Public Eye: Anthony Albanese's dinner with agency heads, Greg Moriarty gives advice on giving advice, spy balloons update

It's the second swanky dinner agency bosses have been invited to with Mr Albanese.

There was plenty to discuss, as the federal public service continues to dissect and react to the 900-page robodebt royal commission report. Speaking on Thursday, Defence secretary Greg Moriarty said the PM had been pretty frank on the topic of frank and fearless advice.

"Without talking out of school, the Secretaries Board had an engagement with the Prime Minister just a few days ago and he was pretty clear about what he expects from the public service.

"And so I think we do have support from the Prime Minister, we have support from ministers for the role of the public service in doing that."

Naturally, Public Eye had follow-up questions regarding the dinner party of the year: Who exactly attended (did anyone deign to call in sick)? What was on the menu? Were any gifts given? Sadly, these questions were asked in vain of the Prime Minister's Office.

"The Prime Minister is proud to lead a cabinet government that respects the public service, seeks frank and fearless advice, and engages with secretaries and their departments to advance the national interest," a government spokesperson said in response. That's good.

We do know Toto was in attendance, thanks to a photo uploaded to LinkedIn by departing Agriculture secretary Andrew Metcalfe, showing him posing with Mr Albanese and the little dog.

While Mr Metcalfe revealed in his caption he, too, was a dog lover, Toto appears not to be a dinner party lover, by the looks of the photo.

AusTender is a valuable tool for journalists trying to figure out what the government is spending money on.

The Canberra Times recently revealed big four firms had pocketed $813.2 million across 844 contracts in the last financial year, after an extensive analysis of contracts posted on the government portal.

But sometimes, AusTender is just kind of funny.

Take the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which spent $22,355 on "time machines" in April, for example.

But one agency rises above all others when it comes to best tender/contract names: the Grains Research and Development Corporation.

The agency is doing very important things, we're sure, but translating that on AusTender produces some entertaining results.

"Fast-tracking deployment of chickpea heat tolerance to develop chickpea varieties," one ATM is titled.

Another: "Program 2: Discovery of desirable aroma and flavour compounds for oat food/beverage applications."

And last but not least: "Optimising slug management: Enhancing capacity and capability through population modelling and innovative management."

Ten out of 10, keep up the good work.

Arriving at his Institute of Public Administration Australia address on Thursday, Defence secretary Greg Moriarty was greeted by a rather large sign for The Canberra Times.

The event was held in the Marcus Clarke street offices of Comcare, incidentally, two floors up from the office of this masthead. (Yes, we did in fact move from Fyshwick to Civic in 2021, though our sign still exists there, too.)

It also happened to be the same day The Canberra Times revealed Kathryn Campbell had been placed on leave without pay following the robodebt royal commission. Mr Moriarty and the Department of Defence declined to comment.

Adressing a room of "future leaders", Mr Moriarty shared nuggets of wisdom, including on giving ministers frank and fearless advice.

"Well, he won't mind me saying, but my former minister Christopher Pyne, who was a great character, but I had to provide him some advice one day on an issue and he frowned at me and he said, 'Secretary, you continue to disappoint me'," Mr Moriarty told the room, to raucous laughter.

But it was all well and good: "Minister Pyne being minister Pyne, five minutes later, he'd sort of moved on. He wanted the advice. He wanted me to give him advice that he liked but he appreciated the advice."

The secretary continued that he'd been "lucky", saying: "I've had difficult conversations but I haven't, I have never had a minister who said, 'We're not having this conversation, or you're not going to show me that submission'."

Last week, we reported the Merit Protection Commissioner had been missing in action since December 2022, as revealed in the Australian Public Service Commission's first capability review since 2016.

Former commissioner Linda Waugh has still not been replaced, nor has the position been advertised, an agency spokesperson told us. And it seems replacing the commissioner hadn't really been front of mind until the report card brought it up.

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"The APSC Capability Review identified that the role should be filled," the Public Service Commission spokesperson said. "The initial stages of the process have commenced. The position has not yet been advertised." However, there has been an acting Merit Protection Commissioner in place since Ms Waugh left.

But asked who had been conducting the work, the spokesperson said: "Senior and experienced staff within the Merit Protection Commissioner office have acted in this role." The mystery continues.

Just six short months ago, it was all the rage to shoot balloons out of the sky over concerns they were spying on national secrets. Aptly dubbed "spy balloons", the issue dominated headlines for a few weeks after the US government accused the Chinese government of spying through them.

But the question was raised in Australia as well. Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson asked defence officials whether anything had occurred with foreign weather balloons but he was told to direct the question to the Bureau of Meteorology.

In a recent response to a question on notice, the national weather agency, which likes to be referred to as the Bureau, said while it didn't track foreign weather balloons, it also had no record of any entering Australian territories.

But perhaps it's Australian weather balloons that are the problem. The agency noted it didn't have any formal records but were aware of some Australian balloons ending up on foreign shores. The truth is out there.