Godwin Gretch, a hard-working and intelligent bureaucrat, has fallen foul of the gap between myth and reality in the senior echelons of Australia's public service. The myth, fondly recounted by the mostly faceless senior bureacrats in Canberra, speaks of independence, impartiality and fearless advice. The reality is that your career only progresses if you do what your political and bureaucratic masters tell you to do or your career hits the skids.
At Senate estimates hearings on friday, it was obvious that Gretch had decided to take the path less travelled and tell the Parliament and the public the truth as he understood it. His demeanour spoke of stress, intense discomfort, because he knew that he was about to break the unspoken public service code of silence and acquiesence.
Government senators and a senior Treasury official, all obviously well-briefed that Gretch was a bomb ready to explode, tried desperately to protect Rudd and Swan from this rare, and very inconvenient, display of public service integrity.
Gretch is a hero, or he ought to be, and an unlikely martyr. His career has been shredded, let's hope his health and personal well-being do not suffer too much.
The Gretch episode points again to the reality that there is something rotten, and delusional, at the heart of our political system.
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