Mandarins call for crackdown on 'harmful' social media clips!!!!! This really takes the cake. Departmental heads are now complaining about parliamentary footage being played on social media. The footage is played to expose poor government performance. It’s a critical part of the democratic process that flaws in government process is fully transparent and exposed to the public where possible. These Department heads are paid almost a million dollars a year courtesy of the taxpayer. The taxpayer has a right to see how their dollars are spent. If the mandarins can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen or even better improve their performance. By all means threats and intimidation are not on, but I am not aware of that occurring. While comments can be coloured unfortunately that is politics. I cop plenty of vitriol all the time. Ideally comments could be more respectful but again you have to learn to take it in this game. As someone who took the role of holding the bureaucrats to account seriously, this practice should not be stopped. To help us hold the bureaucrats to account please sign up today at Peoplefirstparty.au ••••••••••••••••• “Canberras departmental chiefs have demanded politicians be restricted from posting "potentially harmful" video clips of bureaucrats' parliamentary testimony on social media, but insist their request is not aimed at ducking public scrutiny. The practice of public servants testifying before parliamentary committees has come under growing scrutiny after senior Defence official Celia Perkins appeared before a Senate probe last Friday, protesting what she claimed to be the selective posting of her colleagues' comments. Arguing the posts were undermining her ability to assure "physical and psychological health and safety" of her staff and had raised “significant security concerns", Ms Perkins' request was quickly dismissed by senators who argued they were within their rights to distribute testimony as they saw fit.”