4 Corners to Crucify AusSAR
I think the program would have been a little more balanced had it noted the number of successful SAR operations conducted by AMSA, and the ratio of false alarms to real emergencies.
It seems to me that Margaret J boils down to two questions:
did the Tasmanian police make or not make a valid and timely request to AMSA;
was the search area impracticably large or not.
It appears the Tasmanian police say they made a valid and timely request to AMSA, whereas AMSA says they didn’t. It appears AMSA says the search area was impracticably large, whereas Senator O’Brien’s informant says it wasn’t.
Hopefully someone will discover the whole truth.
I find myself in agreement with criticalmass, T and go with the flow. Once you’ve built a bureaucracy on the basis that its first priority is to insulate the minister from responsibility, you hinder your capacity to do well the things the public thought you were meant to do. You kill off or at least alienate the ethos of acknowledging and learning from mistakes, because your first priority is to ensure mistakes aren’t discovered, and your second priority is to spin doctor the ones that are.
Once upon a time, in land far, far away, a career bureaucrat gives evidence to a senate committee:
It seems to me that Margaret J boils down to two questions:
did the Tasmanian police make or not make a valid and timely request to AMSA;
was the search area impracticably large or not.
It appears the Tasmanian police say they made a valid and timely request to AMSA, whereas AMSA says they didn’t. It appears AMSA says the search area was impracticably large, whereas Senator O’Brien’s informant says it wasn’t.
Hopefully someone will discover the whole truth.
I find myself in agreement with criticalmass, T and go with the flow. Once you’ve built a bureaucracy on the basis that its first priority is to insulate the minister from responsibility, you hinder your capacity to do well the things the public thought you were meant to do. You kill off or at least alienate the ethos of acknowledging and learning from mistakes, because your first priority is to ensure mistakes aren’t discovered, and your second priority is to spin doctor the ones that are.
Once upon a time, in land far, far away, a career bureaucrat gives evidence to a senate committee:
A good question senator. I made a mistake. I tried my best, but my best was not good enough. As you will see from these records, when X happened my response was Z. I should have done Q. As a consequence of my mistake, the organisation has done W. However, and although it's not a complete excuse, I note that I had half the support staff as I did last year, and we completed only half of our training program, because the government reduced our budget by X$m. In my opinion, we have insufficient resources to do the things for which we are held responsible, and a significant proportion of the resources that we do have are dedicated to ensuring that you and the public don’t find out the truth. I have informed the minister of my concerns, and he has acknowledged responsibility for the circumstances. The shadow minister has undertaken to support the minister in an urgent program of improvement.
No organisation is perfect, no organisation infallible. However, my experience with Zarg & Co over the past six years is that they are dedicated professionals in an extremely professional organization, which generally produces excellent outcomes with the limited facilities and finances at it’s disposal.
There are certainly many in the north of Australia who may thank Zarg & Co that they are not now shark sh!t!
There are certainly many in the north of Australia who may thank Zarg & Co that they are not now shark sh!t!
