On this day in 1968 the front page carried a warning from Minister for External Affairs, Paul Hasluck, to his fellow politicians to leave public servants alone.
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He said the tendency of Parliament to call public servants to account through committee hearing or to produce papers disclosing the inner workings of departments was to be deplored.
Giving the Sir Robert Garran oration at the Royal Institute of Public Administration conference, Mr Hasluck warned that politicians who tried to haul bureaucrats in to face public inquiries risked creating political partisanship in the service.
"Let Parliament call ministers to account and pursue them as far and as fast as they wish but leave the public servant alone, not so that he can 'shelter behind his minister' (to quote one debater) but so that the minister will face his own responsibilities and so that the capacity of public servants to serve the nation will not be reduced", he said.
"If the public servant is expected to give firm, non-partisan advice, without fear or favour, he has to be protected from subsequent political inquests."
Also "deplorable" was the tendency to involve public servants deeply in ministerial affairs, including bringing public servants into the inner workings of a political office.
