Malcolm Turnbull may have turned his brain to the concept of a gigantic national security framework in recent months, but it certainly wasn't the Prime Minister who came up with the idea.

It wasn't Peter Dutton either.

And, it turns out, nor was it the recommendation of Michael L'Estrange and Stephen Merchant, the former top mandarins tasked in November last year to review the intelligence system.

No, it was none of them.

It was Michael Pezzullo, who must have been the happiest chap south of Lake Burley Griffin when the Prime Minister announced what he called the, "most significant reform of Australia's national intelligence and domestic security arrangements and their oversight in more than 40 years".

"Mike" Pezzullo is the secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

He is also the fellow Mr Dutton, the soon-to-be home affairs minister, will undoubtedly want to head the new department — which would make him one of the most powerful public servants Australia has ever had.

A cog in the bureaucracy for 30 years, Mr Pezzullo has been advocating creation of a home affairs ministry for more than half of his career, first when he was deputy chief of staff to former opposition leader Kim Beazley.

Back then, in 2001, Labor needed a political parry to John Howard's electoral advantage on national security.

Having started the election year behind in the polls and Mr Howard had clawed his way back.

The Tampa affair, which saw a Norwegian freighter carrying 433 rescued asylum seekers denied entry to Australia, and the September 11 terrorist attacks 18 days later had placed border protection and national security at the forefront of the political contest.

Mr Beazley proposed an armed Australian Coast Guard, enhanced counter-terrorism units within the military and federal police, strengthened aviation security and stronger defences against cyber-terrorism.

ASIO, Australian Federal Police, National Crime Authority, Customs, telecommunication intercepts and the new Coast Guard would all come under a "powerful, cabinet-level ministry of home affairs".

"The home affairs ministry will be the most powerful and focused peacetime ministerial arrangement for co-ordinating Australia's domestic security in our history," Labor's policy document stated.

It is spookily similar to Mr Turnbull's plan, isn't it? Which may explain why Bill Shorten is shy to criticise it.

Immigration secretary's divisive reputation

Labor's original proposal, devised by Mr Pezzullo all those years ago, showed particular foresight in establishing cyber-terrorism and cyber-warfare as a priority — an area now being given particular attention by Mr Turnbull.

Sorry, this video has expired PM Malcolm Turnbull announces new Office of National Intelligence

Mr Pezzullo is both the reason why a super national security ministry has been so persistently pursued by our leaders over the past two decades, and one of the reasons why the shake-up has been hard to land.

He is what the Americans call a hard ass; exactly the sort of bloke you would deploy to oversee Operation Sovereign Borders to stop asylum seeker boats, which he did with ruthless efficiency for Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, gladly doing so under a media blackout that saw journalists subjected to police investigation.

But those who have worked with and alongside Mr Pezzullo wonder whether he is the right person to run a new super-ministry comprising such massive powers over intelligence, surveillance and policing.

"Pezzullo concentrates power, he does not disperse it," says one veteran bureaucrat who stridently opposes establishing a home affairs ministry.

Even senior figures in the Canberra establishment who see virtue in the concept believe the home affairs edifice must be matched by equally high towers of oversight and review. If anything, one said, to curb Mr Pezzullo's tendencies.

He is an extraordinarily hard-working, driven and intelligent fellow, admired and loathed in unequal proportions. He is considered brilliant but divisive.

Stories about Mr Pezzullo are legion in Canberra. Some are apocryphal but reflect his uncompromising reputation in Canberra.

One such story alleges to be from Mr Pezzullo's time as a staffer for former Labor foreign minister Gareth Evans, a man with a notoriously volcanic temper.

The minister, it is said, struck one of his furies and reached for the nearest object.

Those who have worked with Michael Pezzullo wonder if he is the right person to run a new super ministry. ( ABC News: Matt Roberts )

That object happened to be a stapler which flew across the room hitting Mr Pezzullo on the noggin. The wound bled profusely, all over his crisp white shirt. He wore the bloodied shirt for the rest of the day, proud of his war wound.

Or so the story goes.

Mr Pezzullo told this correspondent he had heard the story too. But alas, dear readers, it wasn't him who was struck by the stapler.

Gareth Evans himself told ABC's Matt Peacock: "I think I threw one small stapler on a desk, not at anyone, but from these small acorns large oak trees of reputation will grow."

Mr Pezzullo's reputation has similarly grown.

But, having secured his home affairs vision after many long, hard years, could that reputation undo his desire to oversee its implementation?