Coronavirus: ‘Partisan’ bureaucrats defying public interest, says Gary Banks

The nation’s top bureaucrats are increasingly providing partisan advice in an irreversible trend, says former Productivity Commission chair Gary Banks.

Former Productivity Commission boss Gary Banks. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

The nation’s top bureaucrats are increasingly providing partisan advice in an irreversible trend, ­according to a fresh warning sounded by former Productivity Commission chair Gary Banks, who says more public servants will be exposed like “naked swimmers in a receding tide”.

Professor Banks, former dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government, says the COVID pandemic has revealed a “bureaucracy in crisis” in which Australia has acquired “by stealth a system of government that has become less Westminster and more Washington — but without the clarity of the former or the checks and balances of the latter”.

“If this ‘Washminster’ transformation is irreversible, as I believe it is, can the system at least be made to work better? Among other things, there needs to be greater transparency around senior appointments (and dismissals) and more incentive to balance the wishes of a minister with the longer-term interests of the public,” he writes in The Australian. “However, it looks like the present system suits too many as it is.”

Professor Banks says public officials have become “human shields” for their political masters, arguing there is growing evidence bureaucrats have started “providing cover or deniability for decisions made politically behind the scenes”, including on contentious issues like COVID lockdowns.

The NSW Special Commission of Inquiry: Ruby Princess and the COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry in Victoria are cited as examples in which “major deficiencies in competencies and process” and “an alarming lack of accountability” were uncovered.

Victoria is singled out by Professor Banks as an example where public services deficiencies have proved to be “more acute.” He says the “most disturbing spectacle of all was the ‘three monkeys’ performance by department heads at last week’s hearings of the board of inquiry”.

“That public service leaders would risk subjecting themselves to ridicule and bringing their organisations into disrepute rather than admit to knowing something they should (or certainly could) have known, but that would be problematic politically, tells us all we need to know,” he says.

Professor Banks says appointments conditioned by politics will involve “some trade-off with merit” and informed observers of the public service had noticed a “decline in capabilities more generally”. Listing potential advan­tages to arise from modern-day public service culture, he argues there are new opportunities for greater trust between a minister and a hand-picked agency head, and “potentially more scope for (hopefully beneficial) departmental influence and, when needed, the speaking of ‘truth to power’ — when senior bureaucrats really earn their keep”.

“Against these potential benefits, however, are the heightened risks of senior officers being too aligned to provide balanced or objective advice; or subordinating policy to politics when the ‘going gets tough’; or seeking to protect a minister or government politically, even when that requires acting in a way that may be unethical or contrary to the public interest.”

He warns that the shift towards “a more ‘aligned’, even partisan, leadership of the public service began years ago” but argues it has accelerated and that senior bureaucrats have become a “highly mobile group” with a number following their side of politics around the country according to its political fortunes.