Why did Mark Latham nickname Air Marshal Stoush "Porter"?
I have been holding the fort while Barney (my boss, Air Marshal Barney Stoush, the VCDF) has been off visiting our contingent in Mesopotamia and surrounding lands.
We are not permitted to discuss the latter lest their crucial assistance to the allied cause results in diplomatic embarrassment or worse. Suffice to say they all appear to have standards of living and day-to-day security far higher than in the reputed cradle of civilisation.
Before his departure, Barney, ever the optimist, gave me the task of making a preliminary examination as to how we might improve the quality of information the ADF provides during Senate Estimates hearings.
As a responsible and apolitical senior ADF officer, not a departmental functionary, Barney professes great loyalty to the concept of legislative oversight of the executive.
Its the practise of it that sometimes leaves him cold. Before the last estimates session, as I walked him through his briefing pack, he confided that perhaps all sides of the table needed to try restoring a semblance of constitutional decorum to the proceedings.
Now the ruling regime controls the Senate, at least today and until the Queensland Nationals get restive again, Barney believes an opportunity exists to tinker a bit to try and improve the tone of such hearings.
Improve for whom, I thought; remembering the times I have been used as a crutch by politically shell-shocked senior officers and bureaucrats, as they staggered from their seats at high table to the adjoining anteroom for a restorative caffeine infusion.
Defence’s appearances at estimates hearings are generally led by the Minister and choreographed, backstage, onstage and front-of-house, by a senior official with the somewhat Orwellian title ‘Head Co-ordination and Public Affairs’.
Now in one of those notable ironies that bolster the case for the theory of Intelligent Design, and indeed for the suspicion that the designer has a considerable sense of humour, this particular individual is of a loquacious bent.
He presides, however, over the public affairs function whose very purpose, manner and effect belie the title and role of those involved. This particular irony is not lost on the odd handful of journalists who regularly cover defence matters, particularly among the one or two who still bother to seek facts from the department when writing an article.
Barney is also of the firm belief that the Minister being a senator adds a certain frisson to estimates hearings. It certainly personalises and sharpens the inquisitorial edge of the Opposition.
Watching from the fourth rank of chairs, as I get to do, it reminds me of the comforting way that a mother hen shepherds her chicks as the foxes circle the chookhouse.
Luckily Barney is away for some time. This greatly helped in thinking up enough excuses why the task is well above my pay scale.
While majors in units may be vested with huge responsibilities, a mere major at Russell Offices is generally treated as if they had finished university only last month, especially by the graduate entrants into the Public Service who did but who are now acting EL1s in policy-making positions (or even substantive ones in International Policy Division).
My conscience clear I turned instead to the task of weeding Barney’s appointments diary of the more extraneous clutter. At least now the VCDF has lost most of his responsibilities for capability development, there are far fewer courtesy calls by gun runner teams boasting the obligatory recently-retired two-star.
This satisfying task was interrupted by a telephone call from one of the numerous mid-level public affairs functionaries.
‘Why’ she demanded, ‘is the VCDF nicknamed Porter in The Latham Diaries?’
Not having had the time to join the long conga line at my local bookshop on Saturday morning I had not yet been able to peruse a copy. I had also not noticed any mention of my boss in the excerpts considered worthy of serialisation in the newspapers.
Probably because Barney is not considered important enough to be showered with copious bile. I was stumped. Explaining that the VCDF was away I advised the PA guru that I would get back to her.
True to my immediate suspicion, the nearest copy of the book I could get to quickly was the strategic-guidance copy held by the Chief-of-Staff to the CDF.
Barging to the front of the normal queue of supplicants (being staff officer to the VCDF does have some privileges) I begged him for a quick look.
Among the passing parade in the CDF’s anteroom I sat down, scanned the well-thumbed index for ‘Stoush’ and quickly turned to the single entry listed.
Alas, the mention of Barney and DEPSEC Intelligence and Security briefing the then Opposition Leader was somewhat sparse, in keeping with the succinct nature of the briefing. Barney’s epithet was explained ambiguously ? hence the confusion in public affairs.
I rang her back. ‘Perhaps’, I tentatively ventured, ‘it is an unimaginative reference to his gold-braided, dark-blue uniform’.
She seemed satisfied with the guess.
Later it struck me that it might have been a bit more cryptic, perhaps a play on Barney’s somewhat portly physique or, more darkly, the author’s apparent taste when trying to digest defence complexities.