ACT Liberal Senate candidate Nick Tyrrell has been doing his darndest to annoy Finance and Public Service Minister and ACT Labor Senator Katy Gallagher.
Tyrrell's relentless social media posting took a colourful turn last week when he mocked Senator Gallagher's Pantone-themed Colours of Canberra series (think "Senate chamber red", "Public service dark slate grey" and "free TAFE scrubs baby blue.")
The former Canberra Liberals president quickly generated a satirical version for his own channels, with hues of "Gas price green" highlighting ACT petrol prices, along with "broke beige" and "eggshell empty," showcasing Civic's graffitied and vacant shops.
Now the wannabe senator, who hopes to return the Liberal Party to federal relevance by winning back the seat lost when independent David Pocock blasted former senator Zed Seselja from the Senate in 2022, is bringing the minister's former parliamentary foe back to Canberra.
Linda Reynolds, the former Western Australian Liberal senator and onetime Defence minister, will be the guest of honour at an event supporting Tyrrell's Senate campaign on October 11.
Hosted by opposition health spokesperson (Tyrrell's part-time boss) Anne Ruston, the evening will include a raffle of "some very special items": art by the late cartoonist Bill Leak, whose polarising work for The Australian included a series on Reynolds' bitter feud with Senator Gallagher and colleagues Penny Wong and Kristina Keneally (then a NSW Labor senator).
The stoush centres on Reynolds' claim that the trio - dubbed "the mean girls" by the late Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching - had subjected her to a "political hit job," a theme covered extensively in News Corp's tabloid and broadsheet newspapers.
Reynolds' complaint related to Labor's political attacks over her handling of allegations (later found substantially true by a civil court) made by her one of her former staffers (Brittany Higgins) that another (Bruce Lehrmann) had raped her in the then minister's parliamentary office.
The former senator told Public Eye she was backing Tyrrell for his "independence of mind, strong character, honesty and compassion".
"ACT senators must represent the best of the national capital, not the worst of Australian politics," Reynolds said.
Tyrrell had demonstrated qualities befitting a senator in how he "listens, exercises judgment, disagrees with others and treats people ... which is why I am delighted to support him," she gushed.
Reynolds famously took issue with the Commonwealth's $2.4 million payout to Higgins and referred former Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus's handling of her compensation claim to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (which last year found there had been "no inappropriate intervention in the process by or on behalf of any minister.")
AG's has just revealed in an update tabled to the parliament that it paid Reynolds $54,430 under a scheme that cover legal costs for public officials engaging with or appearing before the NACC, in 2024-25.
The sum is a drop in the ocean of Reynolds' legal fees, with the senator having remortgaged her Perth home to pay lawyers.
It's understood her various legal battles have so far cost $3.5 million.
Reynolds singled out her lawyers for praise in her valedictory speech last year, thanking them for having "supported me through a defamation case, a criminal trial, a judicial inquiry into the criminal trial, a civil workplace claim, multiple defamation claims and two NACC referrals".
"To Ashley Tsacalos and his team at Clayton Utz ... Your compassion, your professionalism and your sheer endurance have kept me going," she said.
Worth their weight in gold.
The Auditor-General's office sure is taking its time to probe the Department of Veterans' Affairs' management of veterans' compensation claims.
Launched in August 2025, the audit was to examine whether DVA had "effectively managed the backlog" - a key Albanese government election promise - and "administered the claims system to improve efficiency and veterans' experience".
The audit has also been looking at the agency's performance monitoring and reporting.
Public Eye eagerly awaits its findings as veterans, the Coalition and independent ACT Senator David Pocock complain of ongoing delays - and question why the agency changed how it reports claims processing times.
DVA says this is to make the data "easier to read, compare and track over time," but suspicions remain.
Initially slated for May, the audit report's tabling has been pushed back no fewer than four times by the Australian National Audit Office, which now aims to have it out by December.
"We're unable to provide any information about the changes in timeframes for the finalisation and reporting of this audit," the ANAO told Public Eye when asked to explain.
As results of the 2026 APS Employee Census land on secretaries' desks, whispers abound.
Which agency's staff are the most disgruntled about change management amid redundancy rounds, GovAI and the hacking of government websites by rouge agents?
Who has achieved the biggest turnaround in sentiment, or made the best effort to stamp out corruption?
Dear reader, you will have to wait to find out as most agencies are holding onto the information for dear life, ahead of their collated release by the Australian Public Service Commission in November.
This columnist invited secretaries across the APS to follow in the footsteps of Home Affairs' Stephanie Foster, who spoke exclusively with The Canberra Times about the mega-agency's census results for the second year in a row.
Opting to get on the front foot about this year's less-glossy staff feedback, Ms Foster set aside 40 minutes in her frantic schedule to sit down for an interview.
Sadly, her colleagues on the Secretaries Board have been less forthcoming.
Rejections have been received from agency heads including Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary Steven Kennedy, Treasury Secretary Jenny Wilkinson, Health's Blair Comley, DFAT's Jan Adams, Education's Tony Cook and Ag's Victoria Anderson, in varying tones of "polite decline" and "unable to accommodate."
At the time of publication, RSVPs were pending for Infrastructure Secretary and punk rock aficionado Jim Betts and Services Australia chief executive David Hazlehurst, among others.
Fingers crossed.
