(Image: Tom Red/Private Media)

During this time of lockdown plenty of us are combining working from home with DIY projects around the place. Ever wondered if you’d need to combine the two? Well don’t fret, the head of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Phil Gatejens, has got you covered! Big Phil’s got some great tips for when your boss’s renovation project goes wrong and he needs a bit of help fixing things up. If you want to know how the pros do it, let’s check them out!

1. Make sure you don’t look at all the documents

This is a fatal error that so many amateurs make. Once you’ve seen a document, you can’t unsee it, so if it’s no good for the boss, you’re stuffed! When Big Phil was asked to fix up the boss’s sports rorts problem, the first thing he said was that he couldn’t look at the documents the auditor-general used to write its reports on the rorts. Phil just “made my best efforts (and the auditor-general provided assistance in identifying sources) to obtain the information necessary to provide a sound basis for my advice”.

Oh, and he also made sure to forget to check the emails from his boss’s office, too. Magic! Nothing to see here!

2. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing really slowly. Or quickly. Depends on what the boss wants

When Phil had to knock together the sports rorts report to get the boss out of some deep trouble, it took him just 16 days to do a comprehensive review of a large program, examine the guidelines for it and scrutinise the findings of the auditor-general, including his own mathematical analysis that showed there was no pork-barrelling. The big fella can move fast when he needs to!

But sometimes you need to take things slow… real slow. Like in the Brittany Higgins matter. After being asked to find out who knew what and when about the alleged rape of Higgins in the office of one of his ministers, did Phil move with the same speed? Did he what!

After commencing the review — which rather than requiring a detailed analysis of a grants program, simply involved interviewing people in the prime minister’s office — on February 17, Phil hadn’t got it finished yet before announcing yesterday, more than six months later, that he was putting it on hold until prosecutions had finished — niftily delaying it until after the election!

Now he did say back on May 25 that the report would be complete “in weeks, not months”, but like all tradies, Phil’s timelines are apt to blow out a bit! Of course, he did put the project on hold for a while in March. And you have to understand that Phil has to walk at least 1000 metres from his own office up to the PMO to talk to people.

3. Find any excuse to delay if you need to

Like any pro, Phil understands the value of getting good advice. That’s why, back in March, he put the Higgins inquiry on hold because, he said, the AFP commissioner had told him to pause it. Of course, if you’re gonna do that, best to make sure that the person who advised you knows they’re giving you advice. Phil made a bit of a blue when the AFP commissioner said he hadn’t given any such advice. But within a few hours all was sorted and Phil and the commish were on the same page! Just goes to show even the pros can stuff up sometimes — so don’t feel bad when you do too!

4. Baffle ’em with bullshit

Stuck trying to defend the indefensible like a rorted program, Big Phil has plenty of tricks in his toolkit. Shove in lots of tables to give the impression of rigour. Use different metrics to ones used by the Australian National Audit Office to prove your case, even if the metrics are meaningless. Create straw men and give them an absolute thrashing. All in the cause of suggesting that the quick desktop review you did over a few days should be believed over a year-long audit by a team of independent experts in administration.

5. Don’t let ego get in the way

Big Phil knows this better than anyone. Always be a professional. Always put your job ahead of how you look. Always be ready to take one for the team. If Phil had any regard for his public image, or the credibility of the office he holds, or of the long tradition of an apolitical Australian public service, he wouldn’t be mucking in to help the boss clean up the consequences of his spectacular misjudgments and rorting. But Phil’s not like that — he’ll happily sacrifice everything to making sure the boss comes up squeaky clean.

It’s a lesson we can all learn, mate. Happy renovating!