Third, and perhaps most seriously, Cormann's paper is insufficiently perceptive about the need for some government functions to be performed independently of ministers and governments. It says that:

agencies with "regulatory and coercive powers... will need legislation to provide them with the necessary independence from government" even when these powers are to be exercised within "existing agencies";
"autonomy" (from governments) is justified for "policing and national security bodies" and organisations such as the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority or the Australian Security and Investments Commission; and
"special but limited circumstances may exist that demonstrate a particular need for an autonomous structure".
This is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go near far enough.

The primary reason for creating agencies separate from departments is the need for their functions to be performed independently from ministers.

It is inconceivable, for example, to have the ABC or the SBS operated from within the Department of Communications or for the Tax Office to be a part of the Treasury. It is in no one's interest for there to be the slightest perception that ministers may be directing the content of public broadcasters or involving themselves in decisions about the tax obligations of individuals.

That also goes for decisions about who is admitted into the country as a refugee, where there are equally strong reasons of principle as to why such decisions should not be politicised by having ministers make them. That is, the need for independence in government functions goes way beyond regulatory authorities, cops and spooks – indeed, these are relatively minor players in the scheme of things.

The incompleteness of Cormann's ruminations about the need for independence in some government functions is as nothing compared to the Abbott government's insensitivity to the need for appointments to independent statutory positions to be based on merit rather than political affiliation. Filling statutory positions with political fellow travellers undermines their independence always as a matter of perception and often in reality. This is exactly what has happened.

The rot set in early when Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop, whose awful behaviour in Senate estimates hearings did much to politicise them, was nominated by the government to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. In this role, her record speaks for itself. Since she's been in the job, she has suspended members on 285 occasions – only five have been from the government benches.

With this triumph under his belt, Abbott picked good old Maurice Newman, who helped found the conservative "think tank" the Centre for Independent Studies, as his business adviser. He also made Gerard Henderson, a person not well known for leftist views, a judge of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

Then Arts Minister George "Bookshelves" Brandis booted the journalist Barry Cassidy off the Old Parliament House advisory council because Cassidy said he wanted to maintain its "apolitical and non-partisan character". Brandis then shamelessly replaced Cassidy with Rod Kemp, a former Liberal minister and denizen of the Institute of Public Affairs, a noisy, conservative organisation that spends much of its time barracking for the Abbott government. To make his motives clear, "Bookshelves" then appointed the crusty monarchist, Quadrant contributor and ill-informed critic of Sir Frederick Wheeler, Sir David "Davo" Smith, to the council.

Others from the Institute of Public Affairs have been favoured. Tim Wilson got the nod for the Human Rights Commission and John Lloyd has been made Public Service Commissioner, where he will be expected to help preserve the "apolitical" nature of the public service and advance the cause of open, merit-based procedures he did not have to endure to become the commissioner.

More recently, "Bookshelves" got back into the act, appointing former NSW Liberal Peter Collins and Howard government minister Ian Campbell (who once boasted about causing a recession in Canberra) to the board of the Australian National Maritime Museum, former Liberal-National House of Representatives member Paul Neville to the board of the National Film and Sound Archive and former ACT Liberal senator Gary Humphries as a deputy president of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal – all these on the one day.

But let's conclude on a matter of unadulterated farce: the state of enterprise bargaining in Commonwealth employment.

At the first whiff of grapeshot over tiny pay increases for the Australian Defence Force, the government simply withdrew part of its justification for them: the "rationalisation" (read reduction) of certain conditions of employment, an unscrupulous concession that was rubber-stamped by a supine Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal.

Meanwhile, staff in Eric Abetz's Employment Department voted by a large margin to refuse a pay offer considerably lower than that given to the ADF. It was based significantly on reductions in employment conditions that had nothing to do with productivity, improvements in which are supposed to fund new agreements. That is, Abetz is not abiding by his own policies. Ministerial hypocrisy rarely gets worse.

Then Abetz wrote to The Canberra Times, saying the rate of increase in public service wages has been exceeding the rate of price increases and private sector wage increases. These considerations are irrelevant to his policy, which links improvements in remuneration to internal productivity. Thus, if an agency could improve productivity by 20 per cent, Abetz's policy would allow an equivalent pay increase regardless of what is going on the wider labour market.

How stupid is that?

Finally, in his letter to the Times, Abetz defines productivity gains as "demonstrable, permanent improvements in efficiency, effectiveness and/or output of employees, based on improvements in work practices or conditions". How many times does this need to be said: this is not what productivity means. Productivity is improved by increasing units of output per hour worked. Abetz doesn't seem to understand that employees could increase their output or become more efficient but their productivity may go down. Abetz is wholly out of his depth as minister for the public service. He should be given a job he can do or he'll never get an Abbotthood.

Yes, well - we all know that appointments to boards etc of statutory bodies etc are always laden with mates, cronies and fellow travelers... both parties do it shamelessly.

All governments tend to roll out a few jobs for the boys and girls but it's hard to remember a government that has been more relentlessly partisan than Abbott's. The unavoidable impression of this wholesale stacking of statutory positions is that the government is trying to bend authorities to its will.

Rudd actually appointed some Libs to this type of govt body, ex–Defence Minister Hill for example.