The new Labor government is signalling loudly that it plans to work closely with the public service.
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It wasted no time in getting the message out. The day after the election, Jim Chalmers tweeted a photo of himself receiving a briefing at his home in Brisbane from Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy. Among Anthony Albanese's first remarks as Prime Minister were praise for public servants, and a promise not to sack them. Both Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek and Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler have acknowledged the work of public servants in the last week.
What speaks loudest about the new government's plans for the public service is Mr Albanese's appointment of Glyn Davis as the top federal bureaucrat.
Professor Davis, a former leading Queensland government public servant, university vice chancellor and long-time public policy academic, has an encouraging CV for anyone hoping for a new direction in the Australian Public Service.
Maybe most significantly for anyone reading for signs about the Albanese government's plans, Professor Davis was on the panel for the major review of the public service led by businessman David Thodey.
The review has fallen into relative obscurity in recent years but made a brief comeback in the election, when Labor's then-public service spokeswoman Katy Gallagher criticised the Morrison government for "mothballing" the reform agenda it recommended. She called the Thodey review "the most substantive review of the APS in the past 40 years", one that took "thousands of hours of work led by six distinguished Australians and widespread consultation with stakeholders".
It's true the Morrison government was dismissive in how it received the Thodey report, given the magnitude of the undertaking and the fanfare with which it was first announced. Being a review set in train under prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, it found its way to the in-tray of a less receptive and less interested government by late 2019. The Morrison government accepted in full only 15 of the review's 40 recommendations. Anyway, the report's delivery was overshadowed by prime minister Scott Morrison's decision only the week before to reduce the number of departments from 18 to 14, and to dismiss five secretaries - moves that in spirit ran counter to some of the review's recommendations.
In the time since, the public service's most visible work adopting the Thodey reform agenda has been in creating the APS Academy, and new professional streams building data and digital skills inside the public service.
Some of the boldest and bravest recommendations - such as reducing the disparity in pay and conditions for staff working at the same levels across the public service, protecting secretaries from dismissal for political reasons, and requiring more public service experience in ministerial offices - were cast aside under the Coalition.
The Grattan Institute later observed the Morrison government rejected the Thodey recommendations that would reduce the power of ministers, even though the changes would improve the chances of policy reform for the nation.
Senator Gallagher, now the public service minister, brought some discarded parts of the Thodey review back into currency with her pre-election statements. Professor Davis' elevation to lead PM&C appears to confirm Labor is serious about reviving reform proposals from the review, including those that were anathema to the Coalition government.
In recent months, Labor has advocated those parts of the Thodey review that match its own agenda for the public service - for example, abolishing the Coalition-era staffing cap, and moving gradually towards common pay scales and conditions.
Whether it's minded to embrace the changes that force ministers to cede power to public servants is another question.