Old fiscal ideas are back, along with whatever creative new policies the public service can devise

CODE OF CONDUCT: The government discovery that public servants aren’t good merely for implementing its diktats has got to stick in the craw of a government whose signature act regarding the public service was the knifing of secretaries deemed to be too inclined to think for themselves. So writes Bernard Keane.

The government suddenly finds itself needing more policy advice than at any time since 2013. And that demand is unlikely to slacken given the longer-term trajectory of government around the world in a post-crisis environment.