Public Service Should Actually Serve the Public

A note to young leaders.

Australia has a productivity problem.

For too long, we have overdosed on process at the expense of GSD – Getting Shit Done.

That’s why Australia should take a leaf out of Josh Shapiro’s book – the can-do Democrat Governor of the swing-state of Pennsylvania.

In 2024, Shapiro enacted the SPEED Program – Streamlining Permits for Economic Expansion and Development (SPEED) – built on a simple idea: a money-back guarantee. If a government agency misses its processing deadline, the applicant gets their fee back in full.

The results speak for themselves. Permitting timelines collapsed from around 300 days to just 30. Business licensing fell from 8 weeks to under 3 days. Doctors, from 43 days to 2. Barbershops, from 20 days to same-day approval.

Shapiro also created the Office of Transformation & Opportunity (OTO) and charged it with fast-tracking major developments and infrastructure projects.

Business responded. Amazon announced plans to invest more than USD 20 billion in new AI and cloud computing campuses across Pennsylvania – creating at least 1,250 high-paying tech jobs, alongside thousands of construction jobs.

And in 2025, Pennsylvania ranked third in the US for job growth, adding more than 76,000 jobs.

All this because the public service went back to serving the public.

Instead of reflexively looking for reasons to say no, our governments need to find ways to “get to yes”.

If Australia is serious about fixing its productivity problem – governments will need to start moving at the speed of business.