Public service needs greater transparency around secretary appointments

The recent announcement that Blair Comley is to become the new federal Health Department secretary and Andrew Metcalfe is to retire from Agriculture, along with seven other secretary changes plus a couple of enforced redundancies following the election of the Albanese government, reminds us of the transitory nature of such roles these days and the lack of open processes in their selection.

There may not have been the night of the "long knives" like under the Howard government that sacked six department secretaries, it is nevertheless reflects wide ranging changes including to key positions like the Department of Prime Minster and public service commissioner.

Indeed, the higher reaches of the APS are no longer the quiet haven they once were where department secretaries were permanent and held office for long periods.

This is not surprising since permanence of the senior public servant ranks was abolished by the Hawke government in the 1980s and all governments since have sought to appoint or sack department heads with increasing enthusiasm.

These changes now occur regularly with new governments or the case of the recent Coalition following new prime ministers.

Under the Coalition there were four different secretaries of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Other portfolios exhibited the same unsettling pattern included Health and Treasury which each had four secretaries. There were exceptions.

Education had just two secretaries and Department of Foreign Affairs only three. New governments are now distrustful of their inherited public servants, and look increasingly to appoint those from outside the APS whom they see as more responsive to their demands.

The resultant high turnover means senior public servants these days come and go with almost with the same rapidity as ministers. This results in a loss of experience, organisational memory, and seeming public service independence and impartiality in providing frank and fearless advice as incumbents might be tempted be too responsive to ministerial demands to maintain their positions.

Moreover, such changes initiated by executive government are open to charges, often unfairly, of "politicisation" and lack of merit by oppositions and perceived by the general public as just jobs for partisans thus undermining trust in government.

The issue is that while Australia has moved from the Westminster system with its notions of an independent permanent public service to a United States Washington model with each new government making new appointments, we have done so without the checks and balances of the US Senate confirmation process as required under its constitution.

The Senate confirmation process involves checking the background and qualifications of a president's nominee who must front a Senate committee to answer questions and resolve concerns.

Although only 2 per cent of presidential nominees are ever rejected, this process makes governments more careful in their selections, ensures the legislature directly oversights executive government decisions and builds a measure of bipartisan consensus for the appointees so they can get on with their job without the sniping.

Of course, the process is not always conclusive or builds partisanship as was seen with President Trump's nomination of judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Despite these limitations it is better than what we have presently in Australia.

Indeed, there is no reason why a US Senate committee confirmation process could not be grafted onto the Australian Senate committee system.

This could also be done more efficiently than the complicated model now operating in the United Kingdom with its special commissioner of public appointments and panoply of processes that a recent review assessed as being too slow and others as too conforming about who was appointed.