By Alison McMeekin

Long-time public servant Dennis Richardson started as Secretary of the Department of Defence on October 18. He took time out of his busy schedule to speak to Defence about his expectations.

DENNIS Richardson was approaching the end of his third year as Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) when he was asked to consider a new job.

Challenge and curiosity were the dominant factors in his decision to move to Defence.

"I've never worked in an organisation of this size, so the challenge of heading up a Department like this is exciting," Dennis says.

"I have spent a long time working with Defence - but I've never worked in Defence."

The new Secretary says it isn't a role he accepted lightly.

"I'm here because I've taken a conscious decision that this is where I want to be at this time. I don't believe this is a job you could enter into reluctantly or against your will. That would be foolish."

Dennis is the fourth person in the Department's top job since 2009, following Nick Warner, Ian Watt and Duncan Lewis. But he downplays reading too much into that.

"Duncan Lewis has been appointed Ambassador to Belgium, the European Union and NATO - that's a very senior diplomatic position, and one that will be central as we continue transition in Afghanistan," he says.

"Ian Watt went off to head up the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, so I expect there was no sense of dissatisfaction with the job he was doing here.

"I think it's been a coincidence of circumstances that Defence has seen four Secretaries here in such a short time. I think you can make too much of it."

Dennis agreed to an interview for this article at the end of his first week in the job. He was candid about his expectations and revealed his immediate priorities were "fairly simple".

"One - to get to know the senior leadership team," he says. "Second - to meet wider groups of people in the Department to the extent you can sensibly do so."

Beyond that, Dennis says he hasn't come to Defence with a definitive to-do list.

"I don't believe that a person should arrive in this job to grandly proclaim a vision statement within a week of starting up. I think the work priorities are the priorities that are already there.

"The Pathway to Change program that General David Hurley and Duncan Lewis announced earlier this year - I'm committed to that.

"So a new Secretary doesn't bring with him or her some new grand agenda that starts from day one. A big percentage of what you do from day one is the continuity of the work you inherit from your predecessor.

"I have an enormous amount of respect for my predecessors and I very much take the view that, whenever you take up any job, you are doing it on the shoulders of those who've come before. I've started up in a Department that is working for the same Government, for the same Minister, and I'm working in partnership with the same Chief of the Defence Force Duncan Lewis worked with. So I would like to think that, by definition, there are going to be more points of continuity than of discontinuity."

What will be different, Dennis explains, is what flows from his own personality and work style. In a nutshell, and perhaps unusually, Dennis doesn't mind a good argument - "provided it is about the issues in front of you".

"You should be able to have a robust discussion about issues in front of you on which intelligent and reasonable people can disagree, but those disagreements shouldn't be personalised," he says.

In terms of management style, he says he would like to think he is demanding.

"Equally, I would like to think that however difficult people might find me from time to time, that I am a fair person," he says, adding, "I think that is quite important."

Dennis has joined Defence at a time when Australia's involvement in Afghanistan and Defence's share of the Federal Budget are topical and divisive issues. He says it is his intent to fulfil his five-year posting at Defence, which means he will head the Department as Australia withdraws from Afghanistan.

While he says that will be a momentous occasion, he predicts the challenges won't end there.

"The thing is if you slice and dice any number of ways over the last 15 years, people who have been in this job, and people who have been in the CDF's job, have faced big challenges," he says.

"Since East Timor in 1999 there's been a rolling set of challenges, whether it be 9/11 and what flowed from that, whether it be Afghanistan, Iraq, Solomon Islands, East Timor - the operational tempo for the ADF has been fairly intense and, of course, the support the Department provides the ADF has been under intensified pressure."

Another significant issue facing Defence, according to Dennis, is the Department's budget.

"It's a big issue," he says. "I suppose the starting point is that in the broadest possible terms it's in all of our interests as Australians for the Federal Budget to be brought back into surplus. I mean the economic wellbeing of the country underpins what Government can or can't do - that's the first point.

"Second point is that, self-evidently, all parts of Government have to make contributions to the achievement of a budget surplus.

"The next point to make is that clearly the cutbacks we have faced in Defence do present real challenges. It's not just the odd marginal dollar that's been affected - it's big dollars we're talking about. And even in an organisation of this size, that does bring with it its own pressures."

Ultimately, Dennis says the budget allocation was a decision of our elected representatives.

"The decision is for our elected representatives and as a professional public servant my job is then to get on with the job once that decision is taken, regardless of what my advice might have been beforehand," he says.

Dennis has rubbed shoulders with some of the world's most powerful people during his years as a public servant. On the shelves in his office are photos of him with two US Presidents and the former head of the CIA, now US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. There's also a framed tribute to all of the ADF personnel who have died in Afghanistan.

He also has a formidable background in both the national and international security sectors, having been posted to Nairobi, Port Moresby, Jakarta and Washington in DFAT, serving as Principal Adviser to former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, as well as working in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Department of Immigration, and in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation as Director-General from 1996 to 2005.

In a career that began in 1969, he has seen both change and continuity.

"I tell young people entering the organisation that many of the international issues they see now will continue to be issues for them when they reach my age."

Dennis, who has lived in Canberra on and off since 1969, is also a keen sports fan and is a director on the board of the Canberra Raiders. He also supports the Brumbies and, in the AFL, the Melbourne Demons, but says his first love is rugby league.

He also loves to travel and while Ambassador to the US, he and his wife Betty visited all 50 states, driving through 48 of them. One highlight he mentions was spending a weekend on the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman - which holds 5000 people - when it was training for an operational deployment.

Asked if he believes his time at Defence might hold similarly impressive highlights, Dennis chuckles.

"The great highlights in Defence will unquestionably be those which I don't see coming," he says.

"I think that has been the case for successive Secretaries of Defence for decades."