Budget Cuts for Pub.Service travel: Economy for Domestic & Reduced International

[whatmeworry]

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[Simo]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

Good move by the Govt.

Let's just hope they follow through with it.

Public Servants should not be sitting up the front of the aeroplane.

IF they want to sit up there they can pay for it out of there own pockets and not out of the public purse.

 

[Hvr]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

Good move by the Govt.

Let's just hope they follow through with it.

Public Servants should not be sitting up the front of the aeroplane.

IF they want to sit up there they can pay for it out of there own pockets and not out of the public purse.

Why not?

You do realise that you are talking about people travelling for work? If I was required to travel overseas for work I would insist on business class and not travel unless it was provided. Why shouldn't people flying long distances for work travel with a modicum of comfort?

Methinks there are some biases here about public servants being displayed here.

Now if politicians did what they expect others to do then maybe I'll listen to their announcements.

Yes I do pay for international J and F myself.

 

[Simo]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

Why not?

You do realise that you are talking about people travelling for work? If I was required to travel overseas for work I would insist on business class and not travel unless it was provided. Why shouldn't people flying long distances for work travel with a modicum of comfort?

Methinks there are some biases here about public servants being displayed here.

Now if politicians did what they expect others to do then maybe I'll listen to their announcements.

Yes I do pay for international J and F myself.

If a public servant is doing a long haul international I can understand PE or J but when they want/demand to fly F.

Do you pay for F and J when you are traveling for work.

No bias at all against Public Servants.

I also don't like seeing publicly listed businesses staff abusing travelling in J and F on short haul flights either. Again if it is a long haul flight and they have to be ready to go the moment they land then I agree they should fly J. I know of friends who travel J and F when they do long haul international but if they want to have a few days before they are needed at the destination they then have either a PE or a whY seat as the company has a bigger bill for Accom/meals. It is a win win for staff. They get a few days to do what they want before they have to start work and also get a few extra days at the end to relax and have a bit of a free holiday.

 

[serfty]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

Good move by the Govt.

Let's just hope they follow through with it.

Public Servants should not be sitting up the front of the aeroplane.

IF they want to sit up there they can pay for it out of there own pockets and not out of the public purse.

If you read the artiicle more closely, savings are purported to be provided by having public servants NOT travel (in any class) as much:

Special Minister of State Gary Gray said the curbs on air travel alone and encouraging public servants to use video conferencing and telephone hook ups.

 

[anchew]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

My first reaction to the headline was NOOOOOOO... But then looking at the details, it won't have much of an effect on most lowly public servants. It will mainly affect senior public servants who are currently entitled to travel J domestically in their contracts.

From Good Governance is the Foundation for High Performance and Community Confidence in the Public Sector - Keynote Address - Australian Institute of Company Directors 2012 Public Sector Governance Forum | Senator Penny Wong:

The Government will save at least $30 million each year through across-the-board reductions in domestic and international air travel spending.
We are putting a restriction on business class travel for some short-haul flights across Australia, and moving towards a greater reliance on semi-flexible fares instead of more expensive fully flexible fares.

Also WOAG fares are already cheaper than some publically available red e-deal fares.

 

[browski]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

If there was a way to remove FF points and Status Credits from all business-related flights, I suspect there would be less expensive (and less) flights actually taken. People would then fly based upon the flight schedule rather than seeking Points/Status.

 

[Deleted member]

If this won affect most public servants. Then $30mil in savings seems like a lot of money to me.
Maybe teleconferencing is going to make a come back?


It is I, Leclerc !

 

[drron]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

Why not?

You do realise that you are talking about people travelling for work? If I was required to travel overseas for work I would insist on business class and not travel unless it was provided. Why shouldn't people flying long distances for work travel with a modicum of comfort?

Methinks there are some biases here about public servants being displayed here.

Now if politicians did what they expect others to do then maybe I'll listen to their announcements.

Yes I do pay for international J and F myself.

Since the GFC IBM have a Y policy for their executives on travel including OS longhaul.
So turning things around why should public servants have more?

 

[pauly7]

Since the GFC IBM have a Y policy for their executives on travel including OS longhaul.
So turning things around why should public servants have more?

My employer looked at it this option (shudder) but there are actually OH&S problems by forcing employees to sit in Y for lengthy amounts of time. It exposes the company to claims/litigation.... IBM might get stung by this!! So anyway we retained J for international travel.

 

[amaroo]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

LOL they could save a truck load by booking with VA........no CL, Flounge or F will ensure this never happens.

 

[Simo]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

If there was a way to remove FF points and Status Credits from all business-related flights, I suspect there would be less expensive (and less) flights actually taken. People would then fly based upon the flight schedule rather than seeking Points/Status.

When I pay for staff travel I would be happy for them not to get SC's or FF points.

If they want the points pay the difference.

This is a Fringe Benefit of traveling for work.

When one of my staff members had to travel for a day trip from TSV to BNE I booked him on Deathstar. It was cheapest and also the flight times where good and he was most upset that he got no SC's or FF points.

 

[dfcatch]

My employer looked at it this option (shudder) but there are actually OH&S problems by forcing employees to sit in Y for lengthy amounts of time. It exposes the company to claims/litigation.... IBM might get stung by this!! So anyway we retained J for international travel.

If it's safe for joe public - it's safe for employees.

If the employee is required to drive at the end of a 14 hr flight - that might give rise to liability if they had an accident.

But I don't think "comfort" is as big an issue as employees would like to make out.

Personally - I see no reason for domestic J travel on the public purse.

Long haul J for top-level public execs - maybe. But the question really is "Do they NEED to travel".

Case by case basis.

 

[sage]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

I was glad when I read this article yesterday...as I dont see why my taxes should be spend on business class fares for public servants. On recent trip to Bangkok I was on an SQ flight to SIN with Stephen Smith (Defence Minister). He and about 5 of his lackeys were all in business class. I read afterwards that they were on a trip to Vietnam.

However I will say one thing that made me happy...and that was all of them were hard at work during the flight.

 

[serfty]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

The mooted savings are not so much to come from flying Economy rather than Business, but more from restricting travel full stop (irrespective of cabin).

 

[harvyk]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

I was going to do a rant defending the public servants, but instead I pose this question, could all who object to this make a promise that they will never again travel in anything better than Y (pref Y on an LCC) and only if there is a 100% need to travel, I'd also like to see you make the promise that if video conference or webinar options exist, you will take that over travel. Only once you vow to do this will I listen to your complaints about public servants travelling.

(PS I am not a public servant, but I do know of a few of them)

 

[harvyk]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

The mooted savings are not so much to come from flying Economy rather than Business, but more from restricting travel full stop (irrespective of cabin).

Already public servants are required to justify just about every bit of expenditure to a level beyond what would need to be justified in the private sector IMHO. About the only time the pendulum swings the other way is if an area has money left over at the end of the year and it needs to be spent lest the area has a budget cut by the bean counters (because obviously they where given too much money in the previous year).

 

[serfty]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

Already public servants are required to justify just about every bit of expenditure to a level beyond what would need to be justified in the private sector IMHO. About the only time the pendulum swings the other way is if an area has money left over at the end of the year and it needs to be spent lest the area has a budget cut by the bean counters (because obviously they where given too much money in the previous year).

So really this is just polly speak ...

 

[casanovawa]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

I was going to do a rant defending the public servants, but instead I pose this question, could all who object to this make a promise that they will never again travel in anything better than Y (pref Y on an LCC) and only if there is a 100% need to travel, I'd also like to see you make the promise that if video conference or webinar options exist, you will take that over travel. Only once you vow to do this will I listen to your complaints about public servants travelling.

(PS I am not a public servant, but I do know of a few of them)

Careful Harvyk, your getting dangerously close to requiring one or two sanctimonious blow hards to take a good hard look at themselves in the mirror before dumping you know what on others... Don't you realise all the hard workers in private sector are curing cancer everytime they travel while us PS are obviously going away to carouse and frolic on beaches or what not???

drron, to be frank i don't care what IBM or any other individual company does, there are probably organisations in India or the back blocks of Africa which provide the company bicycle to staff needing to travel outside the office, and they can keep that brilliant idea to themselves as well...

I've only scrounged several Y flights over east over the last decade for training and conference purposes, not really something you can do over the video conference, so hardly defending my routine use of the front of the plane, but don't have a huge amount of time for people who think the world revolves around them and their mega tax dollars (plenty of people in Australia pay no net taxes when you take into acount their hand outs), especially those in the private sector who thinks there ablutions smell like roses and then like to dump on others who are usually perceived as easy targets, like everything good, wholesome and exemplary comes out of private enterprise...

 

[harvyk]

re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International

So really this is just polly speak ...

When ever a polly want's to look like they are saving the country money, they slash jobs in the public service (Razor gangs are popular). The problem is that when they do that it means they no longer have enough people to work on the projects which the pollies have also promised to deliver, so within 6 months, the people are back (as contractors, more often than not charging contractor rates), of course this isn't a problem as contractor pays come from a different pot of money.

I'm not going to say every public servant is a saint, there are certainly some very lazy ones who need to be shown the door, and there are certainly some who know how to work the system. But for the most part, they really need to justify their actions to the Nth degree, because everything they do is subject to FOI requests, and newspapers love to write stories about public service junkets.

Something which sticks in my mind, a friend of Dad's a few years ago went to Tokyo for work, he was escorted from his hotel into the office in the morning, and escorted from the office back to his hotel in the evening. They where forced to have their meals brought in by room service, and where not allowed to leave the hotel room (I believe that even included to use the Gym or the pool). The problem was that if anyone did anything outside of work or sleep, and that included visiting a local restaurant or even simply walking past a tourist attraction, the manager was worried that someone somewhere could haul him over the coals over a "tax payer funded holiday".