Folks outside ‘the bubble’ will have understandable difficulty in understanding that a mere PSM speaks volumes of the government’s assessment of the value of Mr Carmody’s contribution. Public servants were awarded PSMs for not finding MH370, because of their untiring efforts in organising other people to look for it, unsuccessfully, at the taxpayer’s expense.
It’s the public service equivalent of a Tenderfoot Badge in Scouts.
Mr Carmody’s primary ‘value’ to the government was his shameless claim, or at least his willingness not to refute the assertion, that he ‘completed’ the aviation regulatory reform program.
Although the regulatory reform program has effectively been abandoned while leaving a self-licking ice cream of impenetrable complexity in its wake, governments can now say it’s been ‘completed’.