You ask a pretty tough question. Those of us who work in the public service do so because we're motivated by public service. Right? It's not because we're afraid of being criticized. It's not because we don't look forward to moments such as this, when we get senior positions, to meet face to face with parliamentarians. Not at all.
I do worry that there is sometimes a fear of failure, a fear of taking risk and so on. But what I say to my staff is, “Look, you're not perfect. No one is perfect. You will make mistakes from time to time. The system is tolerant of those mistakes that are made from time to time. You learn from the mistakes and you move on.” And as we were discussing with the chair, there's probably one area that could have been handled a little bit better. Next time it will be handled better.
We are not dealing with incompetent people here. In fact, I would bristle at any suggestion that my people are incompetent. They're far from incompetent. They are very competent people. But yes, sometimes things don't go quite as well as we all hoped. We fix it, get it behind us, and go forward.