The career service ... provide[s] continuity and stability of administration. Political crises may occur in rapid succession, but the security of tenure enjoyed by public servants ensures that essential services continue to be performed. Public servants become the repository of considerable expertise, not merely because of continuity, but also because their appointment and promotion by merit ensures a relatively high level of competence ... Overall, the system is more formally rational; more certain and predictable than any other, and possibly more efficient as well. And although the career service does not guarantee the absence of corruption, it does place a premium on professional behaviour.

The independent secure public servant, providing impartial advice, can act as a counterweight to balance the more passionate enthusiasm of political masters, whose decisions are, understandably, alleged to be based solely on short-term political gains. A career service is loyal and responsible to the democratically elected government of the day in accordance with the doctrine of the Westminster system.

The career service which existed in ... Australia during the mid-twentieth century was remarkable not only for its purity, but also the extent of its coverage of public service positions. Future generations may look back on this period if not as a golden age, then as an aberration in administrative development.

If changes to the career service do not function as intended, then all that will have happened is that one insulated self-perpetuating elite will have been exchanged for another.