Table of Contents
In his prologue, Trevor Wilson observes that the period covered by the tenure of the five former DFAT secretaries encompassed times of ‘intense and relentless public stress’ for the department. During the years 1979–99, the application of ‘new public management’, with its emphases on performance, accountability and responsiveness, led to major transformations in the way Australian governments do business. The profound cultural changes wrought in the Australian Public Service (APS) over this period shaped the institutional and operational platform from which their successors, Dr Ashton Calvert (who served as secretary from 1998–2006) and Michael L’Estrange (the current DFAT secretary), would grapple with a volatile post-9/11 foreign and domestic policy environment defined, in part, by the ‘War on Terror’ (Bali, Iraq and David Hicks), failed or faltering regional states (East Timor, the Solomon Islands and Fiji) and global issues of the moment such as climate change (Kyoto and emissions trading), food security and energy security.
In response to a question put to him by a journalist at a 2 June 2008 press conference about rumoured ‘policy paralysis’ in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Foreign Minister, the Hon. Stephen Smith, replied:
[I]n a job like this, the job's never done. The work is never complete. The job is never done. And so I frankly don't pay much attention to what anonymous people might regard as a snapshot of a working day.
The job is never done in this business. And in the end, the Australian people will make a judgement about whether the foreign policy that we adopted, and the public policy that we adopted, was ultimately for Australia's national interest.[1]
‘The job is never done.’ The minister’s words have a truth and resonance with which both current and former secretaries of DFAT would surely agree. While the structural and systemic reforms of the Hawke-Keating and Howard governments surely transformed the operational culture and leadership style of the department, that transformation has on-going repercussions. If there is a truism about public administration, it is that stasis is illusory or, at best, temporary.
In a media release on the occasion of the untimely death in November 2007 of former secretary Dr Ashton Calvert AC, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, remarked:
Ashton Calvert’s leadership of DFAT at a time of immense change and challenge in the international environment was his crowning achievement. Through his personal example and the standards he set, Ashton upheld clarity of focus and the highest standards of governance in the work of the department, while simultaneously delivering strong policy outcomes for Australia across a broad range of foreign policy and trade issues.[2]
Downer went on to say that Dr Calvert was ‘frank and fearless in the best tradition of Australia’s distinguished public service’. Downer’s opinion was indeed shared by some on the other side of politics. The late Peter Cook, who was Trade Minister in the Keating government from 1993–94 and, later, professor at Curtin University, observed of Calvert before his death:
Dr Calvert is a true foreign affairs professional. He is, as well, an exemplary public servant. You couldn't have served both the Keating Government as a Senior Advisor and the Howard Government as Secretary of the Department in positions of absolute trust unless you were anything short of being exemplary. In my experience Dr Calvert offers fearless advice and then conscientiously implements the decisions that are taken by the government. I think his own view is, which is both frightening and reassuring for ministers, is that ministers should get all the credit for what they do and they should get all the blame as well.[3]
Paul Keating’s biographer, Don Watson, described Aston Calvert as ‘an astute, punctilious professional of undisguised ambition and a streak of zeal’ who, as advisor on international affairs, had earned Keating’s respect as ‘a good and courageous thinker’ (Watson 2002: 71; 406). Keating himself said of Calvert that he was ‘an outstanding diplomat’ with a ‘hard-headed, take-no-prisoner approach to international affairs’.[4]
It is ironic, therefore, that Graeme Dobell[5], in a 2003 critique of what he termed a culture of ‘diplomatic compliance’ in DFAT on Calvert’s watch, asserted:
… self-censorship has become an ambassadorial art form; well-understood protocols ensure ministers are not told what they don’t want to hear and professional discipline is reinforced by a ‘culture of compliance’. (Dobell 2003: 67)
Dobell’s article laments the impact on the ‘ethos of DFAT’ of the ‘series of revolutions imposed on the public service by the Hawke-Keating and Howard governments’ aimed at transforming its management culture (Dobell 2003: 69). Of course, Dobell is not alone in his fears that the capacity to offer considered and impartial policy advice has been compromised by a heightened emphasis on ‘responsiveness’ to government. Here it should be noted that the principle of ‘responsiveness’ is enshrined in the APS Values in the Public Service Act 1999 in the following terms:
the APS is responsive to the Government in providing frank, honest, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice and in implementing the Government’s policies and programs (S9, Part 3, 10(f)).
The concern, as expressed by Dobell, seems to be that ‘responsiveness’, in the case of DFAT, has tipped into political compliance and, even, complicity.
Such concerns are not exclusive to DFAT. A number of commentators hold that the qualities of ‘frank and fearless’ have long been in decline across the APS. Indeed, in a recent ANZSOG monograph, Whatever Happened to Frank and Fearless? The impact of new public management on the Australian Public Service, Kathy MacDermott clinically examines the evidence for such a decline and comes to similar conclusions. It is not, however, my purpose here to digress into a critique of the evolving relationship between the administrative and executive arms of government in Australia — others have done that capably and at length elsewhere. Instead, I wish to briefly explore from the perspective of the players themselves, the principal operational (as opposed to policy) challenges facing DFAT in the contemporary era.
Calvert himself — perhaps owing to the ‘clarity and focus’ of which Downer spoke — well understood the practical operational challenges faced by a department like DFAT. Dobell, citing Calvert, portrayed the ‘realpolitik’ within which departmental secretaries now work:
The man at the centre of DFAT, the secretary, Ashton Calvert, argues there was never a public service golden age: ‘The implication seems to be that there was some previous period when public servants were free to decide things themselves, which is not what I recall. I don’t think it would be healthy or democratic if that were the case.’ He agrees there has been cultural change but sees it more as a response to staff cuts, technological change and the complexity of issues modern government confronts. Foreign Affairs must be more of a team player in a whole-of-government process: ‘We most certainly are much better integrated and better embedded in the broader public service than before’. (Dobell 2003: 72-73)
Of course, Calvert, at different points in his career, walked both sides of the fence, first as a foreign policy adviser to former Prime Minister Paul Keating and then as a bureaucrat. In some respects, the shift from political insider to government official might have seemed to him rather constraining. In his book, Engagement: Australia Faces the Asia-Pacific, Keating (2000) draws a clear distinction between the modus operandi of a policy adviser and a departmental secretary:
Next to the foreign minister, the adviser's job is, I believe, the second most important in the Australian foreign policy firmament. Free of the administrative burden which the secretaryship of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has, the adviser's job is principally about policy. But unlike most policy jobs, it carries with it the live conduit of power. (emphasis added)[6]
The transition from the role of policy advisor to departmental secretary might have been a difficult one, both for Calvert and the man who succeeded him, Michael L’Estrange, owing to the ‘administrative burden’ of which Keating speaks. Not only is the secretary expected to advise the minister and the government in relation to a complex and dynamic policy frontier, he/she is required to offer clear executive leadership and governance oversight in a department with over 3000 staff (including almost 1500 staff recruited overseas); a budget appropriation of over $832 million; and non-financial assets valued at over $1.5 billion.[7] In addition, the department contains seven portfolio agencies and administers 38 principal Acts. If secretaries are accorded less freedom to wander the policy landscape, it is because their responsibilities are larger and more diverse while their accountabilities are more pointed. While the popular perception of the secretary’s role may have been shaped by ‘Yes Minister’ caricatures of British Permanent secretaries effectively running their own foreign policy agendas in parallel to those of the government, such is not — and has, perhaps, never been — the case in Australia. More to the point, senior executives’ ‘accountability for performance’ has certainly been heightened over the course of the last 25 years of public sector reform.
In a 1999 speech on ‘The role of DFAT at the turn of the Century’, Calvert observed that economic globalisation played a part in transforming the way DFAT does its work:
The Australian economy is now more open, internationally oriented and competitive than ever before.
As a consequence, more and more Australian companies of various sizes are increasingly engaged in international trade in an increasing number of foreign markets in an ever-widening range of products and services.
This means, of course, a bigger, not a smaller, role for DFAT in helping these companies by negotiating improved market access for Australian products and services either through the WTO or bilaterally, and by working with other governments to streamline procedures, harmonise standards and better manage quarantine arrangements.[8]
In addition, he noted that advances in information technology had ‘produced a totally new dynamic in the international dissemination of policy-relevant information and proposals’ with the result ‘that many processes of bilateral and multilateral negotiations that were hitherto handled quietly by governments behind closed doors are now subject to virtually immediate scrutiny by informed groups in relevant countries’. He added that ‘[t]hese developments are certainly not something that DFAT resists’ and drew attention to his department’s efforts to make its website ‘attractive and useful to the general public’. He also acknowledged that, in keeping with the main currents of contemporary public sector management, the ‘[d]isciplines of transparency, accountability and policy contestability are very healthy for an organisation like DFAT’.
With respect to the operational and budgetary challenges faced by the department under his stewardship, he observed that much of the Department's management reform work had been:
… concentrated on finding savings, for example, through judicious thinning of our overseas positions, including through replacement by locally employed staff .
At home, we have targeted our internal administrative practices, delivering important savings through streamlining and some outsourcing.
We have been able to use to real advantage the new flexibility available to departments under the Government's public-service reforms.
We now have the ability to set our own conditions, for example in relation to overseas terms and conditions for our staff.
Another area of opportunity has been the freedom that agencies now have in agreement-making to set the pay and other employment conditions for all staff.[9]
Calvert remarked that DFAT, in 1999, was ‘clearly different from the former Department of Foreign Affairs before its amalgamation with the Department of Trade in 1987’ and drew attention to ‘the new emphasis that is now given to delivering practical services to a range of Australian clients beyond the Government itself’ as well as to ‘meeting the policy challenges we face in a modern, dynamic and effective way’.
In a June 2001 speech at a ceremony to launch the DFAT display in Canberra for the centenary of the Australian Public Service, he alluded to the stereotypes of the foreign service portrayed in the media and drew attention to what he considered ‘the acid test for the department’:
That is, the work that we do providing passports for Australians to travel overseas and helping Australians who run into problems abroad. To put this in perspective, in 1999–2000 3.3 million Australians travelled abroad. Over the same period, we issued almost 1.15 million passports. That’s one every 27 seconds. Each year DFAT assists more than 20,000 Australians in serious difficulty through our consular network of more than 150 points of service throughout the world. And over the past three years alone, DFAT staff in Canberra and on the ground have coordinated major efforts to ensure the safety of Australians affected by civil unrest in Indonesia and East Timor, Fiji, the Solomons and Papua New Guinea.[10]
In 2003, Calvert again reflected on the structural reforms pursued by DFAT that rendered it capable of being ‘nimble and versatile, while still able to nurture and deploy a broad array of expertise and professional skills’.
Our goal has been to have not just high-quality and highly motivated staff, but staff who are well led and well managed; and staff who can deliver outcomes with respect to the Government’s policy objectives and have careers that are professionally and personally fulfilling.[11]
Calvert remarked that ‘DFAT, like all public-sector agencies, has embraced very significant change over the past few years in response to the imperative for smaller, more cost-effective government’ and outlined a number of structural reform initiatives aimed at strengthening the organisation, including:
centralising the management of staffing (while at the same time maintaining DFAT’s ‘traditionally decentralised flows of policy advice to ministers’) in order to confer an increased capacity to be ‘responsive, flexible and efficient with respect to the deployment of staff’ whilst ensuring fairness and transparency in relation to postings, placements and promotions;
decreasing the number of staff working in the corporate management and corporate service areas ‘in a rational and efficient manner, without detracting from [DFAT’s] pursuit of the Government’s other key policy objectives’; and
delivering savings with respect to internal administrative practices through streamlining and outsourcing and leveraging technology.
He remarked that these changes enabled ‘a much sharper focus on the Department's core foreign and trade policy responsibilities, and on the practical services we provide to the Australian public.’
[1] Source: The Hon Stephen Smith MP, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Press Conference, 2 June 2008. http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/transcripts/2008/080602_pc.html
[2] Source: The Hon. Alexander Downer, MP, Media Release, 16 November 2007. ‘Dr Ashton Calvert AC’. http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2007/fa142_07.html
[3] Source: ‘A confident and distinctive foreign policy’, Speech given by Dr Ashton Calvert on the occasion of the seventh JCPML Anniversary Lecture marking the 60th anniversary of John Curtin's death, 5 July 2005. http://john.curtin.edu.au/events/speeches/calvert.html
[4] Source: Paul Keating, Engagement, http://www.keating.org.au/engagement.cfm
[5] Dobell is the Foreign Affairs and Defence Correspondent for Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio Australia and is a close observer of Australian political affairs.
[6] Source: Paul Keating, Engagement, http://www.keating.org.au/engagement.cfm
[7] Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Annual Report 2005-2006. http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/annual_reports/05_06/index.html
[8] Source: ‘The Role of DFAT at the Turn of the Century’, Address to the Canberra Branch of the Australian Institute Of International Affairs by Dr Ashton Calvert, Secretary, DFAT, Canberra, 4 February 1999. http://www.dfat.gov.au/media/speeches/department/990201_dfats_role.html
[9] Source: ‘The Role of DFAT at the Turn of the Century’, Address to the Canberra Branch of the Australian Institute Of International Affairs by Dr Ashton Calvert, Secretary, DFAT, Canberra, 4 February 1999. http://www.dfat.gov.au/media/speeches/department/990201_dfats_role.html
[10] Source: ‘APS Centenary’, speech by Dr Ashton Calvert, Secretary, DFAT, at a ceremony to launch the DFAT centenary display, Canberra, 19 June 2001. http://www.dfat.gov.au/media/speeches/department/0106_centaps.html
[11] Source: ‘The Role of DFAT at the Turn of the Century’, Address to the Canberra Branch of the Australian Institute Of International Affairs by Dr Ashton Calvert, Secretary, DFAT, Canberra, 4 February 1999. http://www.dfat.gov.au/media/speeches/department/990201_dfats_role.html