The Peter Principle

The Peter Principle

By Kaye Lee on March 22, 2014 • 

The
Peter Principle suggests that people will tend to be promoted until
they reach their “position of incompetence”, and that is exactly what we
are seeing with this Coalition government.  They had six years in
Opposition to develop their policies, and access to the Parliamentary
Budgetary Office to cost them, but when it came to the crunch the
cupboard was bare.


The assessment of the potential of an employee for a promotion is
often based on their performance in the current job.  Tony Abbott has
been described as a very good Opposition leader.  Personally I can’t see
it, but that’s because I think all members of Parliament have been
elected to help run the country.  Achieving anything was never on
Abbott’s radar.  His entire being was devoted to “attack dog” and truth
and decency were no impediment.  He wanted to win at any cost as Tony Windsor revealed.  But what now?


Over six months in and it is patently obvious that the Coalition have
no plan at all other than to “slowly and methodically” pay hundreds of
millions of dollars to private consulting firms and mates to see if they
can come up with a way to make the Coalition’s election promises
feasible.  We have well over fifty reviews and audits and white papers
and green papers in progress.  Any discussion of policy or direction
turns into “the mess left by the previous government”.  They fail to
realise that they were elected to fix this perceived mess rather than
waste time bemoaning it.  You don’t employ a new CEO to sit there saying
“wasn’t me, was the other guy”.


The Royal Commission into the home insulation programme is a blatant
attempt to discredit the previous government.  The money would be far
better spent implementing the recommendations from the eight inquiries
we have already had.  The Royal Commission into unions is another
blatant attempt to discredit all unions, silence the collective voice of
the workers, and taint the Labor Party for their traditional
association with the unions.  There do seem to be some problems in the
construction industry but this would be far better investigated by a
police task force who can actually prosecute people.  If I was giving
evidence about intimidation by bikies I would rather talk discreetly to
the cops than to a televised circus who has no power to lock anyone up.


In the ultimate display of NIMBY, the Coalition is claiming success
in its promise to “stop the boats”.  If the boats have stopped why are
we paying the US $3 billion for unmanned drones and spending $7.5 million on orange disposable life rafts
and $5.7 million on an intelligence gathering technology that aims to
locate ”security threats” on the water before they reach Australian
shores.  Not to mention the $16.8 million cost of extending naval
vessel, the Triton, for six months and the $25 million cost of
increasing the contract for the armed patrol vessel, the Ocean
Protector.  All they have done is build a very expensive dam against the
rising tide of refugees, thus inundating transit countries who are far
less able to help these people than we are.


They remain committed to spend $22 billion on paid parental leave
even though the productivity commission said replacement wage PPL was
inequitable, very costly, and of little benefit.  All expert advice is
that childcare is far more important in improving female workforce
participation.


In the face of concerted worldwide action on climate change and
investment in renewable energy, they insist they will “axe the tax” and
get rid of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.  This has nothing to do
with making your electricity bill cheaper.  If they truly wanted to do
that they could easily make power GST free just like fresh food and
encourage competition through the renewable energy sector.  This is once
again just a blatant attempt to discredit the previous government by
blaming everything that happens on the “carbon tax” which is in fact a
temporary fixed price emission trading scheme if we want to be correct.


For a government who wants to cut red tape, Direct Action and PPL are
going to be administrative nightmares.  We already see Operation
Sovereign Borders requiring “the co-operation of 15 departments” – how
many public servants will these three policies alone occupy?


Rather than being flexible enough to react to circumstances, or
adaptable to changing conditions, or willing to take expert advice, the
Coalition have a script which they are determined to deliver regardless
of the cost or what is happening in the rest of the world.


The author of the Peter Principle suggests that “work is accomplished
by those employees who have not yet reached their level of
incompetence.”  Rather than seeking to promote a talented
“super-competent” junior employee, Peter suggested that an incompetent
manager may set them up to fail or dismiss them because they will likely
“violate the first commandment of hierarchical life with incompetent
leadership: [namely that] the hierarchy must be preserved”.  We mustn’t
have any of those pesky scientists or expert public servants or, God
forbid, women, showing us up.


Peter goes on to say that “Staff who find themselves with what they
consider to be incompetent superiors may try to “manage upward” and
support or manipulate them to be more effective, or may simply devise
ways to minimise the damage and influence they have on the
organisation.”  Peta Credlin is never more than a few feet from Tony. 
She sits at the table with world leaders carefully managing what her
creation says and does.


A similar theory was proposed by Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert
cartoon series. In his 1996 book, The Dilbert Principle, Adams suggested
that “the least smart people are promoted, simply because they’re the
ones you don’t want doing actual work.”  We really need to find
something to keep George Brandis occupied or he is just going to keep
spending a fortune on trashy books to fill his gargantuan custom-made
bookcases, and on “networking” at weddings.  Other than approving raids
and redefining human rights, George has spent a lot of time correcting grammar in preparation for ‘repeal day’ – the so-called bonfire of regulations.


The deregulation of financial advisers should give us all a clue
about the mentality of this government.  They have our money to invest
but they refuse to be obligated to invest it in our best interest.  To
paraphrase Gough Whitlam…


Well may they say God save the Queen, because nothing will save the country (other than an election).