A number of federal departments have begun quietly preparing incoming minister briefs in anticipation of an imminent cabinet reshuffle.
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It's not just the Department of Finance updating its incoming minister brief for the permanent replacement to Mathias Cormann, who quit in October.
The Canberra Times has been told preparations have been quietly underway in several major portfolios, including Defence, DFAT, and Health.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash and Education Minister Dan Tehan have also been labelled possible reshuffle movers in media reports.
The rustle of preparative activity comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison has named his government's priority challenges to tackle in 2021.
Mr Morrison told his colleagues during Tuesday's Joint Party Room meeting that the new year would brings challenges in aged care; international uncertainties in the region; rolling out vaccines; regional Australia; getting young people into jobs, and skills training reforms; meeting energy demand for industry.
However, the prime minister gave no hints of the individual fate of his colleagues. He singled out for praise only Nationals leader Michael McCormack and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, neither of whom will move in the reshuffle.
At the end of the meeting the PM echoed thanks offered by other ministers to the political and electorate staffers who support their work throughout the year.
"I said we would keep Australians together. We are together as a team, and I believe we are together as a nation," Mr Morrison told colleagues.
The prime minister plans a cabinet change following the end of the parliamentary calendar this Thursday, but has previously indicated only a small reshuffle.
The ministerial scuttlebutt in parliament mirrors the theories that appear in newspapers: expect minimal change, Simon Birmingham to keep Finance and lose Trade, Tehan or another loyalist will get Trade, leaving the question of who moves into cabinet.
Even before December's debacles on China, national security officials had been expecting Mr Morrison would want to put one of his closest political allies into that relationship, potentially triggering a wider reshuffle or a newly created envoy role.
However, in the wake of Australia's twitter-diplomacy missteps with China, in which the prime minister has been involved in every step, those theories have quieted.
Multiple priorities the government took into 2020 remain unfinished threads, some due to the pandemic, some for other political reasons. The religious discrimination bill was kicked down the road, as was Indigenous recognition, energy and aged care.
By convention public servants firewall their current minister from documents pertaining to advice for a predecessor or successor minister.
There was no whole-of-government directive to prepare the incoming minister briefings, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet confirmed. Instead individual departments have chosen to undertake that work.
The Prime Minister's Office did not respond to questions put about a potential reshuffle of departmental secretaries, that some suspected might be coming.
If there is shakeup of the Secretaries Board, it will be the first since their number was cut from 18 to 14 on the eve of last year's APS end of year address by PM&C secretary Phil Gaetjens. Five existing secretaries were shown the door.
Harley Dennett
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
