Michael Thawley: the delicate dance awaiting Prime Minister and Cabinet's new secretary

MAIN MAN: The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet's new head, Michael Thawley. Photo: Nic Walker

Ian Watt's departure as secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and his replacement by Ian Thawley mark the end of the Abbott government's first full year in office. What conclusions can we draw about its approach to senior appointments in the Australian Public Service?

Thawley's appointment, like that of John Fraser to Treasury (still to be officially confirmed), is in keeping with the government's stated aim of bringing the APS closer to the business community. Both come from high-profile private sector positions with first-hand experience of how business operates. However, both began their career as public servants and moved to the private sector only after extensive experience in major Canberra departments. Their appointment does not reflect any major shift to a United States-style pattern of appointing business people without any previous government experience to senior public service positions. Nor has the Abbott government turned its back on Canberra insiders, as the appointment of Jane Halton to the Finance Department attests. Similarly, the three secretaries dismissed immediately after the election were all replaced by career APS bureaucrats, not political appointees.

TREASURY-BOUND: John Fraser, who is likely to replace Martin Parkinson. Photo: Erin Jonasson

Thawley and Fraser will not seriously threaten the APS values of non-partisan professionalism. Indeed, they may help to strengthen these values. Unscarred by the dysfunctional pathologies of the Rudd era and its aftermath, they can bring fresh energy to the urgent task of rebuilding relationships between the public service and the political branch.

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Thawley, in his first public statement as secretary-elect, confirmed his support for a non-political public service, unlike the American system he observed at first hand as Australia's ambassador. He also stressed two further points: the importance of telling governments what they need to know, not what they want to know; and the need to maintain a good relationship between the department and the Prime Minister's office. Such sentiments will be most welcome to those Canberra watchers who have been dismayed at the growing gap between public servants and ministerial advisers, and at the increasing marginalisation of public service advice. Ministers, too, it has been hinted, have become impatient with officials who are unwilling to give their own firm views on policy matters. After years of being pressured to trim their advice to suit the inclinations of ministers' offices, many senior public servants seem to have lost the will to give independent opinions. The time-honoured pendulum between responsiveness and independence has swung too far towards responsiveness. Thawley may be the right person to help adjust the balance.

Thawley is reported to be on friendly terms with Prime Minister Tony Abbott's chief of staff, Peta Credlin, and her husband Brian Loughnane, which some hostile critics will see as evidence of undue partisan connection. But provided the distinctive roles are clearly understood and Thawley remains focused on tendering robust policy advice to the government, good personal relations will be a bonus, not a hindrance. The most pressing long-term need in present-day government is to let (or make) ministers pay serious attention to sound policy advice. The familiar catalogue of recent developments, including the 24-hour media cycle and the growth in numbers and influence of political advisers, is making this task ever harder. If Thawley can build an effective conduit for soundly based public service advice through his relationship with Credlin, so much the better.

The timing of Watt's retirement as PM&C secretary, though later than some had predicted, still fits a common pattern. Incoming prime ministers tend to rely on the incumbent secretary to manage the transition. Then, after finding their feet, they expect to make their own appointment of someone they find personally congenial. PM&C secretaries, in their turn, often leave willingly, having come to the end of a particularly intense and exhausting period of service to the previous regime. This practice works well, particularly after a change of government. It depends on the professionalism of the secretaries concerned, who need to be trusted to provide effective transitional support to a government opposed to the one they previously served.

To some extent, the practice is contrary to pure Westminster principle, which requires all public service positions to be appointed on strict merit without any political considerations and that all senior public servants should be expected to serve alternative governments. The breach is relatively minor, however, so long as it does not apply to other secretary positions. Any notion that all incumbent secretaries should retire gracefully to allow incoming ministers to choose their own appointees would be a serious assault on the conventions of a politically neutral, professional public service. A partial exemption can be made in the case of the government's chief policy adviser, provided that the individuals chosen are sufficiently non-partisan to be trusted, if called on, with handling a transition to a new government. (Of secretaries in recent memory, only Max Moore-Wilton fails to meet that test, because of his open partisan identification with John Howard and the Coalition.)

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Michael Thawley: the delicate dance awaiting Prime Minister and Cabinet's new secretary