It ain't over until it's over

Each of these activities has its own department or sub-department or grouping of bureaucrats. Each jealously guards its own turf. Many of the senior bureaucrats in these organisations were chosen by the outgoing government for their political loyalties, or parachuted into one of the many boards within the government's patronage as a pay-off for old mates. They will not be happy with the changing of the guard.

Into this treacherous swamp step O'Farrell and his merry men and women: well-intentioned, eager to clean up the mess left to them by the outgoing government and to make names for themselves in public life.

Eager they may be, but how well suited they are for the tasks ahead is another matter. It's one thing to have good ideas about government, public finances, transport, infrastructure, hospitals – whatever. It's quite another thing to produce good workable well-budgeted outcomes.

Coalition front benchers are unfamiliar with the actual workings of government. They will come to their departments as neophytes. Their hands -on experience in actually running big organisations is minimal. They have – with the exception of Mike Baird – little experience in the higher levels of the business and financial worlds. O'Farrell himself has never worked outside of politics.

In short, if you were looking for the ideal team to run New South Wales Inc, you'd look elsewhere. But in this – in the not insignificant tasks of running Australia's states and the country as a whole – voters are stuck with what the political machines give them.

But you can never tell: government can be the making of people who have never before held power. Unexpected strengths - as well as weaknesses – can emerge. We won't know until, say, six months from now. By then we will have a reading of who is doing well and who isn't, who are running the departments within their portfolio, and who have been taken prisoners by their departments.

Everyone will be offering advice to the new government. Here is my two cents worth.

Get rid of all young, bright-eyed, politically motivated staffers. They know nothing of the real and brutal world of running things and will get you into trouble. (Perhaps keep one – useful for photocopying and getting coffee.) Find instead two kinds of talents. The first must be rat cunning, cynical, long experienced in politics, quite unimpressed by you – in fact, barely civil, and knowledgeable about where the dead bodies and the political traps are to be found. The other, skilled and experienced in running things and assessing who is good at a job of work and who isn't, and is pitiless, decisive and effective when it comes to replacing people. You are in the business of running things, and need tough and canny people around you..

Weed out all Labor appointments from the range of boards, commissions etc within your portfolio. Replace them with good and skilled people, regardless of their political stripes.

The public service is there to serve the people; some, disappointingly, are interested only in serving themselves. Beware of the senior men and women who smile readily at you, laugh at your most pitiful jokes, and seek in other ways to ingratiate themselves with you. Put them on a list of people to be disposed of or sidelined. Flatterers, in particular, should be put on a death watch.

An old public service stratagem with new bosses is to bury them under paper. Make it clear at the start that you won't play this game and anyone who tries it out on you will be at risk. Otherwise, you won't find the time and energy you need to focus on the really important work: changing New South Wales for the better.

As a Minister you will acquire many new friends: men and women who badly wanted to get to know you before your new found eminence but somehow didn't get manage to make the call. It is possible that one in a hundred of these people will be sincere, but don't bet on it. There's an old saying, trust but verify. I'd turn it around: with your new found friends verify and only then trust, and very sparingly.