The Opposition must have thought Christmas had come early when the Utegate scandal broke. It looked like they had delivered a gift to themselves. Sadly, it has all gone belly up, now that it has been revealed that Treasury official Godwin Grech, head of the OzCar program, might have had more at stake than a dodgy memory over a mythological email. Thinking that comments from someone who once worked for Joe Hockey might escape the connection seems like a silly strategy from the Liberals, who really should be more sophisticated.
The whole affair shines a bit of light on the passions and follies that lie behind all those cardigans. Public servants, chatting merrily as they march to lunch, somberly dressed in fashionable black, can comfortably camouflage their secret lives.
Partisanship in the senior (or even the lower) ranks of the public service is not news. Michael Pusey’s book Economic Rationalism in Canberra (1991) showed the start of the erosion of ‘frank and fearless’ advice. My own PhD looked at Treasury’s twin, Finance, and quoted insiders saying ‘fear and favour’ had replaced earlier standards.
Australia is not Iran, we don’t line the streets angrily over elections gone sour. But Canberra is one place where political awareness and activism are more likely to warm the blood, if only because the weather is so cold. But partisanship, or just legal forms of activism that might tread on the toes of official policy, is a widespread form of sport for the well-mannered public servants of Canberra.
Please keep it a secret, but many public servants are so bored that they have nothing better to do than make mischief, organise rallies, or run a small business from their snug (well heated) desktops. A senior from one of my public service impersonator gigs, declared that he had finally worked out they pay him just to be there. Some do their due diligence during the day, then go home and write songs with political and anarchic themes. As editor of a national newsletter emanating quarterly from the PM’s department, I made sure environmental stories got a good look in.
A friend, recently recruited from interstate, is finding the pace just a bit too slow. When you do the assigned task in 1 hour, what do you do for the other 7? Well, wait for the approval, the comments, the changes in direction, and the general lethargy to move along. And you look for other jobs, as is said friend. Others, like myself and countless others, live in hope that our agitation to actually achieve something will make us unpopular enough to be offered a package. Worked for me. The smart ones come back as contractors or consultants, making twice as much. Haven’t cracked that one yet.
So maybe the modest Godwin Grech has been doing his civic duty, or perhaps he just bores easily.