
Former prime minister Tony Abbott claims “unelected and unaccountable” public servants stymied his government. History records a long running battle between our governments and the so-called ‘mandarins’ who are supposedly there to serve them
Politicians come from varied backgrounds and bring with them a range of skills and experiences. But ultimately it’s often the actions of those unelected bureaucrats that determine a government’s fate.
As Martyn Goddard writes: “For almost half a century, the balance of power and influence in government has shifted inexorably from the public service to ministerial advisers”.
In theory, advisers working on a minister’s personal staff are there to help run the government. Which includes overseeing policy implementation by the public service.
When the Whitlam Government took office in 1972, after 23 years in opposition, the bureaucracy was overtly unwilling to adapt to such a monumental event. In fact, it was outright hostile.
As a 20-something with a freshly minted degree majoring in Industrial Relations I joined the Department of Labor and Immigration shortly after Whitlam became prime minister.
A few months into the role I was one of a dozen or so departmental officers from around the country brought together for a wide ranging strategic planning session. All but a couple were long standing departmental heavyweights.
Around three o’clock — and after a “liquid lunch” — the grumpy guy sitting at the back of the room decided enough was enough.
As he left the meeting, he expressed what I was to find an overwhelming sentiment in that department and others. “We’ve been running the place for decades. We know what we’re doing. And we are not going to change just because the government has changed.
A few months later, a frustrated Whitlam began the process of imposing a new public service leadership structure.
The late Dr Peter Wilenski was the prime minister’s private secretary at the time.
‘En passant’ — as Whitlam would have said — at that time there were no ministerial policy advisers, as such. Just private secretaries and press secretaries. All policy development was done by the public service.
Whitlam somewhat provocatively appointed Wilenski head of my department. On his first day he arrived at the office wearing jeans and a “Mao cap”. His decidedly un-public service attire signalled the beginning of the end of the Age of the Mandarins.
When, 18 months after Whitlam’s demise, Neville Wran swept into office in NSW, the lessons Labor had only just learned manifestly changed how governments have operated ever since.
One of Wran’s first moves was to create a super group consisting of the top six ministers. The so-called Policies and Priorities committee – simply known as P&P.
Whereas Whitlam’s ministers were prone to troublesome policy freelancing, nothing of any note happened in the Wran government without having been run through P&P.
In the event that a seemingly innocuous matter running before cabinet turned out to be at all controversial, it was delegated to P&P – and thus subjected to intense scrutiny by Wran and his most trusted ministers.
Another innovative move by Wran – which was in fact a forerunner to the aforementioned creation on ministerial advisers – was the establishment of the Ministerial Advisory Unit, which was immediately dubbed the Mau Mau.
While the Mau Mau was actually part of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, and technically reported to its departmental head, it was for all intents and purposes a small group of apparatchiks tasked with doing special assignments for Wran.
It was not long before a certain minister concluded that he, too, needed someone on his staff who could provide alternative advice to his department.
That minister was the late Frank Walker – Wran’s 34 year old Attorney General – and after deputy premier Jack Ferguson, arguably at the time one of his most trusted colleagues. The even more youthful advisor was yours-truly.
I’ve written elsewhere about the role I played as a ministerial adviser, which I contend made for better outcomes.
I’ll leave it to those closer to the action these days to express views on the effectiveness of modern ministerial advisers – a cohort that has exploded in numbers since my time.
Another issue currently confronting public service management is the alleged lack of expertise in the senior ranks. That, too, has been a long time coming.
Read an advertisement for a senior role and you will see that policy development experience is a key requirement. Seldom is subject matter expertise the determining factor.
Over the past decade we have seen rampant outsourcing of government services. Rather than improve efficiency, it’s arguably just increased implementation costs.
As Goddard points out, the Albanese Government has “begun to rebuild Australia’s shattered public service”.
These days it’s hard to know who to blame when things go wrong.
Peter Garrett’s laudable aim of placing insulation batts in people’s homes floundered when state authorities failed to enforce basic work safety regulations and inexperienced workers died on the job.
Robodebt was an administrative failure which masked the very reasonable aim of eliminating false social welfare payments.
Having established the NDIS in an earlier government, Bill Shorten has had to clean up a scheme that clearly went off track.
These and other well-publicised bureaucratic failures highlight the need for improved public sector governance.
We could start with better protections for whistleblowers who currently just sit by watching as things unravel. But that’s another long running issue yet to be resolved.
Laurie Patton has advised federal and state government ministers. He is a director of the United Nations Association of Australia (NSW) and a prominent advocate for broad whistleblower laws.