The Abbott government’s sacking of another top bureaucrat will have a “chilling effect” on the ability of the public service to give frank and fearless advice, according to a bureaucrat sacked by the Howard government.



The prime minister, Tony Abbott, sacked long serving and respected public servant Dr Paul Grimes from his job as secretary of the department of agriculture on Friday, because there was “no realistic prospect” he could have a “relationship of strong mutual confidence” with his minister, Barnaby Joyce.

The sacking followed Grimes’ request for a special senate committee meeting because he had information “highly pertinent” to a long running saga involving changes in Hansard to an incorrect answer given by his minister, Barnaby Joyce. Labor has alleged that Joyce may have misled the House of Representatives by insisting he had no knowledge of the corrections requested by his staff.

The leader of the opposition in the Senate, Penny Wong, said the sacking was “outrageous” and claimed it was part of a pattern of government retaliation against anyone who called them to account.

“I think this is absolutely appalling, the sacking of a respected public servant, who appears to have been sacked because he didn’t want to join the cover-up that his minister was engaging in, in terms of changes to what was said in parliament,” Wong told the ABC on Sunday.

“What this demonstrates yet again is this government is prepared to go after anybody and any measure of accountability that they see as standing in their way. We have seen that when it comes to (president of the Human Rights Commission) professor Gillian Triggs, we have seen their trashing of any accountability mechanism that they regard as inconvenient,” she said.

Paul Barratt was sacked as the secretary of the Department of Defence under the Howard government and challenged the decision in the federal court. The court found that a secretary terminated in that way had a right to a hearing, but that it was sufficient for the minister to say that they had lost confidence in the department head.

“What it all boils down to is that a departmental secretary is a tenant at will and you can be out of a job in 24 hours. Of course that has a chilling effect on people’s willingness to give frank and fearless advice.

“Everyone now knows the minister doesn’t have to say why he has lost faith in you, whether it is accurate, whether it is fair, he or she just has to say that they have.”

Under section 59 of the public service act a departmental secretary can be sacked by the prime minister, on the advice of the relevant minister, after the prime minister receives reports from the secretary of his own department and the public service commissioner.

Both those jobs have recently been filled by the Abbott government. The secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is Michael Thawley, a former ambassador to the US and adviser to John Howard, and the new public service commissioner is John Lloyd, a former public servant and former director of the work reform unit at the Institute of Public Affairs.

Despite having received those reports, Abbott said he was not “privy” to all the details of the case.

“I’m not going to go into all of those details, because I’m not privy to all of them at this point in time. The secretary of my department believed the best way to handle this was the way it has, in fact, been handled,” he said.

“There was a mutual agreement as I understand it reached in discussions between the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and Dr Grimes that it would be in his interest and the government’s interest if he moved on.

“It was determined and I think this was made clear in a statement from the minister for agriculture on Friday, that the kind of mutual confidence that should exist between a minister and a departmental secretary didn’t exist and therefore it was best for the relationship between of my ministers and their secretaries and the minister for agriculture as a strong relationship with his department, a very strong relationship with his department. But there was an issue that arose as I understand it between him and his office and the secretary and the best way to resolve it was in the way that’s happened.”

As soon as it came to office the Abbott government sacked three respected public service heads – the secretary of the Department of Resources and former secretary of the Department of Climate Change, Blair Comley, who is now the secretary of the NSW premier’s department, Grimes’ predecessor as secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Andrew Metcalfe, who had previously been secretary of the immigration department and former advisor to Paul Keating, Don Russell, who was head of the department of industry and innovation. The government also effectively removed the secretary of the treasurer’s department, Martin Parkinson, initially without the knowledge of the treasurer, Joe Hockey, although Parkinson eventually stayed on in his job until late last year.