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What does the public service have in common with a ute on a country road?

Allan Gyngell Executive Director of the foreign policy think tank, the Lowy Institute, has spent his career in and around government in Australia, including a stint as adviser to former Prime Minister Paul Keating. He heaped praise on the professionalism and quality of the Australian Public Service in delivering a paper recently on Think Tanks and Foreign Policy but also had this to say about another attribute of the service:

"However, it is also small, highly collegial, prone to unnecessary secrecy and, if left to its own devices, as opaque as the windscreen of a Ute on a dusty road in February."

Full post as published by Open and Shut on June 15, 2008 (boomark / email).