Perhaps a day will come when the champion rorters, liars, and conscious mis-managers of public resources are before a serious corruption commission and out on their ears. The political and administrative dominance of the Australian government by non-public-service minders in the minister’s office is now of such long-standing that there is not a senior public servant who has advised ministers in a different environment, with many departmental secretaries themselves having worked as political ministerial advisers. It is now so much a part of the Australian political landscape, and so much a part of the background of the Australian party system, that most ministers – on both sides of politics – could never imagine working without an (ever-increasing) staff of political operators and minders.