Anthony Albanese’s proposed integrity commission could provide the legacy for his government for decades to come.
But Professor Peter Coaldrake’s report on political accountability in Queensland, released last week, should be bedside reading for a prime minister who wants to do politics differently.
The report offers 14 headline recommendations, but above all it shows that the tone is set from the top, and that political shenanigans are the byproduct of not placing sufficient value on integrity.
Queensland should have learnt this lesson three decades ago with former Australian judge Tony Fitzgerald’s scathing report into how the state worked — but time can dull clarity, and culture can become mired in political ambition.
Coaldrake found public servants paid a high price for providing frank and fearless advice, and that a culture had developed that allowed bullying and was dominated by short-term political thinking.
That’s a message that should travel outside Queensland. Without buy-in from politicians, and a belief that taxpayers deserve to know how decisions are made, any integrity commission will be hampered from the day it opens its doors.
What comes through in Coaldrake’s analysis is that culture and integrity are interconnected, and those institutions receiving public money to encourage accountability and transparency need to work together, not run up against each other.
His is an integrity framework, not just a series of siloed organisations responsible for a healthy accountable democracy. And at the heart of that are two cohorts of people: our politicians and the nation’s citizens.
The message for politicians is simple: try harder. Stop using departments to advance political messages. Stop using lobbyists as brokers. Stop ministerial staff from bullying those whose message might challenge their own. Protect whistleblowers properly. Be accountable.
None of that is unique to Queensland, and the recommendations he suggests could work wonders elsewhere. Making cabinet decisions (and submissions) public within 30 business days. Providing greater independence for bodies like the state auditor-general. Stopping lobbyists working on party election campaigns.
The Palaszczuk government, which has seen its popularity drop with a queue of integrity complaints, has responded quickly by saying all the right things. Late yesterday, the government moved to ban three lobbyists who had worked on her latest campaign from working with her government for the rest of the term. It has also signalled to implement all 14 recommendations, including making cabinet decisions public.
But the point of Coaldrake’s report is that laws, institutions and rules are important — but it’s the spirit with which they are embraced that makes all the difference.
The commitment is hollow if cabinet decisions are now made before reaching the cabinet room. Or if lobbyists, who identify as Labor operatives, are allowed to work with the government in the next term. Or if the government doesn’t take responsibility for the bullying and intimidation that have marked some of its dealings.
That’s the ethereal stuff. But it’s the stuff that determines whether the framework that holds an integrity commission as its altar will work.
It should be surprising that three decades after the states — first one, then the others — decided they needed an integrity body with strong legal powers, the federal government is still thinking about it. Or maybe it’s not surprising.
Over that time, there have been plenty of contentious national political issues that could have borne the treatment meted out by Queensland’s, NSW’s or Western Australia’s integrity bodies.
The overpayment for land bought for the new Sydney Airport could do with some close public scrutiny. So could the monotonous blurring between what passes for government information and advertising.
Federal Labor made the establishment of an integrity commission a core promise, and its final form can’t be less substantial than the bodies existing in the states, nor less substantial than it has publicly demanded.
Coaldrake repeatedly refers to tone from the top in writing about the issues of integrity in Queensland. In our democracy, that means the right tone from politicians whom Coaldrake doesn’t let off the hook, reminding us that responsibility for accountability ultimately sits with ministers.
Federal Labor should take careful note. Anything less than implied in its promise is definitely the wrong tone from the top.
