LUKE FRASER. Federal Court decision at Port of Newcastle: a failure of bureaucratic leadership.

September 4, 2017

A recent episode of ABC television’s satire Utopia saw political spivs trying to convince the fictional Nation Building Authority to endorse anti-competitive conditions on a multi-billion-dollar port asset sale.   Head of that Authority Tony Woodford - played beautifully by Rob Sitch - resisted valiantly. Shortly thereafter, a newspaper review criticised Utopia thus: ‘…the writers of Utopia make their point by reducing pivotal players in the policy formation process to idiots. (They) are straw men, delivering obviously untenable arguments, which guide the viewer to think no one in government knows what they are talking about.  It's a lazy critique, but the writers get...