The head of the Commonwealth public service has just made an extraordinary decision, with profound implications for the independence of our public broadcasters – and nobody, so far, is blaming him for it. But we should.

Whatever you think of Kevin Rudd’s competence as prime minister, he surely is entitled to be regarded as one the least narrowly partisan holders of that office since Federation.

This is the man who appointed Peter Costello to the board of the Future Fund, who retained Amanda Vanstone as our ambassador in Rome, appointed Tim Fischer to be ambassador to the Holy See, Brendan Nelson to the European Union.

In 2008, just months after he won government, he championed amendments to the Acts governing the public broadcasters, designed to ensure that partisan political appointments to their boards ceased.

They’d been going on for decades. Both parties have stuffed the ABC and SBS boards with their supporters – either as a reward for past loyalty, or to try to ensure that the broadcasters’ output better reflected the views of their side of politics.