But an awful lot of bollocks has been said and written about the broadcaster's funding in the past month. So while I carry all the biases of someone who has spent 13 years in the nation's withering commercial media industry, I'll try to provide a little context; you can decide whether it's truth or professional envy.

First, in my brief time in newspapers, more than one in three jobs in Australian publishing (excluding online publishing) have gone. About one in five jobs in media (print, broadcast and online) have gone. Many more will likely go as the shift to online consumption continues, thanks to Google and Facebook's dominance of the online advertising market.

This change is rapid and inevitable, and has benefits and costs. Some of the changes – especially in producing and distributing information – have led to phenomenal efficiencies. I doubt any large industry has had greater scope to improve its productivity this century than has publishing and broadcasting.

So, of all government organisations, why has the ABC been exempt from the efficiency dividend – the annual cut to operating budgets – for the three decades it has applied to most of the federal public sector? Yes, the dividend is reaching the end of its usefulness as a simulator of market pressures – but only for those organisations that have been hammered by it for years. Not even the politically powerful Defence Department, which was exempt until a decade ago, is treated so carefully.

The ABC has had its budget crimped occasionally. Radio National's The Money program pointed out last month that, when adjusted for inflation, the broadcaster had in fact lost 28 per cent of its budget over the past 30 years. Yet that's a rather misleading presentation. If one equated it to an efficiency dividend, it would be of the order of 1.13 per cent a year, a relatively tiny amount, especially in the context of an unprecedented productivity boom driven by rapid technological advances.

Look at the map of ABC resourcing below. I can assure you that any Australian publisher, broadcaster or film-maker would be thrilled to have had such stable revenue over that period.

Yes, the Coalition’s ridiculous thought-policing of the national broadcaster is unjustified bullying. But the alleged "massive budget cuts" do not exist, nor are the modest, recent reductions unfair.

The ABC is worth defending, especially from ideological interference. Indeed, it's easy to defend this wonderful institution. But let's do so without resorting to nonsensical claims about its funding and "heavy" staffing cuts.

CSIRO chairman David Thodey, who is leading the review of the public service, is a very busy man. Fortunately, he can lean on some of the good advice offered freely in this month's Informant.

Thodey, along with Elizabeth Alexander, recently completed the draft of another review: that of the Public Government, Performance and Accountability Act and Rule. In their report, the pair expressed disappointment at the lack of transparency in how senior public servants and consultants' remuneration is reported, and recommended improvements.

So when the Informant asked the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet – twice – how much it expected to pay Thodey for his work on the APS review, the response was unexpected. PM&C; initially declined to answer at all. When reminded that it would need to report such details anyway, a spokesman said Thodey would spend about 50 days working on the review, would be paid "similar rates" to those paid during the 2014 financial system inquiry, and that further details of his remuneration "will be available in due course on Austender", the government contracts website.

Thodey sure has some work to do.

Shortly before deadline, news broke that Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd had resigned and would leave his position in August.

In a mere 3½ years, Lloyd provided the Informant's columnists with far more to write about than any previous occupant of the role. For that, I thank him.

He may, however, leave behind a befitting legacy. Lloyd is on the advisory committee that will soon recommend whom Australia's next information commissioner should be – the guardian of citizen privacy and government openness. Signing off on that recommendation may end up being one of Lloyd's last official acts in the job.

As information-law specialist Peter Timmins points out, Lloyd's stated views on FOI law is that it is "extremely harmful, damaging, detrimental, deleterious" and pernicious – a great signal to send to public servants about their statutory obligations. If Lloyd's recommendation reflects this, I dearly hope it lands in the spam folder.

Markus Mannheim edits the Informant.