The teal independents were elected on a platform that called out the Coalition government’s three principal failures: climate denialism, sexism and corruption. To that extent, their strategies coincided with that of Anthony Albanese. It is the last issue — corruption, and its flipside, integrity — that seems to be picking up the most political steam.
Following the successful legislation of a federal anti-corruption commission, with amendments pushed by the independents, the notion of restoring integrity to politics is very much in vogue. The government’s announcement that it will abolish the corrupted Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) altogether was met only with applause.
Sophie Scamps, independent member for Mackellar, will shortly be upping the ante further, with a move about which the Labor government may not feel as sanguine. She is working up a private member’s bill with the clunky but accurate title “Ending Jobs for Mates”. It means to do exactly as it says: bring an end to the longstanding practice, turbocharged by the Coalition government, of giving lucrative government posts as political favours to party hacks and donors.
The idea is not political. Scamps has developed her bill in partnership with the Centre for Public Integrity and its power-packed board of legal luminaries chaired by retired judge Anthony Whealy KC. It draws on research by the Grattan Institute, which produced a deeply depressing (if you’re into integrity) report in July 2022 called “New Politics – a better process for public appointments”.
The AAT is a standout example of due process compromised beyond breaking point. In April 2022, a week before going into caretaker mode, the Morrison government appointed six people linked to the Liberal Party as members of the tribunal, including a former state government minister and Scott Morrison’s own former chief of staff.
In fact, the Grattan report found, during the nine years of Coalition government, the proportion of AAT appointees who could be fairly described as “political” increased from around 5% to a staggering 22%. Grattan also found that while 7% of federal government appointments are political, that rises to 21% among appointments that are highly paid, prestigious and/or powerful.
The most egregious examples include the Productivity Commission and Commonwealth Grants Commission (50% of each are Liberal Party linked) and the board of the Australian War Memorial (40%). Board stacking is rife; Australia Post’s board is also half-filled by Coalition friends. We could go on all day, but this is one issue on which the public perception is, if anything, outmatched by reality.
Jobs for the boys is as old as politics; all parties do it. It is sometimes argued that the promise of a future government-funded posting is a necessary item of democratic furniture for the purpose of giving smart people sufficient incentive to do their public service, but the public never believed that and now would just shout down any politician who tried it on, then set fire to their lectern for good measure.
Scamps is on to the zeitgeist here, targeting the thing voters hate the most about politics and politicians. Her bill isn’t public yet, but it will include two key features: the creation of an institutional framework for government appointments; and the neutering of the present ability of ministers to corrupt the process.
The bill will establish a new public appointments commissioner, along with independent selection panels at departmental level. These will be overseen by a parliamentary joint committee, the majority of whose members will not be from the government side of the chamber.
For ministers, the plan is that they will still get to make the final decisions on who is appointed, but they will be forced to choose from a list of vetted and approved candidates produced by the relevant independent selection panel and there will be no wildcard captain’s picks allowed. That is to say, no more ignoring the rigorous selection process and giving an ABC board seat to someone else entirely because the prime minister feels like it.
What coherent, evidence-based and ethically sound argument could possibly be raised against these simple and sensible rules? “Too much red tape” isn’t going to wash, nor will a Scott Morrison-style railing against unelected bureaucrats being given excessive power. To the extent that there was any remaining public sympathy for the notion that we should place primary trust in our elected representatives to wield their powers with integrity, the last government destroyed it utterly.
Instead, a quaint notion has taken strong root in the public consciousness: public money is the public’s money.
It will be interesting to see how the major parties navigate this issue — whether they combine to send it to the graveyard where almost all private member’s bills end up, or they recognise two political truths: there is going to be plenty more of this kind of thing coming down the line from the emboldened independents, and the reason they are emboldened is because they are channelling what almost every voter wants.
It’s why they won their seats. “New politics” is not an oxymoron.
Should the government support Scamps’ bill stamping down on jobs for mates? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
