Promising news from the paddocks earmarked for Sydney’s western airport this week with the builders-that-be calling for expressions of interest from builders-who-wanna-be to build a Visitors’ Centre on the airport site to allow a sticky-nosed public the chance to watch on for the next eight years as the $5.3 billion airport takes shape.
As a young, green and sparkling new public servant in the Department of Civil Aviation’s Melbourne office in the late 1960s, it was my privilege to make official (yeah, sure!!) visits the construction site that was the Tullamarine airport at the time and I still remember to this day the thrill of being allowed to walk around the squillion dollar project long before the public was allowed anywhere near the place.
If – as is my case – the memories from those memorable visits are still dripping with delight and pleasure after 50 years, it’s highly likely that today’s generation of visitors to the Western Sydney development will forge their own delightful and pleasurable recollections too and that they too bubble away with nostalgia for decades to come.
As there was no Visitor’s Centre at Tullamarine back when I was a lad let’s hope the new one planned for Western Sydney is capable of hosting big crowds!
Sash strapped
Strong news also this week from the Australian National University that it is to establish a new unit to deal with sexual assault and sexual harassment issues on its campus in Canberra.
Setting aside the eyebrow-raising announcement that: “The Australian National University (ANU) will establish a central coordinating unit for sexual assault and sexual harassment…..” when it probably meant a unit for ‘dealing with’, ‘stamping out’ or ‘discouraging’ sexual assault and sexual harassment, the uni chose to refer to its target via the abbreviation SASH.
While some topics don’t lend themselves to clever acronyms, the use of SASH harks this reporter back to an earlier incarnation of the Department of Home Affairs when sexual harassment in the office first became an issue in the 1980s.
At a time when such activity was rare, or at least unreported, the Departmental memorandum that relayed management’s concern was greeted by a group of mischievous female staff members concerned that if anything sexual was going on in the workplace, they wanted to be part of it.
Their solution was to establish an unofficial committee to bring it under control and, in similar fashion to the ANU, formed a group to take control, also cleverly named as the Sexual Harassment in the Office Coordinating Committee, or SHOCC for short.
Needless to say as soon as the Departmental hierarchy found out, the shock was theirs and the ladies’ committee was disbanded.
Management matters!
And just when we thought PS News couldn’t get any better it goes and shows us we were wrong.
From this week on, a new information section is to be featured in PS News offering wise advice and encouragement for the many thousands of middle and higher managers leading the public sector at all levels across the nation.
Under the banner ‘Management Matters’ the new section will deliver a constant stream of articles sharing gems of judgement and lessons for enlightenment as a way of sharpening PS management skills and improving interactions between management and staff.
The first collection of ‘Management Matters’ opens its account by examining why small meetings are the best meetings; showing how to deal with underperforming team members; explaining how to manage if you don’t want to be a manager; and suggesting how best to run an interview panel.
The new section can be accessed at this PS News link.
Hard winners named
To Rama Gaind’s record-breaking BluRay giveaway now in which five HD copies of the full set of Die Hard movies are up for grabs by readers able to name all five movies in the 30-year anniversary set.
The answers were Die Hard (1988), Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and Good Day to Die Hard (2013) and the first lucky entrants who knew the lot then managed to rise hard from the PS News lucky Barrel of Booty were Debbie N from the Victorian Department of Justice and Regulation, Andrew G from the Federal Court of Australia, Prue M from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, John L from the Western Australian Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, and Andrew H from the Department of Defence.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who played the game. The BluRay movies will be on their way soon.
The record that was broken was Rama’s as this was the first time she had succeeded in collecting as many as five copies of a BluRay giveaway since giveaways began all those years ago. Congratulations to her too!
Thanks to all who took part and if you would like another chance to become one of Rama’s wondrous winners, just follow this link to this week’s giveaway and take your lucky chance.
You have to be in it to win it!
The comment touch!
And finally, as well as PS News’s exciting new section for managers – Management Matters – this week’s edition also introduces a very handy direct hotlink to the PS News heirarchy in the form of a blue “Comments” button on each and every page of our very favourite PS newspaper.
Whether you want to comment, criticise, condemn or congratulate us for an article or news story that offends, amuses, disgusts or disturbs you, the new button will button-hole us on your behalf.
And the best news is it can be 100% anonymous so no-one will ever know you commented – unless you want them to.
And also, just to show we’re not resting on our laurels (and that’s not because Laurel’s wearing them!) the very popular PS News round-up of the more intriguing public sector job vacancies around the nation is being dusted off and polished up with the aim of returning next week.
Watch this space for more information.
‘Til next week…..
