Government tactics - clever, coward or irresponsible?

Comments on Julie Novak “What happened to the meat axe?” 12/05/2011, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/budgets/what-happened-to-the-meat-axe/story-fn8gf1nz-1226054249543

While all the arguments may be true, the government is skilful in trimming the APS by increasing the efficiency dividend.

So I would add some cautions to the post, even though I agree that the government created a false impression in the first place.

What the government is doing is to force or let the agency heads to do the nasty part of reducing employment in their own individual agencies without the government saying it is reducing APS jobs. It is clever politics, although it will damage and hurt some agencies more than other due to different conditions they have and whether they really have fats left or they are already being left with bones. So some may say it is lack of courage to do the right thing in the right way by a government.

The numbers of likely changes in some areas cannot show the dark side of some agencies that will have to reduce its staff numbers due to much slower than inflation increase in funding as a result of the increased efficiency dividend requirement.

Further, arguably, the increase in the pay in the APS over the last few years may not have match the increases in the private sector, even though there have been skill shortages from time to time across Australia.