
If there’s something that’s always been clear about Mike Pezzullo, it’s that he is a man of many convictions but very little courage. He has spent the past few decades swanning about Canberra as a cross between Malcolm Tucker, Frank Grimes and a police dog — an operator and enforcer who has managed to shape the defining policies of successive governments simply by being present and persistent. He is the inevitable result of decades of hands-off politicking, left to thrive like black mould.
Pezzullo is the perfect personification of the overweening loserdom of contemporary Australian politics, where the unchecked and the unremarkable walk the barren wastes of the body politic like mighty Uruk-hai. Here is a man who managed to carve himself out a large and deadly fiefdom with little more than WhatsApp and wankery, and little to no public pushback or scrutiny from a press he swiftly moved to punish and a system unsure what to do with a man as ill-tempered as he is zealous and unelected.
Despite being described as an “empire-building Canberra mandarin with a Manichean view of the world”, Pezzullo has repeatedly shown he’s little more than a jumped-up powerbroker, allowed to help chart successive prime ministers through the paramilitarisation of our borders and our parahumane refugee policies. Malcolm Turnbull and the likes let Pezzullo, just another dagger in Canberra’s coterie of cutthroats, convince them to do what their remaining morsels of conscience would not, and as such outsourced the dark reasoning within their unsteady and illogical policymaking.
This class of shadow-politician is now vital to Canberra’s irradiated ecosystem. The blurring of public servant, consultant, frontbencher and lobbyist is a design feature, not a flaw — one which Pezzullo should get full credit for spearheading. Within this murkiness, the general directionlessness of the politics of the day is given an air of well-intended adventurism, as opposed to what it is: the sorry meanderings of the town drunk lost in a pea-soup fog.
Much like Kathryn Campbell was with robodebt, Pezzullo is functional as both point man and putz for governments in constant need of both. It is handy to keep someone around who is full-tilt and fall guy, an in-house Joe Pesci who can kneecap problem cases but be dissolved in a vat of acid as soon as his “Who should I kneecap next, boss?” texts leak. Someone like Dutton — who can’t afford to appear any more rabid than he is for fear of an Atticus Finch-type no-scoping him at a press conference — understands the innate value of a Pezzullo: a fellow egotist with the means and schemes to aid with a big heist, but with the bonus of disposability.
Anthony Albanese also, probably, understands the value of a man as of little value as Pezzullo. There is a sense that, quietly, his prime ministership is kept plodding along by many such figures, most of whom most likely lack Pezzullo’s fatal overdose of personality. These wishy-washy actors are vital in maintaining the wishy-washy governing that presides over us, and heaven knows the private messages the Pezzullos of our time are sending to their preferred branch stackers and privatisation peddlers.
Modern Australian politicians have demanded we see them as anything but that, wanting to appear instead as something between a casual babysitter and door-to-door salesperson. Is it any surprise that this brand of bellyacher is susceptible to the guileless charms of a bloke like Pezzullo? Which one of these dillweeds could manage him, let alone keep him in check?
By depoliticising the very idea of the politician, ours have given ample room for the politicised public servant to not only pop up but flourish in Canberra’s otherwise barren soil.
It is what it is. These are the men that 25 years of rot and stagnancy give you. The next iteration will be harder to spot, and harder still to cut out.
These are the men that 25 years of rot and stagnancy give you.
In Kathryn Campbell’s case it is also women sustained by rot and stagnancy.
And – in the main – neglected, overlooked and harassed by rotten, stagnant, arrogant men. One of whom still thinks he was put there by god.
Oh how they swooned, the Senior Executive Service, as Turnbull excised the execrable Abbott from his roost. Suddenly we were all agile in the Australian Public Service, though we couldn’t all quite agree what that meant. It didn’t matter anyway, because the next iteration a few months later told us all to shut up, sit still and do whatever the MInister asked of us.
“How far up again?” we all asked.
Great article Patrick. Your description of Pezzullo fits most of the RWNJs that pervade the public sphere…”a man of many convictions but very little courage”. The right wing political class of 2023 is like a private members club for losers that can’t cut it in the corporate world and see politics as some back door to the kind of influence and power they crave. I like the no scoping of Dutton also. If only.
… ”a man of many convictions….” If only he had one conviction that resulted from a determination of guilt.
“He is the inevitable result of decades of hands-off politicking..”
No it’s not. It is simply government-in-absentia. He doesn’t have any dirt on Labor politicians as far as I am aware. He is not J. Edgar Hoover. Remember the most important agency within Home Affairs is the Australian Border Force by virtue of its contact and conduct with millions of people. ABF have had 2 of its top leaders resign in Benny Hill-like disgrace – Roman Quadvleig and Michael Docwra. Neither Labor or Liberal wanted Pezzullo to go as to the perception of instability and lack of confidence and all the rest of it. Now Labor’s hand is forced and they really have no choice. I don’t know the talent pool with a law enforcement background. Pezzullo sounds like someone who should have stayed in Defence but that has even more potential to be stuffed up given the expensive purchases and national security implications involved.
What do you mean ‘hands-off politicking”? By the politicians letting Pezzullo run with it? They certainly don’t do that with other government agencies unless they are independent or quasi independent like the RBA, the Productivity Commission etc. I think there is more of a lack of expertise in Home Affairs issues by all politicians who are heavily into either economics or defence. That’s my interpretation.
‘Pezzullo is the perfect personification of the overweening loserdom of contemporary Australian politics’
No, it’s fossil fueled donors’ political, ‘libertarian’ or ‘segregation socioeconomic’ strategy, tactics and culture imported from the US GOP, by the LNP, IPA etc. over the past generation; suggests more corrupt nativist authoritarianism or eugenics?
“Is it any surprise that this brand of bellyacher is susceptible to the guileless charms of a bloke like Pezzullo? Which one of these dillweeds could manage him, let alone keep him in check?”
There are very few departments federally like Home Affairs. It has 5 portfolio agencies within it – the largest being Border Force but probably the most important being ASIO. Is it any wonder that the bloke has such a big head? It used to be larger when it had Immigration and Border Protection and it constantly liaises with Prime Minister and Cabinet over internet/cyber security, child exploitation issues and so on. It is too much for one person and should realistically be renamed and redrawn up as a go-to department. It is fundamentally based on a flawed and different British model by Abbot (Strike 1) and as a former employee a lot of the restructures are industrial in their basis.
As an observer of the f#&k up of Customs, moving regional functions which worked well with the states to Canberra, yes. So, as a Customs employee told me, the narcissists could micromanage everything.
Then there is AFP, you see it in the media making big drug seizures, Customs does all the work with overseas LEA, AFP does the media. More medals for Dutton.
And forget biosecurity, it costs business in the short term.