Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry secretary Andrew Metcalfe delivered his valedictory address at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, this morning. The speech, hosted by IPAA ACT, marked his long and distinguished career in the Australian Public Service. Here is the full transcript, with small edits for clarity.
It’s the end of a long road for me.
I am very proud of the Australian Public Service and of being an Australian public servant.
While the APS has sometimes failed, occasionally failed badly, in its standards, overwhelmingly it has been a force for good, helping successive governments build our nation and provide services to our people, for over 120 years.
Our public service will remain very important into the future, as Australian governments navigate highly complex geopolitical, economic, environmental and societal challenges.
As observed by the Thodey Review, the basic principles of the Westminster tradition of the public service, first articulated in the Northcote-Trevelyan report of 1854, still endure: “core values of integrity, propriety, objectivity and appointment on merit, able to transfer its loyalty and expertise from one elected government to the next”.
My first minister when I was secretary of immigration, Amanda Vanstone, made some very apposite remarks in The Canberra Times on July 20, in an article headed “After robodebt, it’s important we don’t forget our public services heroes”.
Many people in this room have contributed greatly to Australia as public servants, and today I’ll talk about that and mention many of you.
But I’d like to begin by welcoming my family and close friends who are here today, and to also acknowledge those who can’t be here.
I particularly want to mention my wife, Jenny, who has been my best friend and partner now for 44 years. Quite simply, you are the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.
Jen, how lucky I was to meet you through mutual friends, at the University of Queensland in 1979.
And that we fell in love listening to Bob Dylan, Neil Young, the Beatles and the Eagles and dare I say it – David Gates and Bread – on your old three-in-one stereo, and looking through your many photo albums, mainly involving pictures of your pet sheep and poddy lambs. What an adventure we’ve had since then!
How fortunate I am to have walked beside you for all these years, with lots more walking together to do!
And I’m delighted that our daughter Nellie is with us today. We are all so proud of you Nellie – of the person that you are – and of what you have done and will do. You are a strong and passionate, and very articulate woman, who has worked hard and is now the chief of staff to an assistant minister. We know that you will do many good things in that role, and over many years to come.
Our son Riley is in Maryland, where he is a post-doctoral fellow at the United States’ National Institutes of Health, one of the world’s most prestigious medical research bodies. Jenny and Nellie and I, and his wider family and friends, are amazed by what he does – and the medical research in which he is involved. And again, he has a wonderful future ahead. We’re looking forward to seeing him in the US to celebrate his 30th birthday, two weeks from now.
Formative years
The author LP Hartley famously commenced his 1953 book The Go-Between with the words: “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”.
And Toowoomba, Queensland, where I was born in 1959 and raised in the 1960s and 1970s, was a foreign country from today’s world; as indeed was the Australian Public Service that I joined just over 43 years ago.
Looking back, there was a simple innocence to my early life.
It was a time of long summer holidays, building tree houses, riding pushbikes without helmets, of exploding letterboxes on cracker night, of black and white televisions and crystal radio sets, of strawberry flummery for dessert, of yo-yos and lolly cigarettes, of Skippy the bush kangaroo, and of backyard lavatories.
I was fortunate to be born into a loving family, with an extended family living on farms and properties on the Darling Downs.
My Dad was a returned WWII serviceman, who worked in the Commonwealth Employment Service, so the Australian Public Service has always been part of my life.
My Mum loved her five children deeply – indeed she still does – having recently attained the wonderful age of 97.
I have many memories from my childhood which have shaped my adult life, and I’d like to share just two with you today.
One of the family’s jokes was giving me a book written by Elizabeth Guilfoyle, called Nobody Listens to Andrew.
The simple plot is that nobody ever listened to Andrew, and when they eventually did, they found out that he had something worthwhile to say. This was my lived childhood experience, and let me tell you why!
There was one iron-clad rule in our house, and that was “never interrupt Mum when she’s on the phone”. The phone was her main way of staying connected with friends, as she couldn’t drive a car, and we only had one old car anyway – a Ford Prefect.
One day, when I was about four years old, I had an entertaining afternoon playing with a box of matches that I had fortuitously discovered hidden in the back of a kitchen cupboard.
I often had afternoons like that.
Small fires in the backyard, extinguished by the hose, inevitably led to more adventurous undertakings, with the result that I set fire to the wooden back fence, but on this occasion was unable to douse the flames.
So you can guess what happened next.
I thought I should confess to my behaviour, and get Mum to fix the problem before things got really out of hand. Bad news doesn’t get better with age. I ran upstairs, only to find Mum on the phone involved in a long conversation with her great friend Jeanie Mitchell.
I swear, I tried to tell her about the developing conflagration outside, but was repelled by a stern look, an admonishing finger, and clear advice that she was not to be disturbed and that I should go away.
Another attempt, a really persistent attempt, also met with stern, exasperated, rejection.
So I did what any four-year-old would do. I ran down the road and climbed up into a leafy tree. And hid.
I sat there for some me, up high in that old gum tree, observing billowing smoke away up the street, and (as far I can remember) the arrival of the fire brigade.
Eventually hunger, darkness and fear drove me back to our house, where both my parents expressed both relief at my safety, and anger of my alleged misdeeds, and I was asked to explain what had happened, and where I’d been.
And so, I explained the mysterious circumstances of the ignition of the fire, and how I had unsuccessfully tried to raise the alarm. And, finally, Mum realised that, having not listened to Andrew, that Andrew indeed had had something important to say to her.
I won’t dwell on what happened next, but it is a painful memory, and my youthful pyromania was held in check for some weeks after.
So one of my first observations that I would like to share with you, and one which is still highly relevant today, is the need to identify mistakes early on, and to fix them, and the need for persuasive and effective communication and engagement.
And how, despite some situations being difficult, listening is really important.
The second lesson from my early years was that, while I was clearly born to be an entrepreneur, fate intervened and ultimately I was destined to become a public servant.
In my early primary school years, in the mid-1960s, I constructed this most marvellous, three-storey tree house, way up in the massive camphor laurel tree that dominated our backyard.
I soon learnt that my tree house would be wildly popular as a place to play after school for my many school friends.
After some weeks of this after-school gathering, and being inundated by requests from even more school friends to be invited back home to play in this wonderful tree house, I realised that I could monetise this activity.
So, I introduced a levy of two cents per day on all comers.
In no time at all I made a fortune of several dollars, all stuffed into my Commonwealth Bank money box.
Alas, it was at this stage of my booming business career, that my mother intervened.
Having been ignorant of my business activities, one afternoon she found me quietly reading in my bedroom – I told her that I was sick of playing with the crowd outside, and preferred to spend my time reading Biggles books.
But I also, foolishly, revealed to Mum that I wanted the kids in the tree house to keep coming back every afternoon, as I was making a small fortune in payments from them.
This, perhaps naturally, horrified her, and I had to agree to pay back all the money – by inviting them all up to the café at Picnic Point one afternoon and buying everyone ice creams with my accumulated cash.
This unfortunate intervention by my mother seemed to stifle any business aspirations I might have had – but it also prepared me well for public service, for a long career of collecting and then redistributing public funds.
History lessons
But, with all of that innocence and happiness, looking back at that other world, at that foreign country of the 1960s, I can now see that there was also ignorance as well.
The Toowoomba that I grew up in had no Indigenous Australians living in it, or, if there were, there were very few and certainly not known to our family or friends.
As a child I roamed far and wide over the bushland of the Toowoomba range, learning about and coming to love, the extraordinary diversity of plants and animals; but never really thinking about, or learning about, the people who had been there for tens of thousands of years – at least for tens of thousands of years until the mid-nineteenth century.
A favourite destination of my many bushwalks was Table Top Mountain, just to the east of Toowoomba, known for its flat top. It is also known as One Tree Hill – “Meewah” in the language of the Traditional Owners.
I would have climbed up its basalt sides dozens of times in the 1960s and 70s.
We know and had great pride in our own family’s history – of Irish settlers arriving in Tasmania in 1829, of my maternal grandfather who was a stockman for Sir Sidney Kidman – but we knew nothing of Australia’s First Peoples apart from occasional references about the Aboriginal tribes who met the First Fleet, or who assisted the European explorers of this land.
And it is only now, so many years later, that I understand what really happened on that land where I lived, and played, and roamed, as a child.
What I now know – courtesy of the Toowoomba Regional Council website which is based upon several published histories – is that the Jagera, Giabal and Jarowair people lived on the Darling Downs for at least 40,000 years before European settlement. Estimations place the Indigenous population pre-settlement from 1,500 to 2,500 people.
In 1827, the Darling Downs was ‘discovered’ by Allan Cunningham and 13 years later Patrick Leslie and his party began the first wave of settlement.
The settlers brought with them diseases like smallpox, influenza and measles which were devastating to the Indigenous population. These introduced diseases, as well as social disruption, relocation, and murder, caused the Indigenous population of the Darling Downs to be almost wiped out by 1870.
The most famous and serious of conflicts on the Downs was the Battle of One-Tree Hill, on that place which I’d climbed many times a century and more later, in my innocence, and ignorance, of what had once happened there.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the Aboriginal survivors of frontier violence were under the absolute control of the Queensland government.
The widespread mindset of the time was a belief in white supremacy and so the Europeans felt they ‘knew best’ when it came to the lives of the Indigenous people.
In a move to separate the Aboriginal people from the whites, they would be removed from their traditional land, for virtually any reason, and relocated to reserves and missions set up throughout Queensland designed for their containment and control.
Arbitrary relocation could happen to any Aboriginal person but children – even more so orphans – and single mothers were especially vulnerable. These removals resulted in the breakdown of many regional affiliations and families, tearing people from their traditional values and way of life.
I will not continue to quote from the history as it progresses through the 20th century, but of course it continues to the Stolen Generation, to the landmark Mabo High Court case (the legal dismissal of the original doctrine of terra-nullius), and the recognition of the native title – and to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Now, colleagues, I don’t know how many people have actually read and thought carefully about the Uluru Statement.
I will not repeat all the words here, but I do want to just read the final sentence: “We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future”.
As an Australian who loves this country, and is proud of my family’s almost two centuries here, but one who grew up largely ignorant about the culture and civilisation and sovereignty over millennia of the First Australians who lived on this land, can I simply say how extraordinary that statement is. The extraordinary offer to walk together for a better future.
There is still much for us all to do to make that happen, for it to become a reality.
Early years of public service
I joined the Australian Public Service 43 years ago, as part of the Administrative Trainee Scheme run by the then Public Service Board. I was 20 years old.
For me, that year in Canberra was a wonderful learning experience, but my heart was elsewhere, in Brisbane with Jenny, who was still studying law at the University of Queensland.
And it is lovely that one of my closest friends from that group, Geoff Leeper, is here with us today.
Geoff went on to have a long and very distinguished career across several departments, with his final public service role as a second commissioner of taxation.
I came to the public service having studied law and public administration at the University of Queensland.
At the end of 1980 I worked hard to find a job back in Brisbane so that Jenny and I could be together, and I was fortunate to secure a transfer there to join the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, as it was then known.
The past was a different country then as well for the Australian Public Service – a land of typing pools, paper forms, large registries that were home to thousands of files, being paid in cash, tea ladies, and sometimes long lunches.
The Department of Immigration in Brisbane in 1981 was beginning a transformation from the older generation of staff, many of whom were returned World War II servicemen.
There were some female staff, but not many, and almost all in junior roles.
As an aside, in an extraordinary contrast, I was recently involved in a significant meeting on a quite sensitive issue. The meeting involved an agency head, two deputy secretaries, the minister’s chief of staff, my chief of staff, three division heads and myself. I was the only male present. Things have changed a lot.
It was at Immigration’s Brisbane office that I met and became lifelong friends with Laurie Duncan, my first boss in that department, who in later years ended up working for me.
Laurie and his wife Josie, also a great friend of Jenny’s and mine, are here today.
It is lovely being able to book-end both the start and finish of my career by (quoting Slim Dusty) ‘having a beer with Duncan’ – which we will be doing at the Kingo this evening.
Jenny’s and my careers brought us back to Canberra in the mid-80s. Jenny went on to have a long career as a senior government lawyer.
I spent a few months in late 1984 working as the executive officer for the then secretary of immigration, Bill McKinnon, who was one of the smartest people I have ever met.
I then spent a year working for the Office of the Status of Women in 1985, under the leadership of Dr Anne Summers, a person who has made an extraordinary contribution to Australian public life, and to journalism here and in the USA.
It was here that I met Jenny Francis, who is one of our closest friends, and who went on to have a very successful career with the Australian Government Solicitor, with her last APS role as the principal legal and policy adviser to the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
Indeed, in that year, 1985, Jenny and I became friends with many of that year’s administrative trainees and their partners, and again I’m delighted that several of them are here today. All went on to serve in very senior roles across many departments and agencies.
In the late 80s and early 90s, I was clerk class 11 – an EL2 in today’s language – working variously for Immigration in Canberra, Melbourne and as regional migration director in the Australian Consulate General in Hong Kong.
It was there that Jenny and I met many colleagues who became and remain very close friends, such as Chris and Gillian Callanan, Jenny and Peter Richards, John and Katrina Sargent, Tony Allan and Tanya Morgan, Jim and Sue Williams, Monica Siu, and Michelle Frew.
It was also in Hong Kong that I worked alongside a youthful Frances Adamson, who went on to many significant roles, including as ambassador to China, as secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and now as Governor of South Australia.
1993 saw Jenny and I back in Canberra, with me being promoted to be an assistant secretary, and with Riley being born. And we welcomed Nellie two years later.
I don’t plan to meticulously record every step of my career, but I do want to mention the privilege I had of being appointed as chief of staff to Phillip Ruddock, the then minister for immigration and multicultural affairs in 1996 and 1997.
That is part of the long-standing tradition of senior public servants working directly for ministers and then being able to return to the public service, without being seen by either side of politics as partisan.
It was as an assistant secretary and in other SES roles that I first started appearing as a witness before parliamentary committees. Indeed I have now appeared before senate estimates committees close to 60 times.
I learnt a very important lesson at my very first committee hearing, back in 1993.
Dennis Richardson was the deputy secretary then, and was our main witness. He, of course, went on to become director-general of security, the Australian ambassador to the United States of America, the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the secretary of Defence. And now he holds his most important appointment, as chair of the board of the Canberra Raiders!
Dennis was always a master at the art of appearing before parliamentary committees.
During that first hearing where I appeared as a witness, I had to respond to a particularly technical question and fell into a rookie’s error – of not only answering the question, but adding additional information which was not otherwise in the public domain.
Dennis’ reaction was swift, and very direct.
Helen Williams was secretary of Immigration in the mid-1990s and was a great support to me – indeed she still is. I’m delighted that Helen is also here today.
Helen was the first woman to be appointed as either a Commonwealth deputy secretary or a departmental secretary. She served as a secretary in several departments over many years, and as the public service commissioner, and, she is the second longest-serving secretary in the history of the Australian Public Service, second only to Sir Robert Garran, who was the first ever Australian public servant.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was a deputy secretary, firstly at Immigration working with my good friend and colleague Bill Farmer, and then at Prime Minister and Cabinet for several years when Dr Peter Shergold was the secretary.
It was there that I helped establish the National Security Division, and worked with many very dedicated and talented public servants such as Dr Wendy Southern, Miles Jordana, Duncan Lewis, Barbara Belcher, Jamie Fox, Sarah Chidgey, Ian Kemish, Gillian Bird, Kathy Klugman, Harinder Sidhu and the late Dr Margot McCarthy. And my dear friend Paul Tilley headed up PM&C’s Economic Division at that me.
And this all led to my being appointed as secretary of the then Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs in July 2005, just over 18 years ago. And since then I’ve had the great privilege of being secretary of Immigration for around eight years, and secretary of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and for a time also Environment and Water, for over four years.
And in the middle of that – courtesy of my sacking in 2013 by newly elected prime minister Tony Abbott – I became a partner in a major global professional services firm for six years (not PwC, I must add!) which partly allowed my latent business acumen to resurface, despite it having being squashed by my mother all those years ago.
Key influences
I’d now like to turn to talk a little about the particular experiences I’ve had to illustrate some key issues from which I learnt over that long career. I’m often asked about what shaped me as a public servant.
I answer by saying that there are many key influences:
- A training in, and resultant deep respect for the law, particularly administrative law.
- A good understanding, from both my high school studies and my university studies, of Australian and state government institutions and public policy issues.
- A keen interest in current affairs.
- Early exposure as a public servant to elected officials and their staff, particularly through my role as parliamentary liaison officer in the Brisbane Office of the Department of Immigration, and later experiences working quite closely as a mid-level and more senior officer working with a number of ministers – particularly Chris Hurford, Robert Ray, Gerry Hand and, of course, Phillip Ruddock.
- Early and frequent involvement in direct provision of services to the public, particularly with visa and citizenship applicants and their families and supporters. This naturally brought with it an understanding of the direct effect that public servants and their decisions can have on people’s lives and livelihoods.
- A strong understanding of the importance of teams in working with others: to deliver good results, and to have a shared understanding of what we were there to do.
- I’m certainly not a micromanager, but I came to realise that intuition – gut feeling – is important. If that little niggle is there, don’t ignore it. Act on it. Find out if there’s a problem. And if there is, fix it.
- I learnt early that people are human and humans make mistakes. And if you make a mistake, tell people about it and what is being done to fix it. The sacking offence is not fixing a mistake, or, even worse, of covering it up.
- And finally, I learnt that talking things over with colleagues, friends and, mentors is incredibly important. You always make better decisions when you’ve discussed them and sought other people’s views. And diverse backgrounds and views make this advice richer.
The advice and support I received from Jenny and Riley and Nellie, from Helen and Dennis, from Andrew Tongue and Wendy Southern, the late Dr Allan Hawke and Dr Jeff Harmer and the late Mike Taylor, and from many others, including many of you here today, is something that I have always particularly valued and appreciated.
Proudest moment
One very direct and personal experience that I had was seeing the impact that decisions by public servants can have on people’s lives.
It occurred when I was an acting state director of the Department of Immigration in early 1989.
I won’t mention the names of the people involved, but their situation was front page news over several days back then. The case involved the adoption of a baby girl from overseas.
The laws that governed these arrangements were both state laws and Commonwealth – particularly the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Act – which governed the status of children living in Australia in those circumstances.
Until the adoption order was finalised, adoptive children from overseas were formally wards of the minister of immigration.
However, given that the laws relating to the suitability of parents to adopt were State laws, the long-standing arrangement was that immigration ministers delegated their guardianship powers to relevant state children’s services officials.
In this particular case, there were a series of decisions by state officials that led to two different sets of parents disputing custody of a baby who had arrived from overseas under the inter-country adoption program.
The first that the Department of Immigration in Australia heard about the matter was when the minister, then senator Robert Ray, received various applications to appear before the courts.
Robert Ray resolved the matter by appointing an expert panel to advise him on what was required to achieve the “best interests” of the child involved.
The panel advised which family the baby should be placed with, and the minister acted on that advice.
He then asked that to give effect to his decision, that I, as acting state director, and accompanied by two senior social workers, go out to take the baby from the one family and return her to the other family.
We did this one cold afternoon back in the autumn of 1989, and I can honestly say it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
I often think about that day, and how what public servants do, and how they do it, can profoundly affect people’s lives.
And what a solemn duty we have to undertake our work lawfully, with empathy and understanding, and in a fair and reasonable way.
Over many years, I was involved in many high-profile cases and situations, but I can say that, with some very sad exceptions, the Department of Immigration always sought to operate within the law.
And if circumstances required a change to the law, the department worked with the minister and the government and the parliament to do so.
Immigration was one of the first departments to create an in-house legal branch and later a division.
And we were one of the first departments to also have an outposted senior Australian Government Solicitor lawyer – most notably Bert Mowbray and later Ian Deane.
And though there were many contentious issues, particularly in relation to the laws surrounding asylum seekers and refugee status claimants, there was a strong culture of acting within the law – or seeking to amend it if required.
The situation involving the MV Tampa, the establishment of offshore processing arrangements, and the proposed Malaysia Strategy are all examples of this.
They are all very significant matters in their own right, but time today prevents me from going into detail.
More details will be published in one of the volumes of my memoirs, to be published in the far-distant future!
But the Department of Immigration was certainly not perfect: no large organisation comprising thousands of people can probably ever be completely perfect.
While it did almost always have a culture of recognising and fixing mistakes, sadly that was not the case on all occasions, most tragically in relation to a large number of immigration detention cases in the early 2000s.
The most infamous of these were in relation to Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez (Solon).
I’m sure that many of you will recall these cases and the damning reports in 2005 from former police commissioners Mick Palmer (about Ms Rau) and Neil Comrie (about Ms Alvarez).
I won’t go into all the details here again today, as they are very well documented, but in the view of many of us, the department’s handling of Ms Alvarez was the most egregious.
Not only was she misidentified and illegally deported – but when that fact separately became known some time later to two mid-ranking officers, they failed to do anything about it – let alone try to fix it.
Indeed they actively sought to cover it up.
The Palmer report led to widespread changes in the department, and I was appointed as the secretary by prime minister Howard and tasked to lead a reform program – 18 years and a fortnight ago.
I set up a taskforce to assist me with that quite daunting task, led by Andrew Tongue, who is here today, and involving Dr Wendy Southern and others.
Carmel McGregor joined us from Centrelink to overhaul our client services.
And Sandi Logan and Susie Van Den Heuval upgraded our internal and external communication capabilities, so essential in driving cultural reform in a large global organisation.
Many others helped, too many to mention today. Our work is well documented in a series of case studies published by the Australian and New Zealand School of Government.
Andrew, in particular, was instrumental in seng the reform framework for the department by saying to me: “When you carefully read Mick Palmer’s report, and work out what the department needs to do, it all boils down to three broad areas:
- we must have staff who are well-trained and well-supported;
- we must be fair and reasonable in our services to our clients; and
- we must be open and accountable.”
We took these as the broad themes for our work, and put them under the tag line of “People: Our Business”. [It was] a tag line suggested by Jenny and workshopped with Riley and Nellie around the kitchen table.
There were other key cultural reform measures, such as emphasising that it’s the failure to right a wrong, to correct a mistake, that is the sacking offence; and through working very closely with the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office led by Professor John McMillan and Dr Vivienne Thom, and many other advisers, such as Paris Aristotle. They were all key to our reform program. It worked. We got things back to where they should be. It’s my proudest achievement as a public servant.
Avoiding mistakes
We all know George Santayana’s famous quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
Whenever failures occur in public administration, some of which are deplorable and indeed wicked, I think back to the Palmer and Comrie reports, and to the report from John McMillan as Commonwealth Ombudsman in August 2007 on “Lessons for Public Administration” following his investigations into dozens of immigration detention cases.
I will return to that report shortly.
I also wonder about the role and advice of the Administrative Review Council, an august and wise body (on which I must declare I served for many years!). The ARC was abolished by the Abbott government under the mantra of “smaller government”.
What a retrograde step that was.
I also wonder about the Better Practice Guides published by the Australian National Audit Office, but now discontinued.
Why do we not remember the lessons of the past? Why do we repeat mistakes?
How can we ensure that we do remember them? And not repeat them?
Professor McMillan’s 2007 advice was simple and straightforward. If remembered and applied, I believe all sorts of errors, mistakes and wrongful decisions and schemes would have been avoided.
His 10 lessons were:
- Maintain accurate, comprehensive and accessible records
- Place adequate controls on the exercise of coercive powers
- Actively manage unresolved and difficult cases
- Heed the limitations of information technology systems
- Guard against erroneous assumptions
- Control administrative drift
- Remove unnecessary obstacles to prudent information exchange with other agencies and bodies
- Promote effective communication within your own agency
- Manage complexity in decision-making
- Check for warning signs of bigger problems
John and I launched that report together, at an event across the lake at the Boathouse, hosted by IPAA.
I added an 11th lesson – one which went to organisational culture – about ensuring positive outcomes and behaviours.
Better training required
Given all of the above, and given the failures in public administration that sometimes tragically occur, I believe that public servants need better formal preparation and training for the responsibilities of senior leadership.
As they advance towards the Senior Executive Service, compulsory and formal training is essential.
It should particularly focus on case-study styled methodology of what has gone well in the past, and what hasn’t, and why.
While well-meaning, I believe that the APS’s efforts in this regard have often been fragmented, sometimes desultory, and heavily dependent on available departmental budget allocations.
The APS plays a critical role in our society, in our economy, in the defence and protection of our country, in the lives of each and everyone of us.
Public servants administer programs, some of which are small and targeted, and many of which are of wide application, involving millions of people and the expenditure of billions of dollars.
We regulate major areas of the economy, and many aspects of people’s lives and livelihoods.
We provide advice and support to ministers.
Our scores of departments and agencies employ many tens of thousands of people.
We need the best possible leadership. The Australian government and our community expect no less. They deserve no less.
As part of the APS Reform program, I therefore believe that we need to invest much more in preparing our future leaders for their many responsibilities, and ensuring that as part of that, they benefit from the accumulated wisdom of those who have gone before – and that they are schooled in the successes and the mistakes of the past.
Exemplary teams
Time today doesn’t allow me to talk at length about the work of the departments of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, and Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry, over recent times.
I’ll have the chance to do so in a speech to the Rural Press Club later in the year.
But can I just say how proud that I am of the work, the resilience, the commitment to service, and the values and behaviour of my staff over the last three-and-a-half years.
Their work in responding to the Black Summer bushfires, of working through the COVID years in keeping our borders safe and goods and products moving and the department’s services functioning, in relation to the agriculture workforce, the rural innovation system, our biosecurity and our trade – to name but a few areas – has been exemplary.
There has been around-the-clock delivery of essential services combined with policy support for our ministers and administration of major programs.
Long-term thinking and developing and nurturing partnerships with our state and territory colleagues, with other departments, with universities, industry groups, unions and representatives of civil society has been a real feature.
We also work very closely with agriculture and biosecurity departments overseas, and I’m delighted that my New Zealand counterpart, Ray Smith, is able to be here today.
This work has allowed us to support our minister, senator Murray Watt, to finalise the National Biosecurity Strategy, the National Traceability Strategy, the National Agriculture Climate Statement and many other enduring initiatives.
And there is, of course, much more to come, as our agriculture, fishing and forestry industries continue their journey of sustainability, and profitability, with less impact on the atmosphere and the environment.
And I am particularly proud that, earlier this week, the department launched our First Nations Platform for Shared Benefits in Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry developed in close consultation with First Nations Australians – a plan to help activate the economic value of land, water and sea resource rights amongst other things.
Can I again place on the record my thanks to all the staff of my department in giving daily effect to the great purpose of the Australian Public Service, of serving the Australian community and our industries with integrity, intelligence, and commitment; through direction from and accountability to the Australian government.
Many staff of the department are here today, and I’d like to recognise your commitment to our purpose and values, and calmness in crises. Particularly when foot and mouth disease reached Indonesia and especially Bali in the middle of last year.
And, on a very personal note, can I thank you so much for your support to me in my role.
Today, I have mentioned many senior public servants who have served Australia with great distinction.
But government departments are made up of many people, and the contribution of all staff is vital to success.
And in recognition of that, there are several people here today that I’d especially like to acknowledge and thank.
Simon Leonard, who is now retired, and who worked as a clerical assistant in my branch at the Department of Immigration many years ago, and who went on to be the departmental courier for ministers’ offices.
Michael Littley and Marc Tewksbury, amongst many others from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, who have helped me stay connected through technology and through weekly video messages to our staff around Australia and around the world.
Simon, Michael and Marc – you represent those thousands of public servants who are the “glue” of departments, who keep us together, and I’d like to recognise and thank you for your wonderful service.
Can I also recognise and sincerely thank my several executive assistants from over the years who are here with us today – Kim Nadurak, Rebecca Steffan and Sarah Maxwell – without you I simply wouldn’t have been able to do my job.
And also my many executive officers and deputy secretaries, some of whom are here today.
Can I particularly mention my current chief of staff, Lisa Borella, who has provided such great support to me.
To all, can I simply say: “Thank you”.
You have been great teams over many years. We have achieved a lot together, for successive governments, and for the Australian community.
We’ve worked very hard, but we’ve also had some fun along the way!
An enduring feature of our country must always be a strong and capable Australian Public Service, and it’s been my great privilege to have devoted almost 40 years of my life to it.
So colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, the past was a different country, and doubtless the future will be a different one again.
We all have the ability to shape that future, and to make it a better one for our children and their children and their children; for the First Australians and all of us who have come since 1788, and for those who will come in the years ahead.
Again, thank you for being here today, and thank you, everyone, for listening to Andrew.
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