Creamy, you are mostly right, the politicians can be snowed almost all of the time by public servants, an d this strategy has served DOT, CASA and ATSB well over the decades.
However there is one group that those gentlemen rightly fear as I have said: the good,folk at PM&C. They are public servants too, so the bull**** spinning doesn't work on them, they are whip smart and know exactly how to go for the jugular of fat and happy public servants who think they have it made.
If these folk get sicced on DOT, CASA and ATSB, then watch the fun, they don't stand a chance. It would be a foolish bureaucrat who calculated that PM&C are too busy to notice them.
The way they would do it is probably a masterful series of amendments to the appropriate legislation that would cut the feet out from under the targets and no one would be the wiser except for you lot.