The widespread voter scepticism about integrity standards in federal politics has been highlighted by debate over the legislation intended to eliminate those suspicions.
One contentious element of that legislation has fed a sentiment that politician regulators are not as tough on themselves as they are on ordinary punters.
At issue is the proposed National Anti-Corruption Commission’s limitation on public hearings, a provision to prevent what the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, calls “show trials”.
The government and opposition are in snug agreement that commission hearings will be closed unless there are undefined “exceptional circumstances’’ which would allow public viewing.
This unity ticket ensures the Nacc legislation will pass by the end of the year, with the government hoping the commission will be in operation by mid-2023.
But the bill’s passage might not halt agitation for a reversal of the rule on open hearings, to instead require exceptional circumstances for them to be closed. In part this agitation is accompanied by an expectation that MPs might be prominent anti-corruption targets.
“I would hate to think that the two major parties have got together to protect themselves,” the independent MP Zoe Daniel told ABC radio on Wednesday.
The notion that politicians of all shades look after themselves better than they do the public will be difficult to counter. The damaging view is that some politicians are Manning Clark’s “punishers and straighteners” when dealing with political influence, and caring and compassionate when it comes to themselves.
There are recent examples that raise questions in this regard.
Taxpayers funded $650,000 in compensation for a former Liberal staffer who complained of mistreatment in the workplace, without the two ministers alleged to be involved suffering in any substantial and public way. Both ministers have denied wrongdoing.
One of those ministers, Alan Tudge, was previously prominent in harassing victims of what would turn out to be illegal robodebt prosecutions for alleged welfare overpayments of a few hundred dollars — “We’ll find you, we’ll track you down” — in a broader scandal which itself is now subject of a royal commission.
Concerns over public hearings might be exaggerated. In fact the legislation, which will be scrutinised by a before a final vote, leaves it up to the commissioners, not the politicians, to decide what will be open to the public and what will be closed. And they will independently select what to inquire into.
There is no proposed legislated capacity for a politician to direct the Nacc to have an open hearing when an opposition figure is the focus of the probe, and close things down when a government name is involved.
And it must be remembered the commission will not be a court with a court’s safeguards for witnesses and the person whose official behaviour is being examined. It will be a means of inquiring into matters, with any subsequent prosecution based on its findings to be up to a separate authority.
The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has had much of his time taken up by justifying the hearing restrictions.
He told parliament “there’s always concern about whether exposing a matter in public is going to prejudice forthcoming criminal prosecutions”.
Further, he was concerned personal reputations might be unfairly damaged in open hearings.
But the questioning of the provision, particularly by crossbenchers in the House of Representatives, is being fed by the lack of trust touched on by Daniels.
Skepticism has been further roused by the Coalition’s sudden conversion to the cause of monitoring integrity in federal affairs.
Certainly electoral politics was a powerful incentive, greater perhaps than mounting concerns that funny business was plaguing the federal system.
The anti-corruption scrutiny was a consistent priority for all those teal candidates who towelled up the Liberals in formerly safe seats and who are now pressing home their policy — in articulate and informed fashion — from the crossbench.
So it seems someone at Liberal HQ has worked out that maybe a big group of party supporters were keen to have federal ethical performances monitored. It was a conclusion which eluded the party during the previous nine years, including the three years in which Scott Morrison was prime minister.
A Morrison suggestion for an integrity commission blocked all public hearings – in contrast to the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac), which the then PM and reluctant reformer labelled a “kangaroo court”. He had promised to legislate a commission in 2019 but never did so.
Dutton has added political qualifications to his support for the current legislation, fearing it might be used to challenge authority — such as his own.
“I want a body that has teeth, but I don’t pursue the Greens and the teals attack on it because what they want is instability,” he told 2GB this week.
“They want – whether it’s a Labor or a Liberal government – for there to be these show trials and for there to be an era of instability because that’s their model, that’s what gets them elected, if people are unhappy with the government of the day.”
And there sure is unhappiness. There is a gaping wound in representative democracies worldwide. And that is the diminishing faith voters have that politicians will manage government exclusively in the public benefit, rather than too frequently in their own.
“We already knew that the former government managed money in their own political interest,” finance minister Katy Gallagher told the Senate this week, without referring to Labor’s own pork-barrelling history.
Using public money to improve electoral chances in at-risk seats might not legally qualify as corruption, but it is a bur in the minds of a significant number of voters.
One response to this distrust was the demand for a governance poultice: increased accountability, leading, if warranted, to punishments ranging from high-profile humiliation to sacking, fines or prison.
Thus the Nacc.
But to be effective, this brand of public interest defence has to be visible, and earn the confidence and trust of the people.
So Dreyfus and Dutton will want to answer critics, who suspect the principle that justice has to be seen to be done has been demoted among Labor and Liberal priorities.
