As a result of John Howard's wilfully selfish desire to use the instruments of state to maintain his hold on power, what was once a reasonably functional Commonwealth Public Service is now in need of an overhaul starting at the top.Why on earth should we not apportion blame? How do you get to the "bottom" of things, and make sure such rampant politicisation never happens again, if you are not going to hold the guilty accountable?
Rudd, through the Special Minister of State, Senator John Faulkner, needs to look at a range of misadventures that occurred under Howard and ascertain the processes involved so they do not happen again.
These investigations should be undertaken without apportioning blame so they can be as wide-ranging and thorough as is necessary to get to the bottom of what went wrong.
If you are going to "start at the top", you need to dumpt a whole swathe of public appointees (like Mick Keelty) who allowed their role to be politicized. These people put their own ambitions ahead of the public good. Dump the lot of them and, if at all possible, bring criminal charges to bear.
In a similar vein, Tony Moore says the entire ABC Board should be sacked, but not for "score settling" reasons. He wants Teh Community involved in choosing appointees. The problem is who choses whom as genuine representatives of Teh Community. Maybe the best thing would be to elicit audience participation over the Net?
Meanwhile, one of Rupert's attack dogs goes after Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry, who dared contradict a blatant lie from Moneybags Turnbull last week.
