By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
It takes a brave soul these days to stand in front of an Australian Public Service audience and start going on about leadership, what with the controversy engulfing some of the federal bureaucracy’s highest climbers – Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo and former Human Services secretary Kathryn Campbell – over their conduct while leading mammoth federal departments.
So whichever genius chose out-of-towner Hillary Clinton – yes, that Hillary Clinton – as the headline act at a Public Sector Women in Leadership talkfest early next year, ought to take a bow.
Hillary Clinton will headline the Public Sector Women in Leadership conference.Credit: John Shakespeare
Now, history will remember Clinton as the US presidential candidate who lost to Donald Trump. But remember she also had a decent knock in the demanding role of her nation’s secretary of state during Barack Obama’s administration and would have learnt a thing or two as one half of the famous “Billary” White House, as her husband Bill Clinton’s presidency was often dubbed.
Firing the questions at Clinton, who will be beaming in from the States rather than actually visiting these shores, will be former host of the ABC’s 7.30 Leigh Sales – herself a bit of a public sector high-flyer, when you think about it – who does a lot of these corporate gigs nowadays.
The money is good, and you don’t get abused all over the internet for your troubles.
Also on the bill is federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody and former Services Australia chief executive Rebecca Skinner, the public servant who had to pick up the pieces of the robo-debt debacle that effectively ended Campbell’s career.
Skinner’s last major act at the helm of the 34,000-strong workforce at the outfit that runs Centrelink, Medicare and the Child Support Agency, was to apologise to the workforce for the unfair toll the robo-debt took among its ranks.
Maybe Skinner should have been considered to top the bill at February’s leadership conference.
SCHOOL TIES
Huge news out of the extensive parents network at swank private academy Xavier College, where you’ll pay up to $37,000 a year for your little darlink’s education, should you be so inclined.
The Xavier College Fathers Association and the Xavier College Mothers Association – they’ve been separate outfits for as long as anyone can remember, we’re told – have agreed to throw in their lot together and merge as, wait for it, the Xavier College Parents Association.
Families were advised this week that the change will take effect from 2024 because the mothers are still working on two major events to be held this year while the fathers, well, their work for 2023 is done.
No judgment, lads, but it’s not even mid-October.
A school spokesman wasn’t getting into any of that on Tuesday, simply saying that merging the two associations made sense now that Xavier had consolidated its three campuses into two.
Now, this development leaves just 11 parent groups to choose from at the 145-year-old school including the Burke Hall Parents Association, the Past Parents Association and the Xavier College Social Justice Network.
Oh, and there’s a choir too.
VOICE VENUES
With all polls indicating that Australians will say No to an Indigenous Voice to parliament on Saturday, it feels like the referendum week has been dominated by early postmortems for what went wrong for the Yes campaign.
And while volunteers are out pounding the pavement and making final pitches to the public, expectations aren’t sky-high for Saturday night. In what could be an early concession of defeat, the Yes campaign is likely to have a low-key event in Sydney as the results come in, and were scoping out community halls, that sort of thing.
The precise venue is so far yet to be confirmed, but our guess is somewhere around the inner west – Anthony Albanese’s home patch, and an area where Yes corflutes line the streets.
We hear the No camp’s event will go down in Brisbane – conveniently placed for Opposition Leader and chief No-booster Peter Dutton, who lives an hour up the road – to drop by at some point in the evening.
So while both sides homed in on Tasmania and South Australia as crucial referendum swing states, it looks like the campaigns couldn’t wait to abandon them for their safe cities for the big day.
GOOD COMPANY
Pundits in News Corp’s tabloids and TV channels like to rant and rave about the rising tide of wokeness.
So we can only hope they don’t see the company’s environmental, social and governance statement, released this week, which documents News Corp’s own commitment to so many of the things its talking heads despise – emissions reduction, diversity, inclusion, rainbow flags, that kinda thing.
An opening salvo from Rupert Murdoch, the last time we’ll see his words in such a statement, highlights News Corp’s commitment to “ensuring a cleaner and healthier environment and meeting high standards of good governance”.
Chief executive Robert Thomson listed steps made towards reaching net-zero as top of the accomplishments highlighted in the report. As a company, News Corp apparently believes in “protecting the environment ... [and] fostering a more diverse, equitable, inclusive and engaged workforce”.
Very laudable, we’re sure. Just don’t tell the heads on Sky News after dark!
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.