Why have we raced to appoint a Fuels Tzar to manage the “crisis”? It’s not that we haven’t had warning or been here before. We do not have a plan to distribute fuel from import terminals to end users, particularly in regional areas. Now is not the time to debate fuel rationing. The triggers, processes…
First published in The Mandarin (18 February 2026) I was taken by the recent speech of the Secretary of PM&C’s words reporting Kennedy: Flexibility needed for uncertainty in a dangerous world “Efforts around the world by authoritarians to control information and politicise data underscore the need for the public service to value transparency, honesty and…
First published in The Mandarin 9 February 2026 The Digital Transformation Agency has released the strategic review of the whole of Australian government single seller arrangements (SSAs). The review, by IT consultancy SolsticeIT, found the arrangements delivered the government “significant value for money” – more than $1.6 billion. $1.6bn is savings? No! To be fair,…
After stepping away from running a business, I found the hardest part wasn’t the work, it was letting go of the identity that came with it. These are some thoughts on that journey, still at its beginning.
No one has cracked defence procurement. How will Marles’ plan make a difference?
Here we go again. Both sides of politics claim they want an independent, high-performing APS. Yet neither side can resist the urge to interfere, and the APS leadership seems to continually tread the path of least resistance. The latest is the reported forming by the APSC of a consultative committee with representatives from 11 unions,…
First published in The Mandarin 26 March 2025 AI, and all that I fear “It’s too new. It’s just guessing. I don’t know how it works. It’s just a probabilistic word generator. It’s taking my job. I don’t know how to use it”, These are a few of the reasons raised at a recent Australian…
It has been almost three months since I cleaned out my office at Kiah. I am often asked if I have really left or is it a façade and am I still pulling the strings, and if I have left, why? In short, I have left Kiah and am no longer involved in its operations…
As published in the Mandarin 21 March 2025: Why generalists ARE specialists Firstly, congratulations to The Mandarin on their conference last week. It is one of the better conferences I have attended because they had the courage to allow competing ideas to be put forward. It was a bit unusual, the norm being a passing…
It’s on again, politicians throwing stones at each other over the public sector. One side says too many and the other says too few. It’s an argument designed to score points politically, to play to the leanings of the electorate. One is either for or against the public sector. You either think it to be…
