Opinion

Fault Lines Peter Shergold review: Opinions of the great and the good have no special weight

Jack Waterford
Updated October 22 2022 - 12:46pm, first published October 21 2022 - 12:00pm
Peter Shergold in 2021, before conducting a COVID review this year. Picture by Elesa Kurtz
Peter Shergold in 2021, before conducting a COVID review this year. Picture by Elesa Kurtz

Professor Peter Shergold is a very distinguished Australian public servant, fabulous after-dinner speaker and accomplished part-time actor in departmental pantomimes. His deep and expert interest in public sector management and reform has survived 14 years of retirement from the mandarinate. His range of experience is extraordinary. An economist and economic historian who emigrated to academia in Australia from England, he was a late entrant into the public service when he joined prime minister and cabinet in its office of multicultural affairs in the days of Bob Hawke. From there he headed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and was Public Service commissioner while the Public Service Act was being changed in response to political assertions that the service was timid and unadventurous. No one ever suggested that of him. He later headed the education department before being appointed, under John Howard, secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet. On retirement, he went back to academia, inter alia serving as a professor for several universities in a combined business school, with a particular interests in harnessing the intellectual energy of the intersection of public administration and the non-government sector. Then he was head of ANZOG, the public service school of government, a university chancellor, and frequent commentator on a wide range of public affairs.

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Jack Waterford

Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times.

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