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The country's most powerful public servant says Australians are schizophrenic about how much they want the government to intervene in their lives.
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Michael Thawley said that, on the one hand, half of Australian families paid no net tax but, on the other hand, 60 per cent of taxes were spent on welfare, education, health and other types of assistance. 
"What do we really want?" Mr Thawley asked a gathering of public servants in Canberra on Thursday, adding the answers to that question should be part of the tax reform debate.
Mr Thawley was speaking at the Institute of Public Administration Australia's ACT division annual conference.
He said that, in a politically volatile time, when prime ministers had been replaced regularly, the public service was a font of stability and continuity, and a repository of knowledge.
"Most of us joined the public service not because we wanted a job forever but because we had ideas about what we wanted our country to be," he said.
"The government doesn't want a supine public service.
"It's no good us shrugging our shoulders if the government doesn't take our ideas for reform. Ask 'why did we fail?'. Did we explain ourselves well enough?"
Mr Thawley also said his department would not advertise jobs using pay classifications. Instead, it would advertise the job that needed to be done and choose people based on capability.
He said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull "doesn't care" if he is advised on a particular issue by a senior executive or an APS level 6 officer.
Mr Thawley said responsibility needed to be pushed down to the lowest possible levels of the bureaucracy.
He and other department secretaries met with Mr Turnbull on Wednesday, and the Prime Minister said he wanted the bureaucracy to be nimble and agile.
Mr Thawley, Australia's most senior public servant, said on his arrival at PM&C almost a year ago that he found he had to swipe his pass to get into different areas of the department's building in Canberra.
PM&C has now "opened all the doors" to reduce the need to do this, apart from at a few secure locations, and Mr Thawley said this should act as a metaphor for the public service.