Minister for everything
Naming conventions in the bureaucracy are subject to the same fads and fashions as everything else.
Who can forget the changes wrought by state governments of both hues over the past two decades? The Note certainly hasn’t.
In 1993, for instance, when the Liberals won office, the huge Department of State Development was devolved into the Department of Resources and Development and the Department of Commerce and Trade. It was a move then cabinet minister Colin Barnett championed as an inclusive approach, enhancing individual industries and allowing growth in areas that were often overlooked.
That changed when Geoff Gallop’s (pictured) state Labor government returned to a consolidation phase for the bureaucracy, creating fewer, bigger super-ministries with short, all-encompassing names. Using the same example, most of what the Liberals had pulled asunder was stitched back together in 2003 under the Department of Industry Resources. Neat and tidy, if not a bit generalised.
DoIR, as we knew and loved it, was consigned to history’s dustbin (but for how long?) after Mr Barnett became premier in 2008. It was reverse-engineered to form three new entities – the Department of Mines and Petroleum, the Department of State Development, and the Department of Commerce. Three for the price of one.
Federal Labor has taken another route in this naming battle. We shall call it the third way, a sort of halfway house between the desire to split up portfolios and give each segment a name, and its natural enemy, amalgamation combined with brevity.
We saw after the failed coup last week just how easily they do things in Canberra these days.
For instance, this week the Department of Climate Change will be merged with the Industry Department and will become the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education. Even the acronym is a mouthful.
The ruling power in Canberra seems to like ridiculously long but very inclusive titles for its ministers too.
Craig Emerson is now minister for tertiary education, skills, science and research, minister for trade and competiveness, and minister assisting the prime minister on Asian century policy.
Try fitting that on a business card.
Backed-up
Speaking of ridiculous, The Note takes its hat off to digital storage provider Buffalo for suggesting we all participate in World Backup Day later this week.
Once the preserve of charities and causes, this is the first time we’ve seen a business champion a global date for its own purposes – warning SMEs about the risks of backing up critical business data to portable storage devices designed for consumer use.
