Alan Kohler
Henry the first choice
Treasury Secretary Ken Henry is firming as a near certainty in the race to replace the retiring Peter Shergold as head of Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, effectively the chief of the Australian public service.
The head of the Victorian Premier’s Department, Terry Moran, has been attracting some speculative money with the bookies, but it’s understood Ken Henry is clear favourite now that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Glyn Davis, has been scratched.
The two problems with the Treasury Secretary are that he might regard a move from Treasury to PM & C as a demotion – taking him, as it does, from a policy job to a more administrative one - and that he would be hard to replace in the nation’s most important economic policy role.
But he is clearly the next most senior person in the public service and the best replacement for Shergold. If the PM, Kevin Rudd, decided he needed him there, he would undoubtedly be made an offer he can’t refuse.
As for Treasury, the former clear number two to Henry, Martin Parkinson, has just been moved to head up Senator Penny Wong’s new Department of Climate Change and Water, which would seem to rule him out.
However, Canberra insiders suggest that Treasury is so much more important than Climate Change, and Parkinson is so obviously the best candidate, that he might be brought back to Treasury anyhow.
An alternative would be former Treasury man, and now head of the Department of Finance, Ian Watt.
Appointing Ken Henry as head of PM & C would place the economy squarely at the centre of the Rudd Government’s agenda and together with the proposed 1000-member summit to be organised by Glyn Davis would set the new Government on an interesting and unexpected course indeed.
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