The Westminster Tradition

• 🗳️ Election special 🗳️ Caretaker conventions, IGBs and some 🥳 vox pops 🥳

  The starter's gun has gone on Australia's national elections for 2025 and Parliament has been prorogued.In this episode, former head of Cabinet Office and keeper of the Caretaker Conventions, Alison answers Caroline and Danielle's increasingly pointed questions, and we end with arguing about the importance of formatting.Stay tuned to the end for some fabulous insider advice for managing caretaker period and elections as a public servant. This episode is dedicated to the significant birthday of Sandy Pitcher, a public service legend (read more about her here).Intro grab courtesy of the Hon Nat Cook MP, Minister for Human Services (SA).Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.If you want rigorous reporting on Robodebt, we recommend the work of Rick Morton at the Saturday Paper, Chris Knaus and Luke Henriques-Gomes at the Guardian, Ben Eltham at Crikey, Julian Bajkowski at The Mandarin, and of course, the Robodebt Royal Commission itself.Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at [email protected] to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 'Til next time!

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• Picking the Scab of Recruitment - Part 1 'The Applicant'

  Drawing on overwhelming feedback from our listeners, in this episode we unpack the experience of being recruited into the public sector (or ghosted along the way). Danielle takes us throughWhat goes in Role Descriptions (hint: it shouldn't be slabs of legislation)The madness of defined requirements like 'driving' and 'interstate travel' (and whether Caroline's sister can really change a tyre)Alison's idea of an X factor style button for use in interviews when it's immediately clear this isn't working for anyoneWe finish with a listener description of a mad recruitment process that ends with, you guessed, it, ghosting.Thanks to Mary, our mug winner for this episode, for a great story!Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.If you want rigorous reporting on Robodebt, we recommend the work of Rick Morton at the Saturday Paper, Chris Knaus and Luke Henriques-Gomes at the Guardian, Ben Eltham at Crikey, Julian Bajkowski at The Mandarin, and of course, the Robodebt Royal Commission itself.Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at [email protected] to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 'Til next time!

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• Oakden aged care scandal part 3 - “Boss on the floor” … or, how bad things stayed secret

  How did the abuse at Oakden remain hidden for so long? And what finally brought it to light?In this episode we discuss:why families might not complainhow small, isolated outposts can hide terrible thingsthe importance of following up on things that don’t feel quite right.Intro grab from the RN Background Briefing episode A Failure to Care: The Oakden Nursing Home, featuring Lorraine Baff, whose father was a patient at Oakden. You can find the full ICAC Report into Oakden here, and the Chief Psychiatrist report here.Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.If you want rigorous reporting on Robodebt, we recommend the work of Rick Morton at the Saturday Paper, Chris Knaus and Luke Henriques-Gomes at the Guardian, Ben Eltham at Crikey, Julian Bajkowski at The Mandarin, and of course, the Robodebt Royal Commission itself.Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at [email protected] to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 'Til next time!

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• REDUX - What the NACC is going on? Updates on Robodebt and the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC)

  In light of this week's decision that the NACC will pursue investigations into six public officials, we thought we would repost this episode from December 2024 explaining why the NACC's original decision to take no further action needed to be revisited, with a little explainer up front on the latest news.You can find out more about the NACC's announcement on 18th February 2025 here.In this episode, we talk about where things are at, managing conflicts of interest, and whether corruption always involves brown paper bags.For Rick Morton's reporting on this:Eight minutes outside: how the NACC failed on robodebtNACC dumped Gleeson over concerns for CoalitionNACC integrity officer quits over integrityOther recommended reads:Annabel Crabb's article on PM Albanese's response to the Qantas upgrades controversyJoe Aston's book The Chairman's LoungeOpening grab features National Anti-Corruption Commissioner Paul Brereton, appearing before the NACC Parliamentary Joint Committee, 22 November 2024.Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.If you want rigorous reporting on Robodebt, we recommend the work of Rick Morton at the Saturday Paper, Chris Knaus and Luke Henriques-Gomes at the Guardian, Ben Eltham at Crikey, Julian Bajkowski at The Mandarin, and of course, the Robodebt Royal Commission itself.Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at [email protected] to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 'Til next time!

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• Oakden aged care scandal part 2 - there’s no $$$ in limbo

  For over a decade, the state government vacillated about whether or not to privatise the Oakden Older Persons Mental Health Facility.Once the 2007 accreditation crisis had passed, however, it never reached the top of the ‘to do’ list. Meanwhile, investment in facilities and staffing were endlessly postponed pending a decision. In this episode, we discuss:the dangers of decay while waiting for strategic directionswhether an organisation is ever really too broke to buy a $15 piece of equipment;some tactics for unsticking things.We also discuss an excellent listener question from a manager in social services policy who is thinking of getting out.Intro and outro grabs from the RN Background Briefing episode A Failure to Care: The Oakden Nursing Home, featuring Alma Krecu and Lorraine Baff, whose fathers were patients at Oakden. You can find the full ICAC Report into Oakden here, and the Chief Psychiatrist report here.Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.If you want rigorous reporting on Robodebt, we recommend the work of Rick Morton at the Saturday Paper, Chris Knaus and Luke Henriques-Gomes at the Guardian, Ben Eltham at Crikey, Julian Bajkowski at The Mandarin, and of course, the Robodebt Royal Commission itself.Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at [email protected] to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 'Til next time!

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