Pezzullo's sins were legion. It's time we saw the full report on them

That deprives the government of about the only arguable reason for refusing to publicly issue the report and findings about his conduct prepared by former public service commissioner Lynelle Briggs. That was a report that ultimately went to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.

Pezzullo's sins were legion, and there is little doubt, from the time it became clear that he had been maintaining a secret correspondence with a Liberal Party functionary and lobbyist that he had to go. Briggs found him to have abused his power, status and authority to seek personal advantage for himself and to have failed to disclose conflicts of interest. He failed to act apolitically and offered frankly political (and interested) advice. He was - surprise surprise - treacherous to and lobbied against his public service colleagues.

He could have lawfully been sacked for other failures not forming a part of Ms Brigg's inquiry. The management of his department was anarchic, and billions of dollars were wasted in poorly supervised and controlled external contracts.

The government withheld the report, pretending to be concerned for Pezzullo's privacy. That was a concern that Pezzullo rarely expressed for victims of his department's cruelty - unless it suited by way of allowing him and the department to refuse information with media inquiries. But in any event, even allowing some weight for a personal right of privacy, that right is clearly outweighed by the public interest and the public's legitimate interest in just what it is that he did.

The brief statement on his sacking provides a short summary of conclusions, but not the facts on which they were based.

The public deserves more, if it is to be satisfied that the public service code of conduct is being properly enforced. So do public servants, many of whom have suffered over the years from Pezzullo's peculiar management style, which included empire building, bullying and eccentric hiring decisions. The intelligence community deserves to know why, if only because Pezzullo continually interposed himself in intelligence matters.

Pezzullo was, over most of the past decade, the most visible public servant at the Commonwealth level. He revelled in his power and influence. Many more senior and more able public servants found themselves unable to stand up to him, or, as it happened, to his inside pipeline to higher political authorities. Very few of his colleagues worked well or easily with him, and if there are any now who would defend what we now know about his secret lobbying they have been very slow to say so.

The public should be told how such a person rose to power, and why, despite manifest evidence about his unsuitability, he was able to retain it and build on it. Knowing that would involve some understanding of his having favoured journalists "on the drip" even as he was calling in police to investigate leaks to others.

The full story would also explain the provenance of the thousands of emails exchanged with the Liberal Party lobbyist, and how and why they fell into the hands of investigative journalists. Presumably, these messages travelled on secure lines of communication, something Pezzullo was often pedantic about. The journalists said the originals had originally been lawfully obtained, before falling into their hands.

That suggests that they were obtained by an interception warrant, whether obtained by the AFP (which over most of the period had been an agency in Pezzullo's own portfolio) or by one of the security services (ASIO, still in Home Affairs). Was the warrant obtained in pursuit of an investigation into Pezzullo? Or into the Liberal lobbyist? Or was the material accidently discovered while investigating some other matter, for example allegations about the way some detention centre contracts were obtained?

If it were any of these, it would be one of the first times in Australian history that public service heads and political players close to prime ministers were the targets, one way or another, of formal criminal investigations. The public can rightly complain that the brief words of the Prime Minister's statement provide no information about this - or indeed about how and why the messages came into existence, let alone how they were obtained.

This is not the fault of Briggs, who presumably made full findings of fact. It would be highly irregular were the decision to put the veil over the report to have been made at the recommendation of the Public Service Commissioner, or the Secretary of PM&C, if only because the report goes to the very integrity and reputation of the public administration. Despite the brave words of both players in recent speeches and annual reports, it cannot be said that anything they, or the government, have done over the past 19 months makes us sure that this could not happen again.

It is time for Albanese to take the public into his confidence. He has an instinct for secretiveness that almost matches that of Scott Morrison, if not usually to such nefarious purpose.

In a different era, wise PM&C hands would advise prime ministers that if there was embarrassing material about, it was bound to come out eventually, usually at the worst possible time. Far better to have control over when it came out, particularly if its embarrassing bits reflected mostly on past administrations.