From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Slim pickings for lawyers? Crikey has been reporting on tough times in legal circles. Law firms are paring back their high, automatic pay increases (up to 15% pa) to be in line with what corporate firms pay their lawyers, i.e. less, and we heard from a mole at industry giant Herbert Smith Freehills that the company has implemented a pay freeze (read the all-staff email here). Here’s a fresh tip:

“In the shadow of the budget announcement, King & Wood Mallesons last night informed all staff of a firm-wide pay freeze, possible redundancies and a reduction in the national intake of graduate lawyers from 90 to 55. Expect a lot of nervous law students in coming months. Rumour has it that the freeze is to address Sydney’s underperformance, with centres like Brisbane copping the same deal even though they are well above budget.”

King & Wood Mallesons is a large international firm with nine offices in Australia (plus London and Hong Kong). A company spokesperson told us:

“We confirm that in response to changing market conditions and the impact a weaker Australian economy is having on the firm and our clients, KWM has made the decision to hold salaries at last year’s level. The firm will continue, where appropriate, to reflect and recognise outstanding contributions made by staff through the usual conduits — these being performance reviews, bonus payments and internal promotions.”

Legal eagles can keep us posted of any other pay developments in their firms here (Tips loves nothing more than an all-staff email!) — and shhhh, you can stay anonymous.

Canberra watering holes … Just where to head for the traditional post-budget booze-up in the national capital is a moveable feast. Kingston’s Holy Grail (compete with a sticky floor and terrible karaoke) used to be the place to be. That changed when the swanky Kennedy Room opened up on the other side of the block (and the poor old Holy Grail shut up shop in February). Now everyone’s talking about The Public Bar at Manuka.

Crikey researchers investigated the issue on Tuesday night and found The Public was the bar of choice for Left types, so it was fairly empty (that’s the zeitgeist), with a few shellshocked Labor MPs wandering around on the chilly Canberra night. But the Kennedy Room, which appeals more to Tories, was heaving, complete with the traditional bevvy of bright-eyed junior staffers and interns (they get younger every year). Worth noting there weren’t many Coalition MPs out …

One topic of conversation that cropped up among some journos over their Austrian pilsners was the new practice that those in the budget media lock-up with questions for Treasury must first get them past a bouncer. It used to be that you could bowl up and ask a Treasury staffer your question. Now it has to get filtered and vetted by some teenage Treasury grad. Some journos took a dim view of this.

Tips would like to pay homage to the crew from The Australian, who were very lively at The Kennedy Room after their fine meal at The Ottoman (posh).

… and public servant cuts. This week’s federal budget made some cuts to the bureaucracy, mostly at fairly senior levels. Just over $148 million will be saved over four years, largely through job cuts, targetting executive level (EL) 1 and 2, and senior executive services (SES). An insider had this response:

“Senior level cuts in the public service won’t affect the work output. When I left my SPAO2 (EL2+) job last year, they replaced me with three people at the same level. PAO3s are doing the work of PAO2s and PAO1s.”

In typical public servant fashion, they’re speaking gobbledegook. We have no idea what this means. Another ex-mandarin told us this:

“I’m glad to see SES cuts as their ranks have grown disproportionately to the rest of the APS in recent years. Not so sure about the EL1 and EL2 cuts. I’ve worked with plenty of duds who were paid at these levels, but my experience has been that they tend to hang around when there’s a job cut. Instead, the good ones go, sometimes returning as expensive contractors.”

Ah, contractors! Government seem very good at making “savings” by letting people go, then re-hiring contractors at expensive rates. If you’re a public servant sweating it out at Russell or Parkes, let us know what goes on. And what do you think of the government’s plan to make you pay to park at work?

Pansy Wong? This comes from a TV type:

“How many of your readers saw the electronic TV Program guide on ‘smart’ TV’s last night. There was a classic in the promotional material for the ABC program ‘The Drum’. The guest speaker was advertised as The Minister for Finance Pansy Wong.”

Cutting up the company credit cards. Tips has been running your reminisces of late about the golden days of company credit cards (they’ve largely been phased out and are now quite hard to find). We enjoyed this submission from someone who benefited from the cards …

“Oh yes I remember with great affection those businessmen with company credit cards. I worked as a barmaid and sometime waitress in a ‘gentlemen only’ club near the Stock Exchange in Sydney. I was young and gorgeous then it was around 1987 ‘coz I remember the long faces of the crash. One guy had shown me how to buy some shares in gold … I was always being taken out to dinner at the finest restaurants, the Regent had just opened, Menzies was close for free drinks before the train home. Pub crawls around the Rocks, the best places in China Town, a Double Bay Japanese restaurant. One guy even shouted me a first class air trip, with champagne, to the Gold Coast staying on the top floor of the Ramada for the weekend. Bit of a tart hey but it was fun. Those were the days, I always think of them when in Sydney.”

We have several theories about who this anonymous tipster might be, but we’ll keep them to ourselves. Good on her.

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form