8 - Challenging the establishment

Summary

Australia's success has and will continue to depend at least in part on the strength of its intellectual and academic life. That may be fairly obvious in the fields of science and medicine but less so in political science. Yet political scientists play a central role in not just teaching but in generating debate based on evidence based research.

In the nearly twelve years I served as the foreign minister of Australia, I looked to our universities for creative ideas. The public service is efficient in the administration of public policy. The major departments of state such as the Treasury and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) employ able and dedicated people. They show a patient determination to implement government policy efficiently and within budgets. They are also dedicated to meeting the objective once articulated by a former DFAT Secretary, Nick Parkinson; making their Ministers look good. Nothing is forgotten, submissions are pored over by earnest desk officers and their superiors; Ministerial correspondence is carefully checked and rechecked and neatly presented.

There are two types of Ministers; those who need to be restrained by a cautious public service and those who need a good hard push. The public service is by its nature an institution that errs on the side of caution. Ministerial enthusiasm for thought bubbles found in the columns of an ideologically sympathetic weekly magazine will be pricked. But the slothful Minister will be reminded of the heavy workload, which has to be completed.

That is what the public service does. But what it does not do needs to be contemplated. The public service is seldom a nerve centre of ideas. Yet good government needs a steady flow of positive ideas and a steady diet of criticism of what it is doing.

Professor Des Ball is one of those who has made an immense contribution to political thought and debate over several decades. He has inspired controversy, anger and not a little anxiety within the corridors of government. There has been many an occasion in recent years when I have disagreed with him. That is not the point. The point is: he has helped to generate ideas, to build the national conversation on foreign policy and security issues and to ensure decision-makers in government reflect on the decisions they are making, sorting out their arguments and at times questioning their own decisions.