Noel Tanzer was born on 16 November 1931. Tanzer began his career in the
Commonwealth Public Service in 1949, serving for 17 years in Brisbane. In 1980 and 1981 he was serving as a senior assistant commissioner in the management systems and efficiency division of the Public Service Board. Tanzer was appointed
Secretary of the
Department of Veterans' Affairs in 1986. Immediately prior to his Veterans' Affairs appointment, he had been a Deputy Secretary in the
Department of Social Security. He moved to the
Department of Administrative Services in 1989. His task was to have the department operate in accordance with commercial principles. He also aimed to improve departmental services to customers. He restructured 17 separate departmental units into four programs, and offered redundancy packages to downsize the department, The new structure Tanzer established saw much of the department run on commercial lines and funded on a trust-account basis. Tanzer retired from the public service in 1993, his final appointment was as Secretary of the
Department of the Arts and Administrative Services. As head of the Department, he was responsible for handling more than $2 billion in revenue. In 1994, Tanzer was appointed as a consultant to the law firm
Mallesons Stephen Jaques. ==Awards==