APS pitch examples, and how to write yours

I am applying for the APS 5 Policy Officer role in the Water Markets Policy Section because it combines the three things I have done most in four years at the Murray Valley Floodplain Authority: turning data into advice, writing for senior readers, and working with people who don’t agree with each other. I am an APS 4 project officer and have acted at APS 5 for seven of the last twelve months. I hold a Bachelor of Environmental Science and a Graduate Certificate in Public Policy.

Research and analysis. In 2025 our executive asked whether a proposed change to flood warning thresholds would increase false alarms for landholders. No one had tested it, so I offered to. I gathered 18 years of river gauge and warning records from two agencies, cleaned and matched them, and ran the proposed thresholds against every flood event in that period. I then wrote a four-page paper setting out the method, the findings for each catchment and the limits of the data. Before drawing conclusions, I had our senior hydrologist check my method. The analysis showed the change would cut missed warnings but double false alarms in two catchments, so I recommended a staged trial there first. The executive adopted my recommendation, and the trial was designed using my dataset.

Briefing and writing. I draft about six briefs and ministerial responses a month for our CEO and the minister’s office. When an adviser told us our briefs were too long to read before Senate Estimates, I proposed a one-page format with the key message in the first two lines and detail in attachments. I trialled it on four briefs, asked the adviser for feedback, and adjusted the headings. It is now the authority’s standard format, and no brief has been sent back for rework since.

Stakeholder consultation. I coordinated consultation on a draft floodplain harvesting guideline with irrigators, two councils and three First Nations organisations. The first meetings stalled because irrigators felt the draft had been written without them. I suggested we pause, met each group separately to understand its concerns, and wrote a plain-English summary showing what each group had asked for and how the draft responded. I kept a register of every issue raised and reported back to each group on how it had been handled. Attendance at the second round rose from 14 to 41 people, and the final guideline was released with written support from both councils.

I understand the section is preparing advice on water market transparency. I would bring careful analysis, briefs a busy reader can act on, and the patience to keep consultation going when it gets hard. From my current role I also bring a working knowledge of water sharing plans and the legislation that governs them.

I want to be a Service Officer at the National Support Payments Agency because I have spent five years helping people through money problems at a bank branch, and I want to do that work where it reaches people at the hardest points in their lives. I am a senior customer service officer at Coastline Mutual in Mackay, where I handle complex account enquiries and hardship requests and coach new staff.

Resolving complex enquiries. Last year a customer came in after her husband died, unable to use their joint accounts and with direct debits bouncing. She had already been given three different numbers to call. I took ownership of her case: I worked out exactly which documents we needed, accepted certified copies she already had, and contacted our deceased estates team myself to speed up the account change. I paused the debits under our hardship policy and wrote down each next step for her. Her accounts were sorted in eight days instead of the usual three to four weeks, and she later wrote to our branch manager to thank the team.

Applying rules accurately. Hardship applications must meet set criteria, and mistakes cost the customer and the bank. I check every application against our policy checklist before submitting it, and I explain to customers what they need to provide and why. When a policy change in 2025 altered the evidence we accept, I wrote a one-page summary for the branch and walked the team through it at our morning meeting. In our last two quarterly audits, none of my 60 sampled applications needed correcting.

Supporting the team. When our branch took on four new staff in 2025, I volunteered to buddy two of them. I sat in on their first calls, shared the notes I keep on tricky enquiries, and met each of them weekly for a month. Both were handling hardship enquiries on their own within six weeks, two weeks sooner than usual.

I would bring calm, accurate service and the habit of following each case through to the end. I am ready to learn your legislation and systems, and to help customers understand their rights and obligations. I am also used to difficult conversations about money, which I know will be part of this role.

I am applying for the Assistant Director, Program Delivery role because for the past three years I have done the work it describes: leading a team that delivers a national grants program, managing its risks and budget, and giving senior executives advice they can act on. I am an APS 6 Program Manager at the Department of Community Infrastructure and have acted as Assistant Director of the Community Halls Program for 11 of the last 18 months, leading a team of seven and a $46 million budget.

Achieving results through the team. When I began acting, the program was four months behind on assessing its second funding round, with 380 applications waiting and staff working weekends. Rather than asking the team to work harder, I mapped the assessment process with them and found that a third of assessors’ time went on chasing missing documents. I introduced an eligibility check at lodgement, split the work into a straightforward stream and a complex stream, and gave each of my two APS 6s ownership of a stream with weekly targets they set themselves. I tracked progress on a single page that I shared with the team and our branch head each Friday. We cleared the backlog in ten weeks, finished assessment a month before the ministerial deadline, and ended weekend work.

Engaging with risk and giving frank advice. In the same round, our analysis showed that 40 per cent of recommended projects were in three capital cities, because many regional councils lacked the staff to apply. I briefed our First Assistant Secretary on the risk to the program’s objectives, with three options and a recommendation: a targeted regional round with application support. It was not the easy option, because it added six weeks to the timetable. The recommendation was agreed, and applications from councils with fewer than 20,000 residents rose from 22 to 71. I then worked with our communications team on how the change would be explained to first-round applicants.

Cultivating relationships across governments. Delivery depended on state and territory agencies sharing site assessment data, and two had stopped responding after a dispute over how the data would be used. I met their leads in person, listened to their privacy concerns, and worked with our legal team on a data-sharing protocol that limited use to assessment, keeping both agencies updated fortnightly while it was drafted. I took it through the cross-jurisdictional working group where I represent the department. All eight jurisdictions signed it, and assessment times for projects needing state data fell from nine weeks to three.

Developing people. I hold monthly one-on-ones with each team member about their development, not only their workload. When an APS 5 officer was struggling with briefing, I had her co-write two ministerial briefs with me, then lead the next with my review. She now drafts our quarterly ministerial updates. I also started a fortnightly session where team members bring a difficult application to the group and agree how to handle it, which has made our assessment decisions more consistent. Two of my team have since won APS 6 roles, and departures fell from four in the year before I started acting to one.

I would bring to the Office a record of delivering on time through others, advice that names the risk and recommends a way through, and working relationships across jurisdictions built on trust. With the Office about to design its next national grants round, I would welcome the chance to apply what I have learnt.