It can be that the best advice is what not to do, and a high-powered Services Australia advisory committee received just that at a meeting earlier this year, courtesy of New York City's mayor-cum-meme Eric Adams. Tasked with advising Government Services Minister Katy Gallagher with the best digital way forward for government service delivery, the independent board included some high flyers in the government services world, including former NSW customer service minister Victor Dominello, leading ethical thinker Dr Simon Longstaff and government tech guru Professor Johanna Weaver. Ensconced within the Canberra Design Hub in the Doris Blackburn Building for a day of big thinking in February, the board was enlightened by a presentation from Services Australia about government uses of AI. The slide deck, released after a freedom of information request, includes helpful examples from our closest international friends, including the UK, the United States, the EU, and "Asia". But, it was an example of what not to do from the Big Apple that lit up the FOI disclosure log. An entire slide is dedicated to the MyCity Chatbot Beta, which used AI to answer the tricky questions of Manhattan entrepreneurs, until ... it didn't. Running on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, the chatbot launched in October 2023 with the disclaimer that answers could be "incorrect, harmful or biased" and, critically, that they were not legal advice. In April 2024, the chatbot was slammed for giving out advice that was not only wrong, but encouraged business owners to violate the law, including: A Microsoft spokesperson issued a mea culpa, saying the tech behemoth was working "to improve the service and ensure the outputs are accurate and grounded on the city's official documentation". But Mr Adams went on the offensive, saying, and Services Australia quotes: "Anyone that knows technology knows this is how it's done... Only those who are fearful sit down and say, 'Oh, it is not working the way we want, now we have to run away from it all together'. I don't live that way." This is the same Mr Adams who faced charges of bribery after being allegedly showered with free flights, hotel stays and gifts by the Turkish government and Turkish Airlines. Mr Adams denied the allegations and the case was dropped in April 2025, but the former Democrat is now running as an independent in this year's mayoral election. Meanwhile, Mr Adams has become somewhat of a meme on social media, particularly thanks to his habit of referring to New York City as the [insert city name] of America, when speaking to the many diverse nationalities that make up his constituency. It's a shame he is yet to say "New York City is the Canberra of America", but perhaps Services Australia can get him out on a speaking tour after the November 4 election. Amid the fallout from the departure of secretary and deputy secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services Rob Stefanic and Cate Saunders, it emerged that Ms Saunders had a custom-built desk made for her by DPS carpenters. In February, acting secretary Jaala Hinchcliffe revealed during Senate estimates that the nearly $20,000 desk was as part of a $56,000 fit-out for Ms Saunders' office. This news shocked Liberal senator Jane Hume, who has pursued the matter as part of the Dutton opposition's tactic of singling out government waste, despite the works being approved and carried out during the Morrison government. Since Ms Saunders' departure, the desk has been out of sight, as part of the department's $100,000 spend over two years on offsite furniture storage. But lest one is inclined to think this was all a waste of taxpayer's money, DPS has told the Senate via a question on notice that tradies within the department upskilled across a number of areas, including custom design and joinery, custom matching of veneer overlays, developing a bespoke solution to allow cables to be concealed within the legs of the desk and fabricating custom metal brackets for the sit-stand desk. These skills will come in handy for those parliamentarians who are also after a sit-stand desk, with a prototype costing $35,000 to fabricate. While we're on the topic of finding savings within the government, the re-elected Albanese government has found one way to make a massive saving. With relatively minor Machinery of Government changes in the PM's second ministry, the usual hundreds of thousands of dollars departments fork out on updating letterheads and changing plaques outside buildings has been whittled down. After the 2022 result, in which a number of government changes occurred, including the reconstitution of the Department of Climate Change, the government spent $620,000 on external support for the changes, according to contracts published on AusTender. This time, only one consultant has been tapped to assist with the transition of disability services from Social Services to Health for a paltry $52,888. A spokesperson for the department said this was the only outside support needed to complete the changes. "Costs are expected to be delivered within existing resources." But with one contract from 2022 published a year late, there could still be a few receipts that have yet to be uploaded into the public contract management system. Last week, Greens senator and frequent critic of the national anti-corruption body, David Shoebridge, blasted the Anti-Corruption Commissioner for playing "military dress-up" while reviewing serious cases of corruption that could involve Defence personnel. The broadside followed responses to Senator Shoebridge's questions in Senate estimates which revealed that Commissioner Paul Brereton attended numerous functions in his position as a Major General of the Army Reserve and personally asked the Chief of Army to let him retain the honorary title after the normal retirement age. This was followed up with a sideswipe from the minister who oversaw the creation of the NACC, former Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, who castigated the body for the time it took to settle the Brittany Higgins payout matter, ultimately finding no evidence of corruption. With these kinds of character assessments from those who would be inclined to support such an anti-corruption body, the NACC needs a few friends, and this week announced it had found 7000 of them on Linkedin. Known as the social media platforms where grifters and the ambiguously employed overstate their achievements, telling everyone about your Linkedin followers in 2025 is like revealing you had a food blog in 2015 - no one really cares and you kind of look a bit weird for doing it. No matter, this made it into the Commission's regular update, which has shifted from a weekly publishing schedule to monthly, in a sure sign the somewhat opaque updates were critical reading for those interested in government accountability.