Vaccine supremo Paul Grigson tipped for foreign affairs job in public service shake-up

Veteran diplomat Paul Grigson is firming as a favourite among to replace Frances Adamson as secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Paul Grigson is a former ambassador to Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar.

Veteran diplomat Paul Grigson, who is leading the Morrison government’s Vaccine Strategy Integration, is firming as a favourite among senior Canberra bureaucrats to replace Frances Adamson as secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade when her five-year term ends in July.

The Australian understands Mr Grigson, a former ambassador to Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar, has emerged as a frontrunner to lead DFAT amid rising geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific region and China imposing tariffs and bans on Australian exports.

But Scott Morrison — who announced his cabinet reshuffle on Monday — is expected to delay a major shake-up of department chiefs to maintain stability across the bureaucracy.

The shuffling of senior Australian Public Service officials across departments will focus on a mix of female and male appointees.

The appointments of Peter Dutton and Karen Andrews in new security portfolios is likely to stall any immediate move of ­Defence Department secretary Greg Moriarty and Home Affairs Department secretary Michael Pezzullo, who oversee vast budgets and lead Australia’s cyber and national security infrastructure.

The ministerial reshuffle, the looming retirement of Ms Adamson and Chris Moraitis’s departure as Attorney-General’s Department secretary in December to lead the Office of the Special Investigator has created an expectation across Canberra about a major shake-up of senior bureaucrats, with changes likely across up to five key departments.

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Phil Gaetjens is also understood to be contemplating retirement later this year.

Mr Gaetjens, Mr Morrison’s former chief-of-staff and a central figure in the government’s response to the sports rorts scandal and Brittany Higgins’s alleged rape inside parliament, was ­appointed in September 2019.

Mr Pezzullo is expected to follow Mr Dutton to Defence, with Mr Moriarty being tipped to lead the Home Affairs Department.

Department of Social Services secretary Kathryn Campbell and Department of Finance secretary Rosemary Huxtable are also highly regarded by senior government figures, with the potential for them to step up into new roles.

Mr Grigson, who shifted to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet last year, joined the Department of Home Affairs in February 2018 after working as a senior career officer and DFAT deputy secretary. He was previously special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan and chief negotiator of the Bougainville Peace Monitoring Group.

Mr Pezzullo, who joined the Defence Department as a graduate in 1987, was appointed ­Department of Immigration and Border Protection secretary in 2014, when Mr Morrison was immigration minister, before taking over Home Affairs under Malcolm Turnbull in 2017.

Mr Moriarty, Mr Turnbull’s former chief of staff, was tapped to lead Defence in 2017. The diplomat, who first worked in Defence from 1986 to 1995 and served in US Central Command during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, was ambassador to Indonesia and Iran.

The looming shuffle follows a restructuring of the Public Service in late 2019. Mr Morrison slashed the departments from 18 to 14, which saw five department secretaries leave the public service.

He consolidated departments and injected renewal across leadership ranks to “ensure the ser­vices Australians rely on are delivered more efficiently”.