Tag: Pezzullo
Having left the Australian Public Service Code in tatters, Pezzullo will undoubtedly find himself on the board of a defence or security company and take his place in the military-industrial complex. He might finally get a chance to join a thinktank. His sacking, however, was the culmination of a culture long in the making. Over the decades, the major parties have made political appointments a matter of course, subordinating expertise and fearless advice to party loyalties. Perversely enough, Pezzullo was a perfect exponent of that tendency: a political civil servant. The result: Canberra is awash and sinking with officialdom terrified to take a different stance to the political agenda of the day. Agree with those in government, or risk languishing, demotion or worse.
Source: Rot in the Civil Service: Farewelling Mike Pezzullo – » The Australian Independent Media Network
All the hyperbole about Pezzullo’s fall from grace is annoying.
Everything Pezzullo oversaw on Manus and Nauru was actually worse than all the insider grandstanding, the attacks on public service neutrality, the enabling of lobbyists, the damage to democracy, the filthy deals. He oversaw actual torture, restrictive practices, medical neglect, human despair, denial of access to lawyers, bashings, extreme corruption, abuse of youth.
The neutrality of the public service has always been a myth. But brutalising refugees is a very obvious low. Devastating more than 2000 lives is significant.
Media have been far too gentle with the Home Affairs culture for way too long.
Address that by all means, but also give the legacy caseload of refugees permanency now.
Source: Manus, Nauru way worse than Pezzullo texts – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Will the Mike Pezzullo case be a line in the sand?
The case of the Head of the Department of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, now stood down on full pay, is an extreme manifestation of the fact that in our democracy, too often public servants flout what the High Court said in 2019 is essential: an apolitical bureaucracy.
Source: Amidst the shattered remnants of an impartial public service – Pearls and Irritations
Personally, I always wondered why Peter Dutton our one-time Home Affairs/Immigration Minister always bowed to Pezullo when being asked questions about his Ministry. It seemed that Pezzulo was in fact the Minister.
The Home Affairs boss has stood aside while investigators look into whether he flouted the public service code of conduct or shared inside information improperly.
In the latest revelations, a series of text messages show that Pezzullo sought to convince political leaders to introduce a system of “D-Notices” to allow government agencies to pressure media organisations not to publish stories deemed damaging to national security.
Pezzullo pursued the issue after his anger was stoked by a report by then-News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst – who is now state politics editor for The Age – about his secret proposal to allow the nation’s external intelligence agency to spy on Australians.
In other messages, Pezzullo wrote that the government could “criminalise” journalists in certain circumstances for reporting on what they were told by government whistleblowers.
Source: Mike Pezzullo stands aside as Home Affairs secretary
Low morale and dysfunction in DHA Finally, and also not surprisingly, Pezzullo says nothing in the briefing for Andrews about his Department having one of the lowest levels of morale in the Australian Public Service. And of course, he wouldn’t as this is primarily the result of his leadership. The fact is Pezzullo and Outram have lost control of Australia’s visa system and hence, border control. Recovery from this point will be extraordinarily difficult, costly and take many years. But with a government obsessed with its public reputation on border protection, Pezzullo and Outram know that is not what the Government wants to hear — so they have decided the best course of action is just not to tell them and hope they don’t find out.
olddogthoughts 
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