Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Ken Henry to head PM&C?

That's the apparent hot tip from Alan Koher in Business Spectator.

UPDATE: KEVIN RUDD APPEARED TO RULE THIS OUT IN HIS JUST-CONCLUDED PRESS CONFERENCE, TUESDAY 4.00PM

Kohler wrote:
"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."


Henry would be formidable.

Here's what he told his
troops in the lead-up to the election:

"Divisions will be under pressure to respond to the growing number of policy proposals leading up to the calling of an election and once the election is called. At this time, there is a greater than usual risk of the development of policy proposals that are, frankly, bad."