Budgets: Every government has them and large numbers of Victoria’s PS workforce can testify by their high blood pressure it was Victoria’s turn go budgetary last week.
In between the mandatory deficit courtesy of COVID-19 and the unavoidable spending made in past-year promises, Victoria’s Treasurer, as magical treasurers everywhere do, resorted to creative headlinery to assure voters they were receiving the best possible deal from a seriously limited Budget bank account.
But Victoria, it appears, has perfected the art of stretching the government dollar so it can be used for the same purpose time and time again, with every voter assured they’re right out in the front of the queue.
In a batch of official Budget announcements on Budget Day, PS-ssssst found a family of remarkably analogous headlines among the Treasurer’s high pile of public publications.
According to the Treasurer, this year’s Victorian budget promised to Put Western Victorians first; Put South West Victorians first; Put Gippsland People first; Put Goulburn Valley Locals first; Put North East Victorians first; Put Bendigo People first; and last but still first, Put Ballarat People first.
And believe it or not, there were many more on the front line!
With almost everyone in the State coming ‘first’, PS-sssst! wonders who’s left to run behind and clean up the race?
Misguided drivers
To the NSW Department of Education now where office staff have been issued with a new guide requiring them to show their drivers licence number and expiry date before taking out a fleet car.
The document requiring the display happens to be creatively titled: “Motor vehicle best practise guide”, prompting one recipient to wonder if the number and date have to be displayed before the driver gets to “practice” their driving on the fleet car.
The department does recover from its “practical” error however by correcting it inside with the heading: ‘Departmental motor vehicle best practice guide’.
Nevertheless pedantic PS-sssst! wonders if a Department of Education has this much trouble with simple spelling, what hopes do other less didactical and donnish Departments have!
Legally speaking
Still in NSW now where the 20th anniversary of a highly successful legal initiative is being heartily celebrated by the State’s wise and learned judges, lawyers, court staff and lawbreakers alike.
It’s a program that has made its case over the 20 years, playing a central role in the ending of illegal drug addictions and other drug-related offences that found large numbers of people guilty of misdemeanor, offering them the chance of kicking their habits without seeing the inside of a prison.
And, as if being hugely successful wasn’t reason enough to be picked up and publicised by PS-sssst! the fact that the program goes by the name ‘Magistrates Early Referral into Treatment’ should be a clean giveaway.
This is a program known to its mates as MERIT!
How appropriate!
Legally loose
And staying in the NSW court system, christening a seriously significant program with a cunningly clever name such as MERIT is evidence that there were smarty PS staffers loose in the public sector way back then!
And wouldn’t the world be a drearier place without them?
And now to Rama Gaind’s weekly giveaway for a chance to become the proud owner of the beautiful and informative book, Rivers: The Lifeblood of Australia by Ian Hoskins.
To join Rama’s Army of winning winners, all we needed to do was tell her the name of Australia’s longest single river and then clamber out of the infamous PS News Barrel of Booty first and the book will become ours.
The answer Rama was fishing for was ‘The Murray River’ and the first entrant to deliver it was David J from the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment.
Congratulations to David and thanks to everyone who took part. The book will be sailing to its new home very soon.
In the meantime, for your last chance of the year to add ‘Rama winner’ to your CV simply tune in for her latest Book giveaway at this PS News link.
Good luck to all who do.
Till next week…..
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