You take the bullet, we'll make a soft landing: Ministers and their advisors

While it is generally acknowledged that Premier Beattie's sacking of Queensland Ministerial Media Adviser Teresa Mullan over taking a bottle of wine into a dry Aboriginal community was a gross over-reaction, that is exactly what ministerial advisers are for.

That's harsh, but it is an immutable fact of modern political life. Volumes of recent commentary have focused on the collective shudder that¹s run through the public service about the summary career execution of one of their own.

That is utter nonsense. Ms Mullan is no more a member of the public service than is Premier Beattie or his Chief of Staff.

Ministerial advisers are political appointments. The proof of that pudding lies in the fact that at election time, if there is a change of government, those same advisers are also turfed out, or re-employed as opposition staff.

The only ministerial staff who don't suffer that fate are the Department Liaison Officers career public servants - sent to be the main coordination point between a Minister's office and their Department.

But even most of those would not survive a change of government and would be immediately reassigned back to their home departments, as the incoming government generally won't want people in their offices who have been so close to the previous regime.

Unlike public servants, most ministerial advisers aren¹t appointed because of high levels of achievement in a particular field (with occasional exceptions).

Instead, they are selected more because of a convergence of party affiliation (or at least ideological symmetry) urgent need, personal knowledge and/or recommendation, loyalty and a proven general level of ability to work in a political environment.

They usually have not spent years learning the ropes of a portfolio and the subject matter they are to deal with.

They are generally much younger than their equivalent rank in the permanent public service.

And most significantly, they wield enormous power, sitting on the right hand side of God, as it were - the Minister that public servants are meant to service.

A bad relationship with a ministerial adviser can bring a promising public service career to a grinding halt, with a posting to "Siberia" to stamp licences a distinct possibility.

But the privileged and powerful position of Ministerial Adviser cannot come without reciprocal obligation. Indeed, advisers serve at the pleasure of their political masters who can, generally speaking, dismiss them for any reason at all.

In the family favourite movie Dave, in which an American Presidential impersonator, Dave Kovac, finds himself having to fill in for the real, fatally ill President, there is a quaint plot thread involving the assigned body-guard.

Dave realises that Dwayne, his bodyguard, is in the invidious position of having to potentially risk his life or "take a bullet" to save him, a man only pretending to be the President.

By the movie¹s end, Dwayne looks earnestly at Dave and assures him "I really would have taken a bullet for you".

While it's a cute homily, that is the position most ministerial staff are in for the duration of their contracts.

If it is considered that the sacrifice of a ministerial staffer can assuage the public expectation of a scalp for some governmental impropriety, then those unfortunate souls are expected to take a bullet.

But then there is an expectation on behalf of the staffers that they will be "looked after" with a cushioned landing, either somewhere in a Government Department, or with a friendly employer.

The same goes for Ministers and MPs for that matter. If a Ministerial or political scalp will protect the government of the day, then that person usually takes a bullet for the greater governmental good.

That has recently become standard practice in Queensland and around the country. It is very rare that you see a head of government take ultimate responsibility and stand down without being dragged there by some form of Royal Commission or other legal proceeding.

There are several possible reasons why the proven tactic failed in this instance, but the main contributing factor was Premier Beattie's promise to a journalist that Ms Mullan would never work in government again.

After all, you can't have people employed in government who have knowingly misled police can you? When a journalist from Brisbane's Courier Mail phoned the sacked adviser to tell her there would be no soft landing, the adviser then had no reason to remain loyal, as she realised she was paying a higher price than would normally be demanded.

Not only was she to be sacked, her career prospects were to be severely restricted by the Premier's contention she would never work in government again.

There is no doubt Ms Mullan is a loyal and capable adviser. But she apparently made two errors in judgment by: a) taking the wine in the first place, and b) giving an initially misleading statement to police, which she subsequently corrected.

There is also no doubt that Premier Beattie was right to take responsibility for this episode blowing into the saga it has become, calling into question the integrity of many people who probably don¹t deserve it.

In reinstating Ms Mullan, Mr Beattie has again shown his political skill in negating a festering wound for his government today there is barely a mention in the State¹s main local newspaper.

But don't expect Ms Mullan to be the last staffer to take a bullet for their minister in Australia. It's just that next time there won't be any miscommunication of the "soft landing" message that might lead to messy and damaging public confessions.