For Chief Executive, Department for Health and Wellbeing, Dr Chris McGowan, the pandemic response has been a showcase of collaboration and innovation. In this Virtual on the Couch interview, Dr Chris McGowan discussed how his department structured their response to the COVID-19 pandemic by identifying 6 streams of work to achieve their 3 goals being “Flatten the Curve, Optimise the Public Health System and Keep Public Confidence”. Dr McGowan was interviewed by Tricia Tebbutt, Partner, PwC, where they explored Dr McGowan’s insights into the pandemic and responded to questions from the IPAA SA community and broader public sector.

Questions to Dr McGowan included…

• Looking back on the last 3 months, what where the biggest challenges you faced and how did you respond?
• Communication is key. What are some examples of how you communicated with your team and the wider SA Community?
• What was it like in your department during the early weeks of the pandemic?
• Where there some surprises during the early weeks that you weren’t expecting?
• What do you think are some of the opportunities that have occurred that you want to take with you into the future?
• What did you learn about yourself as a leader over the last few months?
• How do you think SA can help demonstrate further support in developing leadership and emerging future leaders?
• What’s the focus and priorities of SA Health over the next 6 months as we move into recovery?
• What do you think would be the lasting legacy of COVID-19, both positive and negative?
• The stabilization of the COVID-19 situation means moving from prioritizing suppression to focusing on detection to protect SA as we move into the recovery period.

As highlighted by Dr McGowan, support for emerging and developing leaders is essential. Learning and capability development is an important steppingstone in the leadership journey, providing the opportunity for self-reflection and growth. If you would like to learn more about leadership training opportunities are available both through the South Australian Leadership Academy and IPAA SA.

If you have watched this interview please feel free to leave your feedback and comments here.

Chief Public Health Officer, SA Health, Professor Nicola Spurrier has joined us virtually ‘On the Couch’ to share how the response to COVID-19 has evolved over the course of the year, and in turn what the future may look like as we face a new “normal”. Professor Spurrier highlights the fantastic work of her team and supporting organisations, as well as the commitment of everyone in the state to suppressing the spread of the virus through social distancing and other restrictions.

“we have a great community here….I had a sense that people would understand, get together and be able to do what was needed”

Professor Spurrier was interviewed by Adelaide Managing Partner, PwC, Jamie Briggs, where they explored responses to the following questions.

• How regularly do novel coronaviruses appear? Is this one particularly virulent?
• Why did we do so well in South Australia [in our response to COVID-19]?
• Was the success of the COVID-19 response common across the country or unique to SA?
• How much more do we know now, than January 1st about the virus?
• How much work went into the preparing for the pandemic in early 2020 as the virus situation developed?
• How much is the national group learning from the outbreak in other places around the world, where there isn’t as much control?
• Where is the vaccine and where are the treatments? Where do you think we are at?
• Is where we are at, where you think we will stay for the next 6-months according to the Transition Committee?
• Being front and centre of the media’s interest how have you handled the attention over the last few months? How has that impacted on you personally?
• Do you think that COVID-19 will have longer time impacts on the way that we live?
• Are you worried about a breakout here – if it does happen as in Melbourne?
• Is Winter and cold and flu season going to impact the pandemic situation? Are people able to get the virus twice?
• In a world where global pandemics and the like may become more common, do you think there will be more of an emphasis on public health in the coming years?
• How does a good and bad scenario for Victoria play out from this point forward?
• Looking back would you do anything differently?

Leave your feedback on this event here.

The latest issue of the Australian Journal of Public Administration contains a gem of a research paper by Catherine Althaus on the exciting contribution that Indigenous evidence and knowledges can make to public administration in the fields of engagement, sustainability, and policy innovation.

Catherine Althaus is the Professorial ANZSOG Chair of Public Service Leadership and Reform at the Public Service Research Group at UNSW Canberra and ANZSOG Deputy Dean. She is a non-Indigenous academic woman who has been privileged by the great generosity and hospitality of Indigenous peoples from across Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. She has also observed with frustration the many barriers to the contribution of Indigenous knowledges in the scientific and policy-making realms.

Her paper — Different paradigms of evidence and knowledge: Recognising, honouring, and celebrating Indigenous ways of knowing and being — proposes that public administration can benefit from these Indigenous ways of knowing and being.

Catherine starts by tracing some of the contemporary reasoning in favour of such acknowledgement and prioritisation. She then turns to practical examples to demonstrate how the field of public administration and the practice of policymaking will benefit (including a discussion on the potential barriers to uptake). And she closes with a call for dedicated and respectful work by the discipline and practitioner communities.

Read the full article here>

In a recent address to staff of the Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, IPAA National President, Dr Gordon de Brouwer PSM, spoke about the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public services across Australia, and highlighted the importance of telling the stories of public service at the state, territory and national levels.

WE SHOULD CELEBRATE PUBLIC SERVICE

Gordon began by congratulating and thanking the public servants of Queensland and of Australia for their work during the pandemic:

‘You’ve made a profound contribution during a major health, social and economic crisis to protect and improve the lives of the Queensland and the Australian people — well done, and thank you.’

Gordon paid tribute to the speed, collaboration, and effectiveness that public services across Australia have shown in delivering their governments’ responses to COVID-19, and their capacity to ‘think creatively and to act, to change quickly and to do things differently’.

He recognised the importance of digital technology in dealing with the pandemic, both in alternatives to face-to-face engagement and in rapidly making more data available to inform government decision making. And he observed that ‘ministers and public servants have found that they could only do their job with others: be it within their own government, other governments in the federation, or with business and the community’.

Read the full article for free on the IPAA National Website.