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Reflections on Life at Home and Away in the Australian Public Service

Ms Joanna Hewitt, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Valedictory Lecture

23 April 2007

It’s a special honour for me to speak today, close to my point of departure from the Australian Public Service and my departure from Australia for the next three years.

My resignation takes effect a little earlier than I had expected, a few months short of my three year term as DAFF Secretary.

As some of you will know, I will be leaving with my 15-year-old son, Tom, (and our golden retriever, Stella) to join my husband, Mark, who has been in Washington DC on posting since the beginning of this year.

It’s a complicated business in any family to manage two careers and the needs of children (in our case, three) but it’s even more complicated if overseas postings are part of the story. Having said that, I’d add that complexity is not all bad. With a little bit of juggling, we have had wonderful opportunities to serve Australia in fascinating places as well as in the policy hub of Canberra.

In Mark’s case, before we were married, he served in Canada and Israel. My early posting was in Sweden and I managed a detour through the UK after that to do my Master’s degree at the London School of Economics.

We both spent quite a few years in Canberra after those early postings and our marriage in 1987, then managed three and a half years in Paris when Mark was at the Embassy and I had a superb job in the OECD’s Agriculture Directorate. Later, when I was appointed Ambassador in Brussels, Mark spent a couple of years as Deputy at our Embassy in Berlin. We commuted by plane every weekend, except one, in that time. But to return to the reason for my departure now from a job I have relished as DAFF Secretary, the bottom line is that the commute across the Pacific is a far cry from a flit across Western Europe and four months apart is about all we are prepared to manage.

I also know that flexible work arrangements can help a lot. The public sector has led the wider economy in this area and has benefited greatly as a result in the quality and continuity of its staff. Not everyone approves but I hope we take a few more measured steps. It simply does not seem to me to be sensible, sustainable or necessary for women, or indeed parents, to have to choose between their children and their work.

I expect to be spending a bit more of my time on the home front with my son when I get to Washington. My daughters, incidentally, warn me that the idea of spending more quality time with mother is not necessarily appealing for a boy who’s about to turn 16!

I leave my job with a sense of optimism about our service and the future of our country.

Australians have an instinct for directness and innovation that serves us well in government as in the wider society and economy. We are generally ready to look at the evidence on an issue and when the case for change is clear, to face up to it. We are part of the “new world” rather than the old.

I’ll be following the cut and thrust of Australian life from the other side of the Pacific with close interest. I’ll really miss working with you. My colleagues in DAFF have been a wonderful and talented bunch. My Secretary colleagues have been a great source of collegiality and professionalism, working across the dividing lines of portfolios in a constructive way wherever they can. I’ll also miss the people in the farm organisations, the rural community groups and those who work with a passion for the rural environment.

Thank you all for joining me this afternoon.

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