From
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...-36281,00.html



Terry McCrann

May 01, 2008 12:00am

GOODBYE Dr Phil. Hello Philip M. Burgess. The latter gave an interesting
speech to Allan Fels's Australia and New Zealand School of Government
yesterday.

Actually a lecture, in the formal, not colloquial, sense of the word.

For while it was certainly robust and substantive, there was none of the
hectoring, even bullying style we have come to learn and love, and
metaphorically duck from, in the 34 months Dr Phil has been Down Under.

That length of time is in itself interesting, as in referring to it,
Burgess - who is of course, group managing director, public policy and
communications at Telstra; more simply, chief head-kicker (of two in
particular) - said he arrived in July 2005 "expecting to stay only a month
or perhaps two at the outside".

Well, how wrong was that expectation - and the probably 'well-informed'
predictions of journalists back then, who echoed that time-frame.

Burgess doesn't look like going anywhere, any time soon.

Burgess's lecture yesterday projected his perspective of the different
cultures of business and government. Principally in generic terms, but with
very specific individual examples.

And by drawing on the differences as he saw it between the US and Australia.

It is impossible to cover the substance of what he said in a short comment.

Presumably if you are interested, you can find it on the Telstra website. As
I wrote above, it was robust: he made very strong statements.

But strong statements informed by a deep knowledge and understanding of both
political and business dynamics. Including in and of Australia.

At the same time, with finely nuanced distinctions about structures,
processes and influences.

What was especially impressive was that Burgess delivered an extremely rare,
even unique 'outsider's' view and interpretation of Australia. That actually
'knew' the subject.

The 'problem' with most - all? - such observations is that they are either
filtered through a foreign lens or based on significant ignorance of
Australia, or mostly both.

Thus his comments didn't only provide an idiosyncratic interpretation of the
interplay between business and government - and the bureaucracy - in
Australia.

But observations about the formulation of good public policy that were
fresher, more interesting, and more substantive than anything seen at Kevin
Rudd's 'ideas' summit.

Now it mostly wasn't 'party political'. That's to say it provided
penetrating insights into the drivers and dynamics of business and
government.

Even if you didn't have to necessarily agree with his observations and
interpretations.

This Philip did, though, reserve his closing comments for
"telecommunications regulation in the political culture of Australia'.

In the process sounding eerily like the Dr Phil who bashes the ACCC and its
chairman Graeme Samuel seemingly daily.

Fair enough, you'd have to say. It was entirely in context, an obvious
working example of his theme. Doesn't mean he's right, even in his own
terms.

That's why his closing comments were penetratingly apposite. That's why
"business leaders and others who speak for civil society" must stand up and
be counted.

That public policy was not just about government.

Nor, I might add, just about broadband.