The Australian Public Service is “totally hopeless” and actually makes the nation's politicians worse, one MP says.

Queensland mining billionaire Clive Palmer, leader of the rapidly shrinking Palmer United Party, unleashed his views on the Commonwealth public service at a conference in Canberra this week.

Mr Palmer told the gathering hosted by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) that while figures on the left and the right of Australian politics were “pretty hopeless”, the advice given to them by the Commonwealth public service exacerbated their inability.

“When I arrived in parliament I… looked to my right and thought these guys are pretty hopeless by corporate world standards, and I looked to my left and I thought these guys are pretty hopeless as well,” he said, according to News Corp reporters.

“Then I realised they were advised by people who were absolutely hopeless, the public service.”

The big leader of a small party suggested that MPs should have fixed terms, to prevent them clinging to the legislature like a “bad smell”.

“The best reform I think would be to limit the terms of all members of parliament to two terms and we might get some turnover in this place and more new ideas,” Mr Palmer said.

“We need to eliminate career politicians who hang around this place, sometimes for 30 years like a bad smell when some of them should be in a nursing home.”