Re: The Decline Of Moral Within The Rail Systems

["John Kerley" <deaftech@ozemail.com.au>]

Mal Bigg <parkdrive@my-deja.com> wrote in message
94ak5i$dr2$1@nnrp1.deja.com">news:94ak5i$dr2$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> State Rail, like many other government utilities is only now paying the
> price for adopting the promotion by merit system.

The trouble is "merit" is a very subjective concept and does not equate with
being competent.  In reality "merit" is usually interpreted as being a
silver tongue, or a brown tongue or having the right handshake or knowing
the right people.  It very rarely means being competent although
occasionally people promoted on "merit" do coincidently turn out to be also
competent.

Indeed the old public service ethic of promotion by seniority after you had
qualified by an objective test of competence such as an exam together with a
certain number of years of experience meant that the corruption endemic in
today's "merit" system was avoided.  In other words the public was served
well.

Another element in the modern corrupt way of appointing people to higher
paid positions is the notion of limited tenure.  No only does one have to
silver tongue, brown nose etc. your way to promotion, but to keep the job
your have to keep your nose brown. i.e. once again it is not competence that
is the determining factor.

Cheers,

John Kerley