Freebairn Public Lecture

Trusted for the times: The evolution of the Australian Government and public service
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Acknowledgements1

I would like to thank the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Business and Economics for inviting me to speak today. 

I would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we are meeting, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong peoples. 

I pay my respects to their Elders – past and present – and extend my respect to any First Nations people who are with us today.

It’s a privilege to deliver this lecture in honour of Professor John Freebairn. I add my voice to the chorus of past speakers who have noted how rare and special it is to present a public lecture in honour of such an eminent person.2

Introduction

Today we see faith in democracy faltering in a serious way, including growing rejection of the baseline certainties on which our democratic worldview relies. 

In September, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance published its yearly State of Democracy report. 

Graph showing percentage of countries with declines in at least one factor of deomocratic performance, 2025 54% of countries declining

Source: The Global State of Democracy 2025: Democracy on the Move, Page 13

The report looked at 173 countries and assessed them against four categories of democratic performance: representation, rights, rule of law and participation. Ninety-four countries – representing more than half of the study – suffered a decline in at least one area when compared to their performance just five years ago.3/sup>

The report’s findings point not only to the rising rejection of evidence and scientific fact, but also to the breakdown of ‘long held assumptions’: the authority of international organisations, the impact of tariffs, and the inviolability of international borders among liberal democracies.4

The Institute’s Secretary-General, Dr Kevin Casas-Zamora writes, ‘today, the state and fate of democracy in the world is perhaps more uncertain than it has been in our lifetimes.’5

The University of Gothenburg’s V-Dem Institute has published a similar study, looking at the state of democracy in 179 countries around the world.6 Their 2025 report heralded a troubling turning point – the number of autocracies or countries with autocratic characteristics surpassed the number of democracies for the first time in decades.7

Share of the world population living in autocracies

Source: V-DEM Democracy Report 2025 25 Years of Autocratization – Democracy Trumped? Page 7

The report found that the proportion of the world’s population living in a liberal democracy had sunk to its lowest point in 50 years – almost three quarters of the world’s population today is governed by electoral or closed autocratic regimes.8

2024 Nobel laureate, the economist Daron Acemoglu, puts it down to a general feeling that liberalism hasn’t lived up to its promises. 

He argues that, globally, people aren’t sharing equally in liberalism’s spoils, that public services are failing to deliver the way citizens want them, and that people’s voices are not being represented in the way our democratic systems intended.<9

Martin Wolf, Chief Economic Commentator at the Financial Times shares these concerns and argues that democratic capitalism and its central tenets are in crisis.10

And a recent study from the University of Southampton shows that trust in parliament and government worldwide has been declining since at least 1990.11

In Australia, these forces and the risks they pose are perhaps not as grave as elsewhere. 

While the State of Democracy Report doesn’t provide overall country rankings, in each of the categories assessed – in representation, rights, rule of law and participation – Australia ranked in the top 20 of the 173 countries analysed.<12

We’re fortunate that trust in our government is relatively high and our democratic institutions remain remarkably strong. 

The most recent trust in Australian public services report, published just a few weeks ago by the Australian Public Service Commission, found that trust in Australian public services has increased significantly in the past year.13

There was an increase in both trust and satisfaction for more than half of the agencies and services, with DFAT, the PBS and Medicare each scoring 80% or above. The Australian Electoral Commission typically receives trust and satisfaction scores in the high 80s, recently even as high as 91 per cent.14

This matters, for as economist Justin Wolfers put it in his recent Boyer Lecture, Australia’s institutions are not only rare, valuable and worth defending’, they’re the foundation of our prosperity.15

Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart argue that there is a lot that liberal democracies can learn from Australia. They, like Wolfers, draw attention to our history of compulsory and preferential voting in particular.16

So Australia’s system of government appears in relatively good shape. 

This has been made possible through constant debate and review and realignment. Without this debate, and in the presence of many pressures, our system could easily degrade as others have. 

To better understand where Australia sits today and how debate has unfolded, it is perhaps best to first start with our history.

In this lecture, I will consider how our Australian system of government and the Australian Public Service has changed and evolved in line with a growing nation from Federation to today.

I will then explore how, with each period of change, new questions emerged about how precisely that evolution should unfold. 

The threads I’d like to pick up throughout include:

How the government ought to organise and equip itself amid shifting global environments and increasing domestic pressures. 

How to ensure we strike the right balance between size, shape and efficiency, especially as the responsibilities of the Commonwealth significantly expand.

And how to manage the tension between stability and change, to maintain the confidence of the people we’re here to serve – especially at this time when democratic institutions worldwide are under such strain.

Many of the issues I will touch on have been points of tension and questioning throughout our history. 

These include the importance of an independent and merit-based public service, our evolving federal structure, and foundational doctrines of responsible and representative government enshrined in the Constitution.

The Beginnings 

Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, May 9, 1901

Source: Tom Roberts, ‘Big Picture’, Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia by H.R.H. The Duke of Cornwall and York, Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra, ACT and the Royal Collection Trust.

The constitutional conventions of the 1890s, followed by the passing in the British Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act in 1900,17 unified our disparate colonial settlements to form the Commonwealth of Australia and the Westminster system we know today.

The drive to Federation reflected Henry Parkes’ call to ‘unite and create a great national government for all Australia’, including for unified defence.18

The constitution itself needed to deal with one of the principal concerns which was ‘the division of political power between the Commonwealth and States.’19

Emeritus Professor at the ANU’s Crawford School, the late Richard Mulgan, wrote of Westminster-based systems as sharing ‘loosely linked family resemblances’,20 with our Australian version adopting elements borrowed from both the US and UK.

We threw in some democratic practices of our own. Australia was one of the first countries to give women the franchise, in 1902.21 In 1918 came preferential voting. Compulsory voting was introduced in Queensland in 1914, and became a federal practice not long after.22

As Monash University’s political scientist Professor Jim Walter argues, these early habits were also ‘foundational to the citizens’ bargain: the state as responsible for collective wellbeing, with citizens obliged to engage seriously with democratic government.’23

In 1901, our population was less than 4 million.24 If you lived in Australia at Federation, you were almost certainly born either here, in the UK or Ireland.25 You could expect to live into your 50s, but not much longer than that.26

You probably worked in a primary industry like agriculture, mining, forestry or fishing.27 And in those days, if you wanted to get from Sydney or Melbourne to Perth, you’d be travelling by sea.<28

The past century and a quarter has vastly shifted who we are as Australians, and we’ve completely reimagined how we live. Today, we are more diverse, more urban, we are healthier and more highly-educated. We are wealthier, more mobile and far more connected to each other and the globe. We expect far more from our governments, too.

As Australia has changed so too has the Australian public service.

Today, the APS has around 185,000 ongoing employees dotted around the country.29

Australia’s first Commonwealth public servant: Sir Robert Garran

Source: National Portrait Gallery, London. Sir Robert Randolph Garran by Walter Stoneman, bromide print. Commissioned 1918. NPG x 167752.

For a brief period back in 1901, there was just one: Sir Robert Garran. Garran had been an important player in the Federation movement, and had been closely involved in the drafting of the Constitution itself. 

These modest beginnings reflected what was a much smaller set of responsibilities for the new Commonwealth. 

Matters of trade, commerce and national defence fell under federal control, as did a smattering of administrative tasks, from managing the nation’s lighthouses to delivering the post.30

My current department, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet didn’t exist. My former home, the Department of the Treasury, had 5 staff.31

The states, on the other hand, retained much of the autonomy and functions they had as colonies, underscored by the principle of subsidiarity, the idea that decisions should be made at the lowest possible or most local level.32 Perhaps this also reflected the pragmatic political realities of negotiating our Federation across diverse views from different states.

Cartoon depicting Prime Minister Billy Hughes and his ‘War Precautions Machine’, The Daily Telegraph, 8 December 1917

Source: COAL DISPUTE. (1917, December 8). The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 - 1930), p. 12. Retrieved November 7, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article239241261

World War One changed that.33 The War Precautions Act of 1914 paved the way for reams of subordinate instruments that enabled the Commonwealth to exercise control, over everything from the movements of people to the provision of information.

Though we were at war, these were quite literally simpler times: Wartime Prime Minister Billy Hughes is said to have reflected that 'the best way to govern Australia was to have Garran at his elbow, with a fountain pen, [and] a blank sheet of paper'.34

The response to World War One, and later the High Court’s decision in the Engineers case of 1920 – which clarified the Commonwealth’s powers over the states – established a far more dominant position for the Commonwealth than had been envisioned at Federation.35

Just two decades in, our federal system was evolving – partly in response to global events, partly in response to economic and social changes within Australia and influenced by the High Court’s evolving interpretation of the new Australian Constitution.36

A feature of our federal system that has remained consistent since the start, however, is our embrace of the Westminster-style principle of a permanent, merit-based, and politically-neutral public service.

These characteristics have their origin in the UK, and the Northcote-Trevelyan civil service reforms of 1854. 

v Sir Robert Garran was an example of this style of public servant: By the time he retired from the service, he’d worked for an astonishing 11 attorneys-general, and 16 governments.<37 This reflected a time of flux in our Parliament, with governments lasting less than a year, while Secretaries were permanently appointed.39

Advertising an examination for the positions of ‘letter-carrier, mail-driver, mail-boy, and postal assistant’ in The Daily Telegraph, April 1910

Source: (1910, April 2). The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 - 1930), p. 17. Retrieved October 20, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page25756816

I mentioned that one of our earliest responsibilities was delivering the post. Early public service commissioners would insist that those applying to be post office bicycle messengers were rigorously assessed as they would be the senior leaders of tomorrow. 

Indeed, many of them did make it all the way – Bob Lansdowne and Bill Cole, departmental secretaries in the 1980s, started out as telegraph boys before going onto obtain their degrees after the war.40

Which introduces a question that has persisted ever since: what genuine representation looks like. While members of our parliament are democratically chosen by the people, the members of our public service are not.

This has implications for executive power and responsibility – themes I’ll return to later. 

But it’s also relevant to the diversity of people we attract into the service in the first place – both in terms of reflecting the community we serve, but also ensuring we possess the capabilities to do the job well.

Mid-century growth

By the time Sir Robert Garran retired in 1932, global events had changed the picture once more, and our policy landscape was growing more complex still.

For one, Australia was beginning to assert our independence from the UK. 

Secondly, the Great Depression had arrived, to devastating effect. National income declined by a third, and unemployment reached 32 per cent.<41

This combined with World War Two, called for the Commonwealth to do more again.

A recovering economy, a major war effort to fund, a peacetime transition to plan for – these tasks all required government to organise itself in new ways, both in the form of new structures and new skills.

And so, the shape of our federalism arrangements changed once more. The Income Tax (War-Time Arrangements) Act of 1942 effectively transferred control of income taxes from the states to the Commonwealth, establishing the vertical fiscal imbalance we’re familiar with today.42

Promoting the Department of Post-War Reconstruction, 1944

Source: J.B. Chifley, Social Security and Reconstruction (Canberra: Department of Post-War Reconstruction, 1944), State Library Victoria.

The APS rearranged itself as well. New departments such as the Department of Labour and National Service and the Department of Post-war Reconstruction were part of this wider reimagining of what the Commonwealth government could – and should – do for its citizens. 

A new Commonwealth Employment Service would match workers with jobs, a pharmaceutical benefits scheme would provide affordable antibiotics and medicines, and new payments for widows and the unemployed would significantly expand the reach and impact of the welfare state. 

Now the Commonwealth was responsible for national reform – at scale. 

Announcing new roles for university graduates in The Sydney Morning Herald, June 1934

Source: UNIVERSITY GRADUATES (1934, June 19). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 8. Retrieved October 20, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17104601

To meet the moment, the public service needed a new type of recruit – it needed university graduates, including from what was then the relatively new discipline43 of economics.

The shift to recruiting graduates was not necessarily a shift away from our egalitarian roots. For example, Australian university graduates often came from humble backgrounds themselves and in fact there’s been a long tradition of APS Secretaries coming from modest beginnings. 

But the recruitment of graduates in the post-war period was a shift nonetheless. 

And it cemented a new, dominant role for the Australian bureaucracy – one characterised by a Keynesian worldview44 and serious policy influence.45 It was a time where data reigned supreme – perhaps telling that the most influential public servant during the 30s was Sir Roland Wilson, the Commonwealth Statistician.46

Another aspect of the political landscape that solidified during this period was our two-party system, with the formation, in 1944, of Menzies’ Liberal Party of Australia, established to challenge the dominance of Labor.47 This was not without its risks for a public service based in the apolitical Westminster tradition.

So the story goes, when Menzies’ Coalition government won the 1949 election, the head of the Prime Minister’s Department, Sir Allen Brown, was asked directly by Menzies if he was a member of the Labor Party. Brown responded he ‘wouldn’t be seen dead in the Labor Party.’ Before adding, he ‘wouldn’t be seen dead in [the Liberal Party] either.’ Menzies was impressed, and it was the start of a long and close working relationship between the pair.48

A period of relative post-War stability for the Australian public sector came to an end with the election of the Whitlam Government, which came to power with a clear objective to reshape the public service to address contemporary challenges.

The first International Women’s Day rally held in Australia, 8 March 1975

Source: Photograph. Demonstrations - Victoria - Women's rights demonstration in Melbourne to mark International Women's Day, 8 March 1975 , National Archives of Australia.

In office, Whitlam reformed and modernised the public service – including establishing the then-Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the Trade Practices Commission (forerunner of the ACCC), National Parks and Wildlife Service, as well as a range of commissions.

And yet Whitlam and many of his ministers were sceptical of the agency heads who had served the previous government for so long.49 The emergence of the modern political advisor dates to this time, a development that continues to influence the relationship between ministers and the public service.

Moving through the 1960s and 70s, Australia was not just changing rapidly economically, but socially too. There was an emerging awareness of the ways in which Australia’s social and political arrangements entrenched both racism and sexism, and the executive arm of government was certainly not immune.

Debates around the lifting of the marriage bar and putting an end to the White Australia Policy raised uncomfortable questions about whether the public service was failing to represent the citizens it served.50

Graph showing APS staff born outside Australia and first language spoken not exclusively English. in 2024, 31.9% of Australians born overseas, 25.7% of APS first language spoken not exclusively English, and 24.8% of APS born outside of Australia

Source: State of the Service Report 2023–24, page 301; Australia's population by country of birth, June 2024 | Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The pursuit of a more representative service remains a challenge still. The proportion of APS staff born outside Australia and with a first language not exclusively English have both risen over the last ten years. But a significant gap with the broader Australian population remains. 5152

Significantly more progress has been made from a gender perspective with equal representation and a relatively low gender wage gap.

Women today comprise 60.4 per cent of the APS workforce overall, and 55 per cent of the senior executive cohort.53

Contemporary challenges and opportunities

Changes within government over the latter half of last century continued to mirror broader cultural and economic shifts occurring across Australia and globally. 

Private sector management theory found its way into the public sector, and the burgeoning culture of ‘New Public Management’ brought with it a raft of new debates:

About the size and burden of government. About the balance between private and public provision of services, the influence of politics on policy development, and the role of ministerial staffers, and the introduction of five-year terms for departmental secretaries.54

To address the ‘blurring of the lines’ between an apolitical public service and political advice, in 1984, the Parliament passed the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act. The Act created a new type of taxpayer-funded but non-APS employee – the Ministerial adviser.

From the 80s and 90s, policy makers were expected to operate more how a ‘business’ might: less rigid, more agile, responsive and efficient,55 and major economic reforms including the privatisation of public assets such as the Commonwealth Bank, Telecom and Qantas saw significant government restructuring.56

The expectation of the state would become one of oversight: ‘of steering, not rowing’.57

And yet, the philosophy of ‘leave it to the market’ could only go so far – when the market failed, the government still had to deal with it. Hence the proliferation of a patchwork of new government institutions: regulators and statutory authorities established to step in and fill the void.58

At this point, I’d like to pause.  So far the story I’ve told has been of the role of our institutions – and specifically the public service – in creating Australia’s prosperity. That prosperity is surely a large part of the reason why Australians express such high levels of support for their institutions. 

Importantly though, I’ve also emphasised how maintaining the high quality of Australia’s public service has depended on being able to rethink the system.  As times have changed, so have the organisation and workforce of the public service changed.  

Today, a topic worth considering is the proliferation of government institutions I just mentioned.  This is a significant shift, and one with significant implications for our system of government and the role of the APS today.

The creation of new institutions sitting within the executive but independent from departments of state, and with ministers at arms’-length, has been a feature of Australian bureaucracy since before Federation. 

Back in the late 19th century, and beginning with the state railway systems, the newly self-governing states ‘entrusted many of their more technical and commercial activities to statutory authorities strengthened in various ways’.59

After Federation, the Commonwealth followed the larger states in its use of statutory authorities. Over time, this has meant a vast expansion of Commonwealth entities – from what began as a handful of departments back in 1901, to a complex web of around 100 Commonwealth agencies, and now more than 1300 bodies in operation today.60

The vast majority of agencies serve governments highly effectively.61 My interest in institutions stems from my own experience, spending a number of years working at the Australian Bureau of Statistics and working with institutions such as the Reserve Bank, the Productivity Commission and the ACCC.

Bodies such as these are an efficient way for the Commonwealth to take care of its ever-widening responsibilities. They tend to be repositories of deep expertise, and over time build sustained capability in a way departments can struggle to do.62

But the proliferation of these sorts of bodies raises questions too – about who gets to make those choices, about restrictions on ministerial responsibility, as well as the concentration of power within the executive branch. Some of these questions have been deliberated for decades; the Coombs Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration, which reported in 1976, observed that ‘with so much of the total resources of the Commonwealth involved in their operations, it is vital to consider critically whether traditional modes of securing accountability and effective discharge of functions are satisfactory’.63

Many would assume that these institutions, like departments, are subject to ministerial direction. However that’s not necessarily the case as the degree of independence differs according to the specific departmental legislation.<64

Ministers are ultimately accountable to the Parliament and the people for the decisions made in their portfolios. But the gap between their ability to control decision-making and their level of accountability is in many cases wide. 

As one Senate paper plainly describes them, smaller bodies can be ‘a great source of unsupervised executive power’.65

The effect of this is that there can be no safety valve when tensions arise. Ministers are responsible, even though in practice they may have limited control – trade-offs can’t be made. The result of this is that the machinery of government can become extraordinarily rigid, with little flexibility to move.

When you have many bodies so sharply focused on their own individual aims, the bigger picture can become obscured, in turn creating practical challenges for governments who want to deliver.

All of which is to say: The more you disperse functions and responsibilities, the harder it is to coordinate for the common good. That coordination task is in part one for departmental secretaries, who have a role to play in supporting clear lines of communication – and accountability – with agency heads within their portfolios.

This disaggregation of power and responsibility has happened with limited debate in Australia. We have almost presumed this is a sensible way to manage increasing responsibility, and haven’t stopped to consider the implications for some of those founding principles on which trust in our system depends. 

The National Disability Insurance Agency is a contemporary example. The NDIA Board makes decisions with many billions of dollars’ worth of consequences, based on considerations of need. 

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Act does require the Board to have regard to the financial sustainability of the scheme, but it is very difficult for it to consider and make the broader trade-offs that governments need to make to ensure fiscal sustainability. This is the type of trade-off only a Minister and government can make.<66

We can see similar issues in the current debate over environmental regulations with calls to ensure that the government of the day through the Minister bears responsibility for key decisions directly that impact matters of national environmental significance.

Another example of delegated executive power arose in the response to COVID. In some states, public health officials held powers that many thought, should have rested in the hands of elected officials. The state of Victoria, for example, has since taken steps to shift the power to make pandemic orders away from the Chief Health Officer to the responsible Minister.67/sup>

This is not to diminish the expertise of those advising in all these matters and the importance of this advice being available to all. However, in a democracy, where accountability rests with the government of the day, those directly responsible for the decisions of the day should have the greatest accountability.

These debates are more extensive elsewhere.<68

In the UK, you have former Prime Minister Tony Blair expressing his view that the civil service under his leadership was too powerful; too interested in serving its own aims. You have current UK commentators describing ‘dense thickets of regulation, the quangos, boards and committees folding into each other like Escher’s staircases.’69

And you have the current UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, openly criticising what he describes as a ‘cottage industry of checks and blockers’, citing challenges in housing and health policy70

In New Zealand, observers describe the accumulation of ‘legally independent’ crown entities and state-owned enterprises71 as leading to a ‘powerful bureaucracy [that makes] governing … increasingly difficult’.72

In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney has recently passed the One Canadian Economy Act, which, to use his words, is part of a ‘broader effort with all the provinces and territories to eliminate the barriers that have held [Canada] back for far too long.’<73

While the overcorrections we see in the US are on the crisis end of the scale, as US journalist Ezra Klein and his colleagues argue, their basis reflects a pattern that has developed over the long term.74

These critiques of government institutions are not the result of a sudden reckoning. Rather they have been allowed to build over a long period of time. 

In his economic history of Australia Why Australia Prospered, Ian Mclean talks about Australia’s ability to improve institutional structures as having been essential to its economic prosperity. McLean argues that because Australia’s bases of prosperity have shifted, we have needed our institutions to shift to fit with those changes.75

Nevertheless, as my predecessor at PM&C Professor Glyn Davis said to the APS at the end of last year, ‘Just as good policy advice is based on facts and analysis, so the value of public service should be evaluated on its merits’.76

So in that spirit, as for whether the institutional structure of the public service is still right to meet our nation’s objectives or have we simply been adding to the patchwork, is a worthwhile question to ask. 

Also worthwhile is to ask whether the significant transfer of power to a dispersed bureaucracy, free to operate at arms’ length from ministerial direction, is best serving our democracy’s needs. There is a balance to be struck here, as with everything in government, between efficiency and accountability. Debating where that balance lies is vital for maintaining trust and avoiding the ‘democratic decay’77 affecting so much of the world. 

Balancing efficiency and accountability are relevant to questions around our federal structure as well.

The prevailing theme of this lecture has been the vast expansion of Commonwealth responsibilities – and therefore power. In lieu of a transfer of power from one level of government to another, the Commonwealth is now playing on the same field as the states, in everyday areas from disability policy to housing, infrastructure to childhood education and care. 

Some may argue that this high degree of shared responsibility comes at the expense of efficiency and accountability. Others would argue that the system promotes competition, choice and diversity.78

Either way, we must remain alive to new and better ways to cooperate and negotiate. 

Conclusion

Ours is a system that despite its challenges has weathered well – which is remarkable given that it was designed with a very different Australia in mind.

Reflecting back on January 1, 1901, the first day of Federation, Sir Robert Garran described the Constitution as ‘just a machine’. The machine had to be manned, he said, and ‘put into working order.’79

The ways generations of leaders have kept that machine ‘in working order’, has seen it transform into something quite different to anything Garran or his fellow constitutional architects could have imagined. 

What worked for Australia in 1901 no longer worked a decade later. What got us through World War One, in World War Two needed changing again. 

The post-war years shifted Australia’s needs once more, as did the liberalisation of the global economy from the 80s onwards.

Institutional and broader reform has ensured our system of government has remained in good working order throughout. 

Moreover, throughout these changes the public service has retained its capacity to provide ‘frank and fearless advice’.  A characteristic of the public service since its inception. 

As the Prime Minister said in his address to Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, ‘no nation’s democracy is beyond improvement. Recognising that while tradition can bind us, teach us and inspire us – it is not enough to sustain us. Because no system that derives its authority from the people will ever be the definite article, a complete and finished artefact.’80

Countries are facing challenges we could have hardly imagined a couple of decades ago.

Global disintegration, some have war on their doorstep, fracturing governments and institutions, declining productivity and prosperity, and the polarisation of communities.

What the Commonwealth – and the Australian Public Service – does with the responsibilities we have matters deeply, particularly in light of increased complexity in the challenges government faces.

Whether it’s getting the public through a pandemic, figuring out how to regulate online tools from social media to AI, helping the economy adapt to a changing climate, or integrating economic and national security advice.81

Our system is sound – our public institutions are trusted, and that includes the APS. But it will always have to be improved to meet new challenges as the country it serves will be ever changing.

This will be key to maintaining the trust and confidence of the people we’re here to serve, responding to the great challenges of our time, and adhering to the democratic principles upon which our system was designed. 

  1. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the preparation of this speech. Particular thanks to Professor Emeritus Patrick Weller AO, Professor Jeff Borland, Professor Glyn Davis AC, Dr Martin Parkinson AC PSM, Dr Gordon de Brouwer PSM and Peter Woolcott AO who generously shared their time and expertise to comment on drafts. I would also like to thank Andrew Walter, Elizabeth Beyer, Suzannah Ward, Karla Rayner and Maddie Sharp for their assistance in preparing the lecture.↩
  2. Tax reform in Australia: an impossible dream? - Grattan Institute↩
  3. The Global State of Democracy 2025: Democracy on the Move Page 13.↩
  4. The Global State of Democracy 2025: Democracy on the Move Page 9.↩
  5. The Global State of Democracy 2025: Democracy on the Move ↩
  6. Autocracies outnumber democracies for the first time in 20 years: V-Dem↩
  7. V-DEM Democracy Report 2025 25 Years of Autocratization – Democracy Trumped? Page 6. The world has fewer democracies (N=88) than autocracies (N=91) for the first time in over 20 years.↩
  8. V-DEM Democracy Report 2025 25 Years of Autocratization – Democracy Trumped? Page 12.↩
  9. Remaking Liberalism with Daron Acemoglu [7:18] ‘In part of the 20th century, in the early phases of liberalism’s ascendancy to power, liberalism delivered on three promises that it has made implicitly. Those three promises I will call sharing, meaning creating economic growth and sharing that progress…second, public services or drains…and third, of course, axiomatically, voice…enabling them to participate in politics.” and [9:16] “Today, there is a general feeling around the world that liberalism is in crisis…It’s really that liberalism hasn’t lived up to its promises. Part of it is that the world has become more complicated… but also that liberalism has not adjusted to being in power. It was a better movement when it was in opposition and it hasn’t adjusted to the same extent to being the establishment power.’↩
  10. Wolf, M. (2024). The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. Allen Lane. Page 4.↩
  11. Trust in politics is in long-term decline around the world – new research↩
  12. The Global State of Democracy 2025: Democracy on the Move Page 156.↩
  13. Trust in Australian public service 2025 Annual Report, Page 2.↩
  14. Trust in Australian public service 2025 Annual Report, Page 9. ↩
  15. Australia's institutions are what make us freaking amazing - ABC News↩
  16. Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart from The Rest Is Politics podcast interviewed about leadership, politics and policy | The Australian ↩
  17. Constitution - Federal Register of Legislation ↩
  18. Exploring Democracy · Henry Parkes · Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House↩
  19. Guy Aitken and Robert Orr, Sawer’s The Australian Constitution (Australian Government Solicitor)↩
  20. Mulgan, R. (2010). Where Have All the Ministers Gone? Australian Journal of Public Administration, 69(3), 289–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8500.2010.00691.x↩
  21. Womens Suffrage in Australia – Parliament of Australia; Women granted the vote in federal elections | Australia’s Defining Moments Digital Classroom | National Museum of Australia. When Australia federated in 1901, the Constitution restricted voting rights in federal elections to women who held those same rights at a state level. Women in South Australia and some in Western Australia had been granted the right to vote. After lobbying by suffragists and some progressive politicians, the Commonwealth Franchise Act was enacted on 12 June 1902. ↩
  22. Dunn, A. (ed.) How Australian Democracy Works, Chapter 1, ‘Best of both worlds: Australia’s unique democracy’, James Walter, 2025. Page 9.↩
  23. Dunn, A. (ed.) How Australian Democracy Works, Chapter 1, ‘Best of both worlds: Australia’s unique democracy’, James Walter, 2025. Page 9.↩
  24. Historical population, 2021 | Australian Bureau of Statistics. ↩
  25. 4102.0 - Australian Social Trends, 2000↩
  26. Historical population, 2021 | Australian Bureau of Statistics. ↩
  27. 4102.0 - Australian Social Trends, 2000. ↩
  28. 18 Jul 1901 - THE TRANS-AUSTRALIAN RAILWAY. - Trove↩
  29. Workforce size and distribution | Australian Public Service Commission ↩
  30. 100 years of Commonwealth Management of Lighthouses - Australia Post↩
  31. Changing Fortunes: A History of the Australian Treasury by Paul Tilley p 5. ”Treasury started with 5 staff: George Allen, James Collins, Francis Ros, Charles Cerutty, and Angus Bolle.”↩
  32. Chapter 1 – Parliament of Australia↩
  33. Coordinating the war effort was no mean feat for the fledgling APS – by late 1916 one out of every four eligible employees had enlisted. (2009). The Senior Executive Service: 1984-2009. Australian Public Service Commission. Page 11.↩
  34. Biography - Sir Robert Randolph Garran - Australian Dictionary of Biography↩
  35. High Court Case Study: Federalism - Australian Constitution Centre ↩
  36. Canberra Law Review (2021) 18(1) 100 YEARS OF THE ENGINEERS CASE – HOW AUSTRALIA CARVED A CONSTITUTIONAL PATH AWAY FROM BRITAIN↩
  37. 120 Years of the Australian Public Service | Australian Public Service Commission and Biography - Sir Robert Randolph Garran - Australian Dictionary of Biography↩
  38. Commonwealth Public Service Act 1902 (NO. 5, 1902) Department Heads are referred to as ‘Permanent’↩
  39. Note that the early APS was not egalitarian in the sense that for a long time Catholics had limited access, and married women were banned under the marriage bar. Marriage bar abolished - Parliamentary Education Office↩
  40. Corridors of Power: Building the Nation - ABC Radio National. ↩
  41. Great Depression | National Museum of Australia ↩
  42. 16 Feb 1973 - Developing a one man band into a full department - Trove and At a glance | Treasury.gov.au↩
  43. Rebuilding Australia: what we can learn from the successes of post-war reconstruction↩
  44. Gareth_Evans_speech%252C_launch%252C_Seven_Dwarfs_and_the_Age_of_the_Mandarins-2015.pdf↩
  45. According to historian J.R Nethercote, the public sector economists who rose to prominence at this time – figures like Sir Roland Wilson, Sir John Crawford, and Dr Nugget Coombs, ‘were not simply present when the Australia of the middle years of the twentieth century took shape; they were, in many respects, the architects.’ Essay - Unearthing the Seven Dwarfs and the Age of the Mandarins - Australian Dictionary of Biography↩
  46. Biography - Sir Roland Wilson - Australian Dictionary of Biography↩
  47. The establishment of the Liberal Party of Australia came after non-Labor parties first ‘fused’ in 1909.↩
  48. Biography - Sir Allen Stanley Brown - Australian Dictionary of Biography↩
  49. Coombs 42 years on — looking back at the review that shaped the APS↩
  50. Dunn, A. (ed.) How Australian Democracy Works, Chapter 1, ‘Best of both worlds: Australia’s unique democracy’, James Walter, 2025. Page 9.↩
  51. Improving cultural diversity in the public service: understand different leadership styles and be prepared to push back on resistance. ↩
  52. Senior Executive Service cultural and linguistic diversity | Australian Public Service Commission↩
  53. APS Employment Data 30 June 2025 | Australian Public Service Commission↩
  54. (2003). The Australian Perspective of Public Sector Reform. Australian Public Service Commission.↩
  55. (2003). The Australian Perspective of Public Sector Reform. Australian Public Service Commission.↩
  56. (2003). The Australian Perspective of Public Sector Reform. Australian Public Service Commission.↩
  57. Dunn, A. (ed.) How Australian Democracy Works, Chapter 1, ‘Best of both worlds: Australia’s unique democracy’, James Walter, 2025. Page 10.↩
  58. Hamer, D. Can Responsible Government Survive in Australia? Department of the Senate, 2004.↩
  59. Non‐Departmental Public Bodies Under the Howard Governments1 - Wettenhall - 2007 - Australian Journal of Public Administration - Wiley Online Library↩
  60. Overview | Australian Public Service Commission "On 1 January 1901, the APS came into being with six departments—Attorney-General's, Defence, External Affairs, Home Affairs, Trade and Customs, and the Treasury.” (1901, January 1). Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (National: 1901 - 1973), p. 4. Retrieved October 20, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page24976237 Appendix 2: APS Agencies | Australian Public Service Commission Workforce size and distribution | Australian Public Service Commission (101 agencies) and Australian Government Organisations Register | Directory (1,346 Australian Government bodies)↩
  61. Steven Kennedy, speech to Australian National University College of Business and Economics, September 24, 2018.↩
  62. Steven Kennedy, speech to Australian National University College of Business and Economics, September 24, 2018.↩
  63. apo-nid34221.pdf page 83↩
  64. Hamer, D. Can Responsible Government Survive in Australia? Department of the Senate, 2004. Page 129.↩
  65. Hamer, D. Can Responsible Government Survive in Australia? Department of the Senate, 2004. Page 130.↩
  66. National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013, s 3 (3) (b).↩
  67. Explainer: Victoria’s proposed new pandemic law - Human Rights Law Centre↩
  68. Makeham, P. (2025). Rewiring government. Institute for Government. UK↩
  69. Makeham, P. (2025). Rewiring government. Institute for Government. UK ↩
  70. PM remarks on the fundamental reform of the British state: 13 March 2025 - GOV.UK↩
  71. Mulgan, R. (2008). Public Sector Reform in New Zealand: Issues of Public Accountability. Public Administration Quarterly, 32(1), 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/073491490803200104 ↩
  72. Lost in Bureaucracy: Is New Zealand’s Public Service a ‘Yes Minister’ Reality? | The New Zealand Initiative↩
  73. Prime Minister Carney delivers remarks following the passage of the One Canadian Economy Act in the House of Commons | Prime Minister of Canada Carney, Sabia, and a New Bureaucratic Ethos - Policy Magazine↩
  74. Opinion | This Conservative Thinks America’s Institutions ‘Earned’ the G.O.P.’s Distrust - The New York Times↩
  75. Australia Prospered: The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth, Ian W. Mclean. P 5. ”In this growth narrative, several roles are emphasized. One is that Australian history yields some vivid illustrations of the importance of institutional flexibility. More than once, as evidence accumulated that an institution was operating in a manner harmful to prosperity, it was either abolished or modified to make it growth promoting.“ ↩
  76. IPAA Annual Address to the Australian Public Service 2024 | PM&C ↩
  77. Why the ‘rule of law’ matters for the public service | ANZSOG Daly, T.G. Democratic Decay: Conceptualising an Emerging Research Field. Hague J Rule Law 11, 9–36 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40803-019-00086-2 ↩
  78. Chapter 1 – Parliament of Australia↩
  79. Corridors of Power: Building the Nation - ABC Radio National ↩
  80. Address to Commonwealth Parliamentary Association | Prime Minister of Australia↩
  81. As Director of the ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy, Professor Janine O’Flynn, argued in Washington DC earlier this year, this ‘increasingly uncomfortable transitional moment’ is the time to recalibrate our focus on what’s needed to make public administration work now and into the future. Crawford School Director Professor Janine O'Flynn delivers Donald C. Stone Lecture | Crawford School of Public Policy 20 March 2025.↩