Yes, minister. Your will is my command

By Michelle Grattan
July 6, 2005

Public servants are reminded that their job is to serve the public.

You've probably never heard of Andrew Podger. Certainly through a long and distinguished public service career he has commanded less publicity than most junior ministers in much shorter ones.

Podger, who left the federal bureaucracy last week, knows Canberra inside out. His experience stretches from the Whitlam era's Social Welfare Commission ("a not entirely successful experiment but one I wouldn't have missed for quids", where a colleague regularly brought her kangaroos and dogs to the office), to heading the departments of housing and health, and the Public Service Commission. His swan song was a report on health reform for John Howard.

He is a very traditional public servant, dealing with both sides of politics in a straightforward, non-partisan manner. One admirer is Fraser government minister Dame Margaret Guilfoyle, who went to Canberra for his farewell last Thursday. Podger is also very much his own man, neither sucking up to politicians, nor cowed by them.

A combination of government secrecy, even paranoia, and a lack of journalistic interest means we don't hear much about the bureaucracy, which makes Podger's goodbye speech the more significant. It was tough and pointed; although affectionate to former colleagues, it was also an indictment of the contemporary government-public service relationship.

In the '70s and '80s, Podger recalls, there was a bipartisan feeling "the service was too independent and not as responsive to the elected government as it ought to be". Governments of both hues wanted, and made, changes. That in turn created new problems. "The more serious questions today concern our professionalism and our impartiality, and whether our clear obligation to be responsive has caused some of us sometimes to be too concerned to please," he said.

The "children overboard" affair - in which the Government and ministerial advisers stood over public servants and the military and various officials were intimidated or compromised - was a defining moment for many officials.

Podger cuts to the core. "I remain uneasy about public servants trying to hide their legal authority and responsibility and to refuse to hear requests for asylum they would have had to consider; and about senior public servants and military officers continuing to maintain in the Parliament the possibility that children were thrown overboard many weeks after Air Vice-Marshal Houston's advice (that children were not thrown overboard) was given and known to be given."

The lessons, Podger says, are about "giving more emphasis to our obligations of professionalism, impartiality, being apolitical and complying at all times with the law: the obligations that imply a degree of independence notwithstanding our need to be responsive". Ouch.

Often the debate about public service is about it offering frank and fearless policy advice. This isn't so hard, Podger argued. Where real courage is needed is when advising on "due process", on making corrections to Parliament, or on giving fair treatment to those opposed to the Government.

Podger also raised the politically sensitive issues of disclosure, and how much public servants are allowed to speak. He's not denying a government's right to instruct public servants about communications, nor is he condoning leaking. But he is concerned that government and public servants encourage only "skeleton" record-keeping, as they seek not to leave too much behind for outing through freedom of information.

"What is being protected here? The public interest or the partisan interest of the government of the day?" His answer is: Often the latter, by public servants "desiring to be responsive" to their bosses rather than giving weight to "due process".

Podger's speech was especially forthright but he was also on record while in the service, especially about "children overboard". His willingness to stand up for good public service values would not have endeared him to the powers that be.

His view of the bureaucratic world is contested. A year ago Peter Shergold, head of the Prime Minister's Department, rejected in a feisty speech claims the service was too acquiescent. Indeed it should be even more responsive, Shergold argued - not in serving up to ministers only the policy prescriptions they wanted, but in various organisational ways to help get things done. Shergold is not more (party) "political" than Podger, but would probably go one step further to please a government (or be "responsive"), whichever government it was.

Everyone is influenced by how they are socialised in their earlier career years. Podger came up through the turbulent but relatively open days of the 1970s. The danger is that today's ambitious young bureaucrats may sniff the wind and think the way to advancement is through the "will-do" culture - go with the government's flow, don't challenge, above all, don't say to your peers and betters "you can't do that because it doesn't seem absolutely right/proper/fair". That will mean we, the public, get short-changed from those whose name implies they are our "servants".

Michelle Grattan is political editor.
