I worked 60 hours a week minimum as an SES exec under Howard (whom I hated, might I add) and can now see colleagues in the Commonwealth struggling through surrendered weekends and disappointed children and starting hours in the small hours - NOT because the actual work demands it, but because Rudd likes to make the point that these are his working hours. Public Servants are required to be up at 5am not because the world will fall apart of something’s not delivered by 6am, but because that’s merely the time the PM has decided would suit. I’ve worked those sorts of hours before, but for projects that had a genuine urgency about it, not because some dickhead snapped his fingers and decided he could make me.

How many valuable senior execs have quit now? Geoff Whalan of Centrelink, Jenny Goddard of PM&C, Bi-polar Nicola’s Chief of Staff Mick Reid (a massive loss as someone who not only understands health policy inside out, but was actively trying to protect public servants from his Minister’s excesses). If a renowned workaholic like Reid can’t cop the hours, what price the rest of the APS? Even famous slavedrivers like Ian Watt of Finance, and workaholics like Ken Henry of Treasury, look sick and exhausted.

Rudd swept in on a massive wave of optimism in the APS - why is he throwing it away like this? It achieves nothing and will lose him a very great deal.

The up side for me is that as a recruiter in the private sector I have a better field of candidates to choose from than ever before!

Brilliant again dawg…