A grand Treasury tradition

Over in the Treasury building they fancy themselves as the upholders of the tradition of the fearlessly independent public service but Godwin Grench shows that within the department there has been often a unique definition of impartiality. The spirit that governments acting improperly should be exposed came in to view most famously during the last months of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1975 when the shadow Treasurer Phillip Lynch was briefed regularly by a senior insider on the dubious fund raising activities of Minister Rex Connor. The big difference between then and now is that the identity of Godwin Grench has become public. Unlike Malcolm Turnbull, Phillip Lynch and Malcolm Fraser knew how to keep secret the name of the giver of secrets.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is Scott Morrison getting ahead of Malcolm Turnbull in the GST debate?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison under pressure as the question about knowledge of a rape gets embarrassing

Remembering that Labor only lost last time because of Bill Shorten