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Paddy Gourley

Paddy Gourley

Brisbane Times

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Gina Rinehart, Kim Williams and the ABC

yesterday 7

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

The Australian Public Service and the perils of Trumpism

13.12.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Think integrity can fix all the APS's deficiencies? It can't

What's to be made of an Issues paper from the Public Service Commission, grandly titled "APS reform agenda stage 2 integrity reforms", now out for...

17.11.2024 10

Canberra Times

Paddy Gourley

The bell has tolled for Pezzullo’s gong

21.10.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Could Albanese do better with less help?

Senior political office is a hazardous place where job security can be fortuitous. A few jump before things sour although the temptations to hang...

17.10.2024 5

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Pezzullo's Home Affairs ideas belong in another world

As the Department of Home Affairs totters towards its seventh birthday, Mike Pezzullo, a former secretary of the Department, has attempted to provide...

06.10.2024 8

Canberra Times

Paddy Gourley

Messing up the sense of the census

It’s hard to imagine how the government could have made a bigger mess of questions about gender identity and sexual orientation for the 2026 Census....

07.09.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

A timid PM, frozen in the glare of the Keating headlights

When the former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, recently claimed that Australia was losing its “strategic autonomy” and turning into “the 51st...

13.08.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

ASIO, Burgess and the miasma of spookdom

Collecting, sifting and presenting information on national security is not the toughest job in the world although it can be tricky. There are now...

09.08.2024 5

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

When elected the Albanese Government inherited a federal public service rather like a semi-regurgitated dog’s breakfast

Attempts have been made to tidy things up but too much reliance has been place on administrative measures rather than the solidity of new or amended...

02.08.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

“Ill-begotten siblings”: Australia and the United States of America

Allan Behm has been about a bit. For 30 years he had important jobs in the federal public service where for a time he was pleased to be head of...

25.07.2024 9

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Rodents in the ranks

The experience of recent injuries to the pro-integrity culture in the federal public service are rather like sensations, in dream or reality, of...

11.07.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

How governments hide their activities

Primary school students learn in their early days that accountability is a keystone of democracy. Not far into secondary school that reassuring notion...

10.06.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Accepting reality: the future will not be made in Australia

12.05.2024 30

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

With foundations wobbling and a house ablaze, Secretaries Board says 'this is fine'

There's no gainsaying the canniness of the public service Secretaries Board. $0/ (min cost $0) Login or signup to continue reading To commemorate...

28.04.2024 30

Canberra Times

Paddy Gourley

Lehrmann and the engagement of ministerial staff

In the oceanic commentary on the Bruce Lehrmann cases, little attention seems to have been given as to how he actually got into Senator Linda...

26.04.2024 10

Canberra Times

Paddy Gourley

Lehrmann and the engagement of ministerial staff

In the oceanic commentary on the Bruce Lehrmann cases, little attention seems to have been given as to how he got into Minister Linda Reynolds office...

23.04.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

We were told to get ready for APS reform on steroids. Time to up the dosage?

When elected in May 2022, the ALP government inherited a federal public service that had been debauched for many years, the damage reaching a high...

14.04.2024 10

Canberra Times

Paddy Gourley

A victory against the flow of the tide

Under the Morrison and Albanese governments it may well be that the FoI Act has been more restrictively administered than at any time since it came...

26.03.2024 6

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Government shock as subordinating foreign and defence policy to US strangely unpopular with voters

A recent Essential Poll published in The Guardian proves yet again that silly questions often get silly answers. One of its question was “Which...

17.03.2024 9

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Two cheeks of the same backside: Galloway’s UK victory foretells ALP spanking

The Albanese ALP (Australian Labor Party) has become a true people’s government in the sense that its timidity restricts it from doing just about...

08.03.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

The Home Affairs security “GURU”

With the scalp of poor Mr Mike Pezzullo dangling from his belt, The Age/Sydney Morning Herald journalist Michael Bachelard continues to take a...

29.02.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

How long does it take to skin a cat?

Well, if the cat is the referral of public servants by the Robodebt Royal Commission for code of conduct investigations now being dealt by the Public...

19.02.2024 8

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

The change that could fix the problems and politics of appointments

The politicisation of appointments to statutory offices has been an ugly scab on Commonwealth public administration for a long time. $0/ (min cost...

11.02.2024 10

Canberra Times

Paddy Gourley

Mike Burgess’ “annual threat assessment”: Testing our reserves of patience

For the last few Februaries the Director-General of the ASIO, Mr Mike Burgess, has delivered an “annual threat assessment” by way of a speech to...

25.01.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Australia’s ever expanding security apparatus

Gareth Evans ,former Foreign Minister and the former  ASIO head, Alan Wrigley, are likely not the only ones to be dubious about the value of much of...

04.01.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Freedom of information laws: grand in theory, dismal in practice

Accountability only works if information about government is readily available. And who doesn’t believe in accountability, at least in theory? ...

20.12.2023 20

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

Appointment of Home Affairs Secretary Foster not merit-based

On 1 November 2023 the Minister for the Public Service, Senator Gallagher said “in the next stage of reforms” to the public service the government...

04.12.2023 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paddy Gourley

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