Public Eye: Workin' 9 to 5 in the Canberra bubble; Eminem inspires the ABS; Thanks for the robomemories

Nationals deputy leader Perin Davey decided it could be interpreted both ways in the debate on new draft behaviour standards and codes for parliamentarians and their staff.

A repeatedly raised issue in submissions - albeit not the main issue - was the "unreasonable" after-hours requirements, lack of breaks, family members being hired and other deviations from contemporary HR practices that remain culturally accepted in parliamentary workplaces.

Senator Davey wanted it acknowledged that those matters were seen differently by those travelling from outside the Canberra (city) bubble.

"Nine to five might suit people who live in and around Canberra and its environs. Some of us who are travelling hours to get here to work, we'd rather spend the weekend at home with their families," she said.

The (political) bubble should keep a focus on reflecting greater diversity in geographical, socio-economic and professional backgrounds, she urged.

"We always hear about the Canberra bubble. We always hear the accusations of a generic type of person coming into politics, former staffers, former unionists, former lawyers. But it is not true and must not be true," she said.

Too true Perin, but lay off the bubble talk.

APS secretaries have been invited to take up the baton of combatting corruption vulnerabilities by the outbound Integrity Commissioner Jaala Hinchcliffe.

Her agency is being wound up to make way for the National Anti-Corruption Commission, but that was a rare opportunity to know your own expiration date, she said.

Perhaps the staff at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which is also being summarily axed, might like to compare notes.

ACLEI's final corruption vulnerability brief, published late last year, has been shared with APS secretaries because Ms Hinchcliffe felt the lessons went beyond the law enforcement space.

"I've leaned in as much as I can within my jurisdiction," she says. Now it's up to the mandarins if they want to do something about it.

She could remind them that 4 per cent of APS Census respondents say they've seen corruption in the last year.

Which secretary wouldn't be taking that seriously?

The hip hop and public service worlds rarely align but the Australian Bureau of Statistics made sure to make them an unlikely match on one inconspicuous Wednesday afternoon.

For reasons unknown to anyone but the agency's social media team, the home of demographics data and statistics nerds put out its own rendition of the classic Eminem track off 8 Mile, 'Lose Yourself'.

Replacing the line "his palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy", the ABS's 'Lose yourself in the numbers' informs us "Deer farmers there's 20, sales assistants aplenty".

We'll hand it to the media team, the rhyming scheme is bang on, which isn't bad for a bunch of numbers people.

It ends exactly how you would imagine it might: "whole country's over 25 million now; you're joking! Wow! 50 thou times more than Lord Howe!; truth's come out, back to our spreadsheets now".

Sadly, it doesn't sound like chief statistician David Gruen is about to drop another track anytime soon.

Former minister Alan Tudge resigned from parliament on Thursday with a "thank you" to people from whom he definitely remembered receiving advice.

Long-time former media adviser Rachelle Miller did not make the list when Mr Tudge cited the staff who had helped him through his years in the parliament and the frontbench.

She was in the gallery though so that was awkward.

Another surprise was a thank you to the "professional" APS - the same public service he threw under the robodebt bus at the royal commission just a week earlier.

Or maybe he was thanking them for stepping under the bus.

Despite being prime minister for only the first five months of 2022, Scott Morrison and his department had more freedom of information refusal decisions overruled on review than any other Australian government entity that entire year.

It wasn't just his secret ministries that showed Mr Morrison's penchant for quashing any hint of transparency.

Every decision by Mr Morrison and PM&C to refuse access to documents while he was prime minister was overturned by the commissioner.

Transparency advocate Rex Patrick and journalists also waged an FOI war with the former prime minister over his cabinet committees of one, which was used to hide national cabinet documents containing a mixture of health and economic advice that informed unprecedented lockdowns in the pandemic.

A mere 65 freedom of information review requests were reviewed by Information Commissioner Angelene Falk in 2022, but those she touched revealed there is still a problem across the APS.

More than half (37) of those reviewed were overturned or varied despite much effort over several years to educate FOI officers across the public sector on making better decisions.

The former prime minister and his central agency were not the only entities with a 100 per cent strike rate on FOI decisions subjected to review.

Other over-eager deniers of access to information were the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, the Australian Federal Police, and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, the Productivity Commission and the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Each of these had all their reviewed denials overturned in 2022.

Department of Defence just missed out on joining their ignoble ranks. Ms Falk affirmed one of Defence's four reviewed decisions, but the rest were overturned.

The most improved in 2022 was the Department of Home Affairs, which had the most decisions reviewed, but now less than half were overturned.