It happens rarely in Australia: about once a decade. The stewardship of the public service becomes a new and weighty responsibility for the party that wins government.

The public service has been shaped according to the priorities of its predecessor, so needs adjustment. Changes to the machinery of government - the arrangement of tasks and responsibilities among departments and agencies - are straightforward and easily managed.

More importantly, over the last 40 years incoming governments have taken the post election period as an opportunity for a fundamental look at the public sector as an institution - its role, purpose and direction. If true to form, this will be a priority for Anthony Albanese if he becomes Prime Minister.

There are lessons from history - a change of government creates the opportunity to review the public service but some ways of doing this are better than others. Before the 1983 election the Labor opposition released a slim, influential document - Labor and Quality of Government - promising better public sector management. It drew on knowledge from opposition parliamentarians and staff, retired public servants, recent public service reviews, and most importantly, unfinished business from the 1976 Royal Commission into Australian Government Administration. The Fraser government had implemented some of RCAGA (primarily administrative law reform including an ombudsman and administrative appeals tribunal), but much remained to be done.

Following its 1983 election win, in a victory for good governance, Labor released two white papers - Reforming the Australian Public Service (1983) and Budget Reform (1984) fleshing out and refining its policies. They were followed by legislative changes that transformed the public service, putting in place things we now take for granted such as a senior executive service and reliable forward estimates.

Public release of Labor and Quality of Government had dual benefits; it helped persuade voters of Labor's preparedness to govern, and also paved the way for better implementation. The public service, forewarned about the new government's intentions, was better prepared to write white papers, advise the new government where there were better options to achieve the policy intent, and implement them. It is a precedent Mr Albanese would be well advised to follow.

Following the 1996 election the incoming Coalition government took a different approach. It established a national Commission of Audit, chaired by Professor Bob Officer, with a secretariat drawn from within the public service. The commission recommended a much smaller public service based on a rigorous assessment of whether government should be involved in the community's activities, a rationalisation of roles between the Commonwealth and states in the federation, and a range of accounting, staffing and performance management reforms.

Its more radical prescriptions included an across the board 10 per cent cut in running costs and numerous privatisations. Most recommendations of this nature were not pursued, although as the parliamentary library noted, partly because the previous government had itself been a substantial outsourcer and privatiser. While much of its work was set aside as too extreme, the commission led to some efficiency gains and public sector reforms including a substantially revised and shortened Public Service Act and the Charter of Budget Honesty.

After the change of government following the November 2007 election, instead of a review we got a gimmick - the 2020 summit (in April 2008). Its report reads like a collection of unfinished dot points and thought bubbles, with little serious analysis. A few ideas, such as a national disability insurance scheme, were already gathering momentum in the public domain, and were eventually implemented. Mostly however the summit went nowhere. The Monthly's Richard Crooke, writing in 2020, described it as "of a piece with the rest of the Rudd years: too ambitious, too thin on detail, too micromanaged and too media-massaged".

The 2014 change of government to the Coalition, under Tony Abbott, saw another Commission of Audit. Its language was more measured than the 1996 commission but it still recommended significant cuts to the public service. Most were never implemented. Indeed, the government came to regret adopting some of the commission's savings recommendations, including a Medicare co-payment, in the 2014 budget - one of the most unpopular and unsuccessful budgets in living memory.

Should Labor win the next election it faces a more immediate problem: what to do about senior public service positions.

Politicians from all sides assume, with good reason based on election data, that the public service is Labor aligned. A majority (albeit not a huge majority, and not always) tend to vote Labor.

What John Howard realised however - an insight gifted to Liberal prime ministers since - was that public servants' political preferences in general are irrelevant. The public service is a hierarchy. If he put Coalition loyalists at the top, the rest of the public service would fall into line. He applied this insight with vigour, dramatically sacking six departmental secretaries on taking office to make the point. Under his prime ministership, his office continued to pay close attention not only to secretary but agency head and other senior appointments.

The only department to retain some independence was the Treasury, for historical reasons considered roughly on a par with the Prime Minister's Department and where independence and rigorous advice were traditionally seen as important for good economic management.

When the Rudd government was elected it chose not to shift the Coalition appointees. As a result, in many instances it received less than enthusiastic support; compliance, but not genuine, helpful and honest advice. One minister recounted that when they asked their departmental secretary for an honest opinion the reply was "Yes minister, tell me the opinion you want and I'll give it to you".

Treasury was a notable exception. Its advice helped the government and Treasurer Wayne Swan manage the Global Financial Crisis better than almost any other affected country. Not all agencies were as effective. There were notable failings, among them not putting in place suitable safeguards and risk management in the home insulation program - a problem that haunted the government from then on.

Both major parties say they support an apolitical public service. In the Howard and Rudd years the Coalition showed this by appointing conservatives to the top jobs - Labor by leaving them there.

At that time, the ALP felt it had to. Labor had roundly criticised the Coalition for sacking departmental heads, so would have been open to charges of hypocrisy if it did the same. Moreover, some Labor ministers still hoped their department heads were secret Labor supporters, despite all evidence to the contrary. In any event, dealing with the problem soon became a secondary consideration in the internal confusion and turmoil that characterised the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd transitions. If there is a change of government after the next election Anthony Albanese will not make the same error. In a Canberra Times interview he pointedly declined to promise not to sack departmental heads. Faced with the blatant politicisation of the top levels of the public service and other senior statutory or ministerial appointments, he would be foolish to leave all the Coalition appointees in place.

This does though raise the problem of entrenching the practice.

Ironically, it might encourage frank and fearless advice - secretaries who have the trust of their ministers are more likely to be brave. This has been the Coalition experience - political appointees have freer rein than most public servants to give advice that challenges a minister's preconceptions. It won't help counter the perception that the public service has become political - but that vanished long ago. Institutions evolve.

There are other approaches that could be explored in future, such as independent senior appointments committees, or the US approach of a clear separation between political and career tracks in public service jobs. If there is a change of government this kind of broader reform may well re-emerge into the policy debate.