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Response to Valedictory Lecture by Dr Peter Shergold AC

February 8 February 2008

Thank you, Lynelle, and good afternoon to everyone.

I am delighted to be responding for Peter’s Valedictory Address, not the least because – as I am sure all of you are aware – he is such an enthusiastic and “excitable” character that it has always been difficult to “have the last word” with him on any subject.

On this occasion, I do have that opportunity. It is a pity that I have had to wait until his final day as a public servant to get it. And, Lynelle, it is also a pity that we couldn’t have started a little earlier so that I could have done it before the official 4:51 ‘end-of-his-career’! Perhaps that doesn’t matter so much in the 24/7 world that we now inhabit!

I enjoyed Peter’s address, partly because Peter spoke – as he often does – with a passion that few of us can match, but on subjects that we all care about – good public policy and good public administration. Indeed, in the last 20 years, Peter has put both public and private passion into the public service in a way few others have. One thing we should take away from today is that a little public passion on these, and other seemingly boring but important subjects, is a good, rather than a bad, thing.

In preparing today’s remarks, I have drawn on several sources to help get a better understanding of Peter Shergold, the person and the public servant. Like Lynelle, I started with his birthplace, Crawley. I “Googled” it and found 34,400 entries. None cited Peter as one of Crawley’s favourite sons. Indeed, none of them cited Peter at all! Perhaps after today that will change.

The most visited of the Crawley websites included those of the Crawley Borough Council, the Crawley Hotels – which had some of the worst customer reviews I had ever read – the Crawley Car Hire Companies and the local newspaper, the Crawley Observer. I read the 6 February edition of the Observer, and that is something I don’t plan to repeat. I enjoyed reading the stock list for Crawley’s Tibetan clothing and jewellery shop considerably more.

To get a better sense of Peter’s possible experience as a young man in Crawley, I even tried to access a site called “Dating in Crawley, UK”. Perhaps fortunately, the Finance Department IT system informed me it was a “restricted site” and I could pursue my searches no further.

What did strike me, and what would probably strike any of us looking at a group of websites that provided information about a smallish town – was the plain ordinariness of Peter’s birth place. Probably little more or little less than the ordinariness of many of our own places of birth, but ordinariness nevertheless. Perhaps that ordinariness, and a strong desire to get away from it, gave Peter the drive to achieve the things that he has, and become the extraordinary character that he is.

I next turned to Peter’s résumé or curriculum vitae for inspiration. As we all know, Peter is a former and future academic and, as such, no one should be surprised that his résumé extends to a lengthy 18 pages. It contains a number of gems! For example, did any of us know before today that Peter has, among other things:

published the definitive article on “Loan Sharks” in Philadelphia in the early twentieth century – an article, I decided, that gave him a sound basis for starting work in the Australian public service; or that
he published an article on “problems in the Australian wine industry” in 1978, something that I am sure contributed to his fondness for a glass or two of good wine; or that
he published not one, but two, articles in the June 1982 edition of the Australian Paediatric Journal on the height of British male convict children transported to Australia between 1824 and 1840 – I confess that this is something that I have found difficult to fit into his subsequent career development!

It is easy to poke gentle fun at anyone’s academic publications, and it is something that academics are good at, as Peter will well remember. What did strike me, however, about Peter’s CV was the consistency with which he has produced credible academic publications on a variety of subjects over the last 20 years – despite having, what he always claimed to his colleagues was, a very busy ‘day’ job. That he achieved that rate of publication is almost beyond belief – either that or he was fibbing about the demands of his day job. Jokes aside, I put the achievement down to Peter’s intellectual ability and, particularly, to his intellectual tenacity. And tenacious is a word which I do associate with Peter’s public service career!

For me, the most fruitful source of information about Peter has been his career itself and his reflection of it in today’s address. Did any of us previously realise, for example, that Peter spent a third of his two‑decade career as a public service CEO as the head of agencies that were subsequently abolished? An extraordinary achievement, Sir Humphrey! I, for one, intend to keep a weather eye on PM&C over the next few months! And I sincerely hope that Terry Moran makes a speedy transition to Canberra!

Indeed, what Peter’s address highlights, almost unconsciously, is the attributes that have made him a first-class public servant.

First, the shear breadth of his experience in the APS, even before he became head of PM&C. From waterfront reform to higher education reform, from native title to the Northern Territory emergency response, from welfare to work to reform of the public service, Peter was involved in many of the big issues that Government faced over the last two decades. But there is even more than that. His address shows his enthusiasm for getting to the public servant at the coalface, to the welfare recipient, to the indigenous person with a problem. Indeed, on listening to his address, I was left wondering if there had been any member of the APS in the last twenty years that Peter Shergold hadn’t spoken to.
The second attribute was the extent of his experience – two‑thirds of his career – in line and operational agencies –which contributed to his focus on both the formulation and implementation of public policy. He has been a leader in that respect, and was the right person to guide the Howard Government in that direction – at a time when they were starting to realise that a perceived failure to execute well was a serious political problem. The Rudd Government’s emphasis on implementation is a close match for Peter’s.
The third attribute was his role as a determined moderniser and advocate of change. Never for him the comfortable status quo. He was a relentless change agent, be it in the APSC, in DEWR or in DEST – and I remember times when I was in PM&C that he was regarded by some as a decided pest as a result.
The fourth attribute is his willingness not just to see and acknowledge both points of view, both sides of an argument, but to actively seek them out in ways all too few public servants do. Peter’s quest for the other side of the story, and his fairness in assessing it, has always been a strength. Perhaps that is the academic in him. It certainly comes through in his comments today about his next career.
And finally, his passion for good public policy, good public administration and public service more generally. That shines through his address today, and in that he is second to none in the APS.

I would like to close my reflections with two personal memories of Peter that, in one sense, ‘bookend’ his decade as a Portfolio Secretary:

The first was not long after he had exchanged the placid cloisters of the APSC for the fraught world of workplace relations, and found himself in the thick of the waterfront dispute. For several weekends in a row, Peter and his senior IR team prepared a brief for the small group of Ministers who were managing the then Government’s involvement in the dispute. When it was finalised on Sunday afternoon, he would drive from DEWR to PM&C and drop a copy off to me on his way home. PM&C would, in turn, prepare a short cover note for Max Moore‑Wilton and the PM and deliver the note and paper to the PM’s office. In those days, the foyer of PM&C wasn’t guarded on the weekend, so I would stand outside the entrance for a few moments for him to turn up. Peter, on arrival, invariably bounded out of the car, full of enthusiasm – he seemed like a cocky young boxer, bounding out of his corner for the first round of his first real fight! He had landed in a real mess, but he seemed to be (mostly) enjoying it and was so very determined to give the best advice to help Government get to the right outcome.
The second was in early to mid-2006 when the Cole Commission into the Australian Wheat Board was at its height. During that period, I seemed to bump into Peter about once a week in the Ministerial Wing Car Park. We would chat for a few minutes, as colleagues do. Perhaps not surprisingly, he no longer reminded me of a young boxer. I was now talking to a seasoned professional. The feet were a little slower, his guard had slipped a bit, some of the bruises showed – a few of them showed a lot – but he was still the consummate professional public servant, still determined to provide the best possible advice to help the Government find the right outcome for whatever problem bedevilled it.

What had changed him over those eight or nine years? Age, obviously, but much more than just that. Peter had been subject to what Helmut Schmidt, once Chancellor of West Germany, described as “the wear and tear of power”. And that is something that affects public servants just as much as it affects politicians.

I, for one, am pleased to see that – since Christmas – some of the effects of that wear and tear have slipped away.

In short, I believe that in Peter Shergold the Australian Public Service has had an extraordinary character who has helped achieved great things for the Australian public; who has inspired us with his passion, his enthusiasm and even his excitability; who has been a relentless advocate for change; who has shown tenacity, foresight and courage in his advice and service to governments; and has been honest and fair in his dealings with all. That strikes me as a pretty good record for any public servant.

Peter spoke today of “20 wonderful years” in public service. I couldn’t but agree that that is what he has had.

We will miss him.

Thank you very much.

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