That time of year?

Starting today with a visit to NSW where the State’s Ombudsman has been blessed with a swag of new initiatives, strengthened powers, resolved inconsistencies and updated laws, achieving a most impressive 25 amendments to the State’s two pieces of legislation that govern the newly empowered Ombudsman’s functions.

While the NSW Government is to be congratulated for responding positively to its Ombudsman’s requests, PS-sssst! did notice it could have put one of HG Wells’s Time Machines to good use when the time came for the Attorney General to notify the public of the changes.

In a well-prepared media release, the AG named the two pieces of legislation governing the Ombudsman and the fact that they had not been changed for some time.

“The Ombudsman Act 1974 and the Community Services (Complaints, Reviews and Monitoring) Act 1993 have not been significantly reviewed or substantively amended for a number of years,” the AG lamented.

‘For a number of years?’ Ps-sssst! questions.

If we know one of the Acts was passed in 1974 and the other 1993, we know exactly what the number of years were: 48 years for one and 29 for the other.

Maybe we’re being too pedantic picking on what appears to be a positive move forward for the NSW Public Service and the people of NSW but the question is there to be asked: what, if anything, are the years that appear in the names of passed titles needed?

So says PS-sssst! 2022.

The sole mask-eteer

To Victoria now where the local Environment Protection Authority declared war against discarded face masks some time ago, introducing a pilot program to get the masks more off the streets than off the wearer’s face!

“Discarded face masks have gone from a largely unknown litter item to being left behind everywhere,” an Environmental Scientist with the Authority lamented.

“It’s difficult to quantify just how many used masks are messing up the streets, storm drains, water ways and beaches of Victoria, but they are everywhere.”

One of the problems is that surgical masks have been made to last a long time which means they don’t decay easily in the environment.

As a good causes go, this one must be among the best so if we can dispose of our masks sensibly we will doing our much abused environment a rare favour.

It may just be PS-sssst! but we’ve found that masks come with a built-in advantage that almost everyone of us could consider.

No-one has ever looked worse with a mask on, but plenty of us do when we don’t!

So says PS-sssst! from experience!

Own It finally owned!

A double dose of Rama’s generosity this week with not one but TWO giveaways for lucky readers to win just by answering her easy quiz questions.

First dose is a week older than most this week offering two copies of the eminently accountable book Own It: Honouring and Amplifying Accountability by Dr Paige Williams which failed to attract a correct answer last week but which has found them by the book-full this week.

In answer to Rama’s question: ‘What is the purpose behind the practical guide for leaders in Own It!?’ the second-chance successors who got it right and correctly answered it’s because it ‘provides a practical guide for leaders who are looking to reset accountability so it can thrive’ were James D from the Department of Defence, and Kate D from the national Department of Education.

Well done, James and Kate, your prizes will be on their way very soon.

And for the sharp-eyed readers who noticed James and Kate are from the same family – i.e. the ‘D’s – they’re not.

It’s just PS News’s super-secret shorthand playing with surnames.

Or should we say PS N’s shorthand?

Leading with health

Back to normal now with this normal week’s normal prize being one of Rama’s gratuitous giveaways in the form of two copies of The Happy Healthy Leader by Margie Ireland which sets out how to achieve our personal potential even during a crisis.

To win one of the books for free, all we had to do was tell Rama how many steps needed to be taken to transition ourselves to being happy, healthy leaders and then hope our entry is one of the first two to greet the judges from the infamous PS News Barrel of Booty.

The correct answer was ‘seven steps’ and the lucky winners who now own a copy of the Happy Healthy Leader are Dana T from the Australian Institute of Criminology and Suzanna A from the national Department of Home Affairs.

Congratulations to Dana and Suzanna and thanks to everyone who took part in the fun. The books will be on their way to their new owners very soon.

In the meantime, the rest of us can put our good luck to work by joining in Rama’s giveaway games simply by visiting her reviews of the Book Lonely Planet’s Experience Guides: Ireland at this PS News link or her other reviewed DVD Murder at Yellowstone City at this link – and then answering one or both of her questions.

Good luck to everyone who does.

Finding the finish of the fun

And finally, from the unending collection of commonsense, caution and comedy comes another contribution from Victoria’s best known Public Service employee, Philomena S of the Department of Health whose collection of the funny, facetious, farcical and flacky offerings facing the foresight of flippancy aimed at comics and caricatures with the mental health of public servants everywhere in Australia.