names or background.
Oh my god and Insiders is again putting Turnbull on a huge pedestal, with Kelly saying how great Turnbull is, looking like a Prime Minister and what a great leader he is and would make for the country. Spew, vomit, gag, retch…
Thanks Adrian.
I knew we could count on your for a rational perspective. I wonder why it is that the mainstream media are still hellbent on maligning the Labor party – even the ABC.
Got to admire you for watching The Insiders.
I just can’t bring myself to watch that circus anymore..
Why – besides being a conservative robot – would Milne want someone like Turnbull “leading” the country? He’s an ex-merchant banker, the ilk from which the Global Financial Crisis originated. There’s the HIH debacle too, which doesn’t reflect well on him.
High staff turnover in ministerial offices is simply par for the course. Because of the hours involved, it can be seen as a young person’s job but because of the complexity of the issues it should not be a young person’s job.
Rudd has always been a very difficult person to work for. He requires very high levels of detail, whether it’s needed or not. I am amazed that his top public servant Terry Moran is still in the chair. Obviously a glutton for punishment.
As for Insiders, it is a joy that awaits.
“Spew, vomit, gag, retch”
You have given the ending away. Lol. The truth is that the Opposition Organ has the official policy of Anyone But Rudd.
And so Liberal Michael Ronaldson has misled Parliament via the use of rubbery figures?
Incredible use of imagination re Turnbull looking anything near Prime Ministerish. What happened to the story a couple of days ago that the Libs/Nats are an undisciplined rabble? With due respect to the Nats especially good old Barnaby. Obviously Insiders taking emergency action to try to counter that debacle which was the last sitting day of Parliament.
Nah it was Paul Kelly who was laxing lyrical about Malcolm Turnbull, as he has been ever since Turnbull joined the Libs and even more so since he got the leadership.
Milne did go on about Julie Bishop doing quite a good job in parliament this week and being all over Swan apparently. News to me and probably the rest of the world, but that’s just what we’ve come to expect from the alternate reality the right wing commentators live in.
Sorry. Paul Kelly it was.
Does the Libsiders ever feature Laurie Oakes? Here’s what he had to say about the “extraordinary Coalition backflip”:
Daily Telegraph, 6 December 2008
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24756507-5001030,00.html
Insiders is a joke of a program. I thought political content on the ABC was supposed to be ‘balanced’ and ‘unbiased’. That program is one of the most biased going around.
Alastair, one of Richard Alston’s at the height the Howard government’s get the ABC enquiries, taking into account the number of mentions, length of time mentioned, subject content and tone of presenters, found a definite ABC bias. Yet Alston very quickly buried the findings of that enquiry and shoved the report deep down into the bowls of the government archives. Why?
That enquiry found there was a definite bias at the ABC, for the Coalition government.
Previous enquiries and subsequent ones, no matter how much Alston attempted to stack them, found no bias or slight bias in favour of the Howard government.
Yet we still have pieces of work like Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, screaming ABC bias in every word and minute of air time despite all the proof to the contrary.
So Rudd gets to see is family ‘all of the time’. Isn’t this somewhat at odds with the claim that Kevin is Kev747?
…and did anyone watch Alan Kohler after The Insiders (what a title, even that funny!)
The two experts (Hamish Douglass and I can’t remember the other) said what some have been saying here for some time…
…you may be interested to know that AK finished his show by advising people not to listen to the pollies and economists trying to talk the economy up – what’s coming is inevitable and no amount of rhetoric will change it – oh! and we will be going into recession next year…
…perhaps now you’ll stop berating JMc and yours truly when we tell it like we see it…still five years to recovery JMc?
That’s interesting but not surprising Adrian. To me, the ABC has been somewhat Liberal-biased for many years, without even taking Inisders into account.
Here is the latest news Turnbull to Barnaby Joyce you are such an outstanding politician, even though you crossed the floor in voting on thursday night i want to(bribe) promote you to the front bench,but Barnaby been a HONEST POLITICIAN? knock the offer back, as you can see i am not very good at blogging,so i will leave it to the experts and the shit stirrers, i was a reader of Tim’s blogs till he gave up,I came across Blogocrats through Jack the Insider
Still staying off topic for a little.
The Howard government put in place an ABC oversight commission headed by someone (can’t remember his name but a search would find it) on well over $200,000 pa whose sole job was to monitor the ABC for bias. Of course this person was a personnel Howard appointee so you know how fair this was.
Every single news, current affair piece and political documentary had to go through this commission before being aired. The ABC was one of the very few media outlets in the world outside autocracies that was vetted by government before it could air anything. Yet with a stacked right wing board, containing members deliberately chosen for their open hostility to the ABC and wanting it privatised, the right still claimed the ABC was biased and Alston went on a progrom to find bias by hook or crook, something he was to eventually fail at.
I once had a fairly long running debate on a right leaning forum on this subject during the height of the Howard years, just before Alston quit. My main opponent’s biggest beef in this wasn’t that the ABC was biased against the Howard government, but that it didn’t praise Howard enough, have him on enough and the questions they asked him were too hard and not flattering to Howard.
In other words the typical wingnut mindset we see so often and Milne exhibited today.
Welcome Arthur… stay and post whenever you feel like it.
And an additional welcome to add to joni’s welcome. I started on the late Matty Price’s blog and then to Tim’s and through the supreme effort of reb and joni here is a home where the important thing is follow through aka replies.
You got to wonder weather they breath test Milne before he goes to air
Not much wood left on the bedpost.
17. Arthur.L.J.Crowe(Crowey of Queensland)
LOL! Luv it! You keep posting Arthur – GO Queenslander!
18. scaper
Not you too, scaper, I thought IATW was bad enough!
TB
It’s a Reb, me and Tony from South Yarra thing…didn’t get to do the fishing because of the weather.
I’m burning out big time…time for the lady to assist.
Music break.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eNHet308wYA