hundreds of millions of dollars of public money, and by the developed abusive and bullying culture throughout the public service. The resulting stress on hard working non political, totally dedicated individuals is enormous. Also not well acknowledged is the current 'Canberra paralysis' which is the direct result of the two parties not being able to deal civilly and constructively with the hung parliament. Sylvie Leber As a former Victorian state public servant i am pleased that this debate is happening.. The issues in the PS that I found of concern were: -Bullying culture and fear -Politicisation of PS role (please the minister not the public) -Lack of creativity and risk taking -Poorly skilled managers -Lack of recognition of good work -Intolerance to dissenting voices -Overly hierarchical structure Exactly Silvie. Also there is the total risk averseness of heads of agencies, the inability to work across the silos, the 'pecking order' of central and mining agencies reflected in the behavior of officers against each other, the trifling of dissent of any form and the chronic underfunding of compliance and enforcement agencies e.g. CUSTOMS, CASA, AMSA, FSANZ etc etc. 12 days ago Elizabeth O'Keeffe Consultant (logged in via email @gmail.com) Thanks to John and Terry for a fascinating interview, full of interesting insights and ideas. I do think however that the heading on the article is misleading. Terry isn't calling for an inquiry into the public service, as I read his final comments. He's asking for something much more interesting and pertinent