A jolly good round of applause now for the long-serving Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) which chalked up its 93rd birthday in October.
Born in South Australia as a kid-brother of the British Institute of Public Administration in October 1927, IPAA has, in its many nick-names and pseudonyms over the years, fought the good fight for ‘Public Service’, often with small numbers of supporters and occasionally even smaller numbers in the bank account.
Known initially as the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) in the 1930s, IPA became RIPA in 1954 when Her Majesty Elizabeth II agreed to allow it to use ‘Royalty’.
Somewhere along the track ‘Australia’ made its way into the title, so that in the early 1970s PS-sssst! joined the Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration (RAIPA) and received quarterly booklets dissecting the public administrative controversies of the time.
Thankfully RAIPA’s management managed to react to the phonetic impurity of its name, rearranging its letters to the “more politically correct” RIPAA in 1991.
Having reached the ripe old age of 90, IPAA can do as it wishes of course and in this case it dropped the ‘Royal’ in 1995 (when it was only 68!) to christen itself IPAA, as it is today.
Next stop: 2028 for the centenary party!
Typos R Us!
In what could be classed an exercise in self-deformation now PS-sssst! bares all sharing a correspondence received last week from Patricia S of the Australian Taxation Office, pointing out a typographical transgression and teasing PS-sssst! for teasing its readers for their slightest sins of snafu while misdemeanoring its own mistakery unchallenged.
“I can imagine your inbox filling up with sharp-eyed people who have spotted this error”, the pedantic Patricia propounded, airing the painful error for all to see.
“This is because you have trained us to always be eagled-eyed and read what is written rather than what our eyes sometimes skip over.”
Eagle-eyed or not, Patricia was the first to point out PS-sssst!’s incomprehensiveness in promoting Rama Gaind’s end-of-year bow-out for her hugely popular giveaway segment, reporting that the hundreds of entrants “who tried their luck all through 2012 ….” had won a tank-load of free books and DVDs every week since the beginning of the year.
As Patricia so sharply pointed out, they should have tried their luck in 2021!
Thanks for our embarrassment, Patricia. And just before Christmas too!
At least we won’t be nine years short in the presentation of a Perfectly Popular PS-sssst! Pack of Paraphernalia for you which will be popped into the post very soonly.
Our way of saying thanks for joining in the PS-sssst! phun! Cheers.
In frog we trust!
To Victoria now where the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning has reported the wonderful success of helping an endangered frog community make a marvelous comeback in a specially built wetland not far from the city of Melbourne.
While the undoubted achievement of saving the frog for the future is an accomplishment to be acclaimed, attained and appreciated, we wouldn’t think so if we asked the frog.
Close to eradication or extraction the frog celebrates is lifestyle with the miserably depressed and despondent name ‘Growling Grass Frog’ which PS-sssst! assumes means it just wants to be left alone.
Why is it that we sometimes know exactly how the frog feels?
Taking the wrap
And while on the subject of Christmas (which we weren’t but we are now!), today’s edition of PS News (and therefore PS-sssst!) is the last one for the year but we won’t be going quietly!
We take this opportunity instead to thank every one of our readers (in particular, you!) for supporting us over the past 12 months in our efforts to keep you and your entire Public Service informed, advised or simply entertained.
It’s no secret that PS News relies on a team of journalists, editors, designers, administrators, contributors and others to come together every week and who have spent the past year publishing PS News as creatively and professionally as they can.
So it is alphabetically that Anna, Christine, Cristen, Frank, Giovanna, Graham, Ian, Lisa, Paul, Rama, Robert, Sarah, Ted, Vic and Ysabel wish each and every one of our readers a happy, relaxing and well-earned Christmas break and a rejuvenated, revitalised and regenerated return in 2022 for a better-behaved, more responsible and good-natured New Year.
For your diary, PS News will be back bigger and better in the week commencing 17 January.
Devil of a Christmas
And finally, who better to leave the last word for PS-sssst! 2021 than the amazing Philomena S of Victoria’s Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, who shared the story of the man forced to enjoy the spirit of Christmas despite preferring an unenjoyable spirit of his own.
“Did you hear about the dyslexic Satanist?” the ever inquisitive Philomena quized.
“He sold his soul to Santa!”.
Ka-Boom!
Let’s hope we all do!
Till next year……
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