Under the Westminster system (UK, Australia, ...), the public service is supposed to be apolitical, 'frank and fearless’ and non-partisan. "Government run" isn't supposed to be equated with biased and partisan. The public service is there to serve the people rather than members of parliament.
Sadly, this ideal of the Westminster system has been under attack for the last decade or two. Secrecy has been broadly imposed on the public service and non-partisan department heads are sacked and replaced with political lackeys. The ideal isn't dead though. There are people in the public service who are trying to keep it non-partisan, and those efforts should be supported rather than it all being written off as a hopeless case.
The public service are un-elected, largely unaccountable, very expensive and wield a tremendous amount of power.
Westminster type systems are arguably hybrid oligarchies. Australia is a good example - look how it continues to function in largely the same way, on largely the same trajectory, despite having 5 prime ministers in the last 10 years.
What do you mean? The PM is a function of what the governing party wants, and in 10 years we've mostly only had a single party in Federal government. But either way, this isn't really true of state governments which have differed quite a lot over the past few years.
Sadly, this ideal of the Westminster system has been under attack for the last decade or two. Secrecy has been broadly imposed on the public service and non-partisan department heads are sacked and replaced with political lackeys. The ideal isn't dead though. There are people in the public service who are trying to keep it non-partisan, and those efforts should be supported rather than it all being written off as a hopeless case.
[1] https://sef.psc.nsw.gov.au/nsw-government-context/the-westmi...