For a man with a job as a senior bureaucrat in a parliamentary democracy, secretary of the Home Affairs Department Mike Pezzullo sure hates it.
The picture that emerges of Pezzullo from the massive trove of messages unearthed by Nine newspapers’ Nick McKenzie, Michael Bachelard and Amelia Ballinger is not merely that of a pathetic figure trying to play political power games, but of a bureaucrat who can’t stand the foundational processes of Australian democracy.
Labelling Parliament as “contaminated”, Pezzullo is shown telling his interlocutor, senior Liberal Party insider and lobbyist/consultant Scott Briggs: “We need to build a meritocracy by stealth and run government through the bureaucracy, working to 4-5 powerful and capable ministers.”
Such a model is completely antithetical to democracy. We don’t have a meritocracy — we elect the people who govern us, who work through a Parliament, not through a bureaucracy. And we have a cabinet system of government, not a cabal that sidelines the possibility of debate and discussion.
And parliamentary accountability is an important part of our democracy, including the accountability of bureaucrats to parliamentary committees. But Pezzullo disagrees. “Estimates is actually a concern for our democracy,” he told Briggs in 2020, despite claiming to be “batting 0-400” at that day’s session.
Pezzullo demonstrably hates scrutiny and accountability. He has railed at the auditor-general when the Australian National Audit Office revealed bungling in his department. He attempted to silence then-senator Rex Patrick after the latter criticised Home Affairs. He has described the media as “bottom feeders”. And he lobbied to impose a censorship regime on journalists after then-News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst deeply embarrassed him by exposing his plan to allow the Australian Signals Directorate to spy on Australians. The Coalition government responded by sending AFP goons to raid and search Smethurst’s apartment.
He told Briggs at the time he thought he could have “turned” Smethurst and got her to produce “a great story for the government”. Pezzullo later saw no irony in claiming Smethurst had already been subjected to similar treatment by someone else: “Why do you think her handler picked her, rather than say an experienced national security journalist.”
Pezzullo has previously called for journalists to be jailed — something that even hardened Coalition right-wingers blanched at — and claimed that he “steered, assisted and worked with” certain journalists. As part of his plan to reimpose national security censorship on the media, Pezzullo told Briggs a D-notice scheme could be negotiated with “the hard headed and realistic media business leaders”.
That is, for Pezzullo, journalists are either handmaidens to power or “bottom feeders”, tame pets who can be “steered”, “turned” and “assisted” or (at best) victims of “handlers” with agendas, who should be jailed and censored.
That all of this was in relation not to a genuine national security matter but simply to the revelation of something embarrassing to Pezzullo only further proves that national security establishment bureaucrats primarily want more power so as to prevent themselves and their political masters from being embarrassed.
And the embarrassment has kept on coming for Pezzullo, with the scandals and debacles that have plagued Immigration and Home Affairs on his watch continually being revealed. Is that, in the end, what made Pezzullo so anxious to silence the media and get rid of that “concern for democracy” estimates hearings?
Pezzullo’s political antics, posturing and big-noting of himself might have been more tolerable if he was the successful head of a competent, high-performing agency. But Home Affairs is a mess, and has always been a mess. No agency or department is more in need of a sceptical parliamentary committee system and a media determined to do its job.
If Pezzullo doesn’t like those basic features of democracy, he should resign forthwith and spare the government further trouble.
Time to sack him? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
This is all very damning of Pezzullo, but more needs to be said about how such a creature could rise and flourish. His anti-democratic message, seeking the removal of all scrutiny and boundaries so that a cabal of ministers and like-minded bureaucrats could run amok, clearly went down well with his ministers over the years. So far as Pezzullo crossed the line, so did they.
And obviously Pezzullo is not an isolated aberration. Katherine Campbell’s conduct in setting up and defending Robodebt at all costs for years is somewhat different but equally egregious, and her career too flourished because of it. Too many ministers obviously love this species of senior ‘public’ servant. Maybe we should change the name: no more Australian Public Service, welcome to the Australian Ministerial Service. There, problem solved.
What about Jane Halton’s ‘I can’t recall’ over the children overboard scandal
Yes. And often overlooked in reporting of the Robodebt horror is Malisa Golightly, a deputy secretary at DHS. She comes across in evidence given by others as a match for Campbell in her boundless dedication to Robodebt and her vicious determination to stop anyone questioning it, but she died before the inquiry.
In my alternate reality, the living public servants blame the dead ones for their crimes and stupidity and venality, thus burying the problem.
There is that possibility, but the witnesses who described Golightly’s contribution were more junior and had no reason to think they had to blame others to save themselves; so in this case the evidence is credible.
Concur, it’s simply the imported GOP modus operandi from the US, replicated by both LNP and UK Tories, both trying to wreck the PS and have unaccountable ‘leadership’; nativist authoritarian ideology based on eugenics?
How revealing is it of the nature of the Coalition governments in recent years that they put Pezzullo and Robodebt Woman in the most prestigious and powerful positions in the public service? – both clearly ideologically in lockstep with their political bosses.
But what does it say about the current government that they were happy – even keen – to keep Pezzullo on?
Indeed, that’s my question/concern too. Many eyebrows were raised when Albanese decided to keep him. His decision to also keep Campbell but move her sideways into a near million dollar position was equally strange.
Albo too timid by half . . .
Why timid? Albanese probably kept them (and who knows how many more like them there are still in post) for the plain and obvious reason he likes their style. Until this week he was presumably unaware of Pezzullo’s texting habits.
Or he had an extended dirt file (a la J. Edgar Hoover).
Didn’t J. Edgar survive 7 presidencies?
Maybe she knoweth too much!
Mad and bad too … its not only bizarre its pathetic liberal lite labor ; more lobby middle men running the joint like a Dickensian cabal – dumb and the Neo Liberal ABC still being run for tge opposition ; The Drum full of right wing heads same with the neo lib panel on Q&A
Corporate knowledge, and keeping your enemies close, As the evidence is only very recent, it was acted on asap.
Evidence is what will sink these scumbags, and as is evident, it takes time to accumulate.
Reward for services rendered ?.
The women werenot the masters! They were not the architects ; egregious yes and more fallgals – Look to the power cowboys Boys!
I think Labor’s decision to keep him on – at the outset – is actually smart politics. Rather than cut him lose straight away and leave themselves open to accusations of politicising the public service, bide their time and let the truth out. His position becomes untenable in the eyes of the public, from his own words.
A straight to the point critique of an absolute ratbag in Pezzullo. Well done.
This guy must have broken quite a few laws and employment contracts with his shenanigans?
Maybe that’s another story!
Or relevant codes of conduct. This bureaucrat’s position is absolutely untenable. If he is a frustrated politician, perhaps he should have taken the risk and run for a seat, instead of sitting safely in his public service sinecure pontificating over power plays and an anti-democratic remodeling of government. He does indeed look pathetic and stupid, now that the light has been shone on him.
We all know that Pezzullo’s reasoning and behaviour is a good part of that of at least the reactionary and religious ratbaggery that has run the Libs since Howard, and the same concepts that have always ruled the Nats; it’s just that only a few have been game or stupid enough to broadcast it.
The Liberals, in particular, have long held all public servants in contempt. When you hold public servants in contempt, you end up with a public service that is contemptible.
As well as contempt for the APS, it is, since the days of Howard, Liberal ideology to deny there is any such thing as public service. They simply refuse to believe that anybody would be motivated to their job for the good of the public, and they react with disbelief and hostility when they encounter anything that looks like an example of it. To them, it’s deceit, or hypocrisy, or rampant socialism.
Or political partisanship for their opponents.
But of course – for the Liberals, the public are their opponents.
Channelling Reagan’s “Govt is the problem”
Agree. The fish rots from the head.
I have one burning question. It is one I asked at the change of government. WHY would the Labor government keep Pezzullo on the payroll? His antics have been obvious for years. Yet he is retained in his APS position. WHY? It beggers belief. I don’t buy the proposition that he had dirt files on both sides. He was clearly toxic. WHY WHY WHY?
I have seen that explained / answered elsewhere. He had a new Minister, Clare O’Neil (who is quite sharp and certainly not a dummy) going into a huge portfolio and he didn’t want a new Minister and a new Secretary simultaneously. I don’t think it makes sense to retain the cause of the problem when you have to try to fix the problem, but there you go.
Yes, I’ve heard that. Clare O’Neil was new to that department so Pezzullo was retained on the grounds he would know how it all works, and there was nobody else with the same knowledge. Still, O’Neil arguably missed a golden opportunity to adapt the script of an old Peter Cook sketch. On her first day she have called Pezzullo into her office and said, ‘Mike, I don’t know how this department would cope without you [sweet smile, long pause]… But we’re going to try.’
She’s not new now.
As can be seen with Campbell it is difficult and expensive to get rid of a senior public servant
But we’ll worth it the trouble and ? saved in the long run
If you give the Albo government the benefit of the doubt, you could say that they were trying to send a positive signal that the days of the partisan spoils system was over, and the kind of purges of senior public servants that have prevailed since 1996 should be avoided. It MAY also be possible that the incoming government was smart enough not to turn these people into “victims” of partisanship but to spool out enough rope to allow them to publicly hang themselves, while the government sat back with clean hands. You choose. Or it could be small-target pusillanimity, if you prefer that explanation…
days were over… autocorrect gets it wrong again
*autoincorrect
Or, the difference between LNP & ALP is less than almost everyone thinks, and is barely more than the mask work by the ALP.
I’ve wondered for years how much disillusion in the ranks the ALP can sustain; it looks like the answer is, near total. At least amongst those looking beyond the window dressing.
Whitlam is rolling in the grave its a joke – the dumb Charmers is almost as inept as Frydenblurb
The tack you always take in ‘both-sides-ism” is boring beyond belief. Out up or shut up instead of just gaslighting on every subject.
The Labor ranks are complaining and muttering widely at the moment, and Albo will ignore the rumbling at his peril.