Some politicians think all publicity is good publicity. Their maxim is it’s better to be talked about than not talked about regardless of the why and what. Few of these political Icarus types last long.
Former NSW deputy premier and Nationals Leader John Barilaro is one such dark arts practitioner. Everything is transactional, there’s a lack of morality, truth is on vacation, and consequences are someone else’s problem.
Right now, that someone else is the already under pressure Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet who has an election rolling around in 46 days.
Just under a month ago, Perrottet’s judgment was in question after we learnt he wore a Nazi costume to his 21st birthday party. His latest political hell is all about Barilaro, the man who in 2020 tweeted pride in his nickname “Pork-Barilaro” before declaring his focus was on getting a fair share for regional communities.
His commitment to those regional communities looks selective at best — and not for the first time.
The allocation of $177 million by the federal and state governments after the 2019-20 bushfire disasters has been examined by a NSW parliamentary committee — which is where Barilaro made his unapologetic defence of pork-barrelling.
“It’s a name that I’ve never distanced myself from because I’m actually proud of … what it represents,” he told the Public Accountability Committee in February last year. His most gobsmacking line was that this was “what elections are for”.
That committee’s report is due this Thursday and it’s understood the funding process was anything but open, fair or transparent.
Reports suggest the committee will find “widespread failures” in how grants were allocated and taxpayer money was given out for “political gain” in a system “open to abuse”.
Last week, Barilaro’s role in allocating the bushfire disaster relief money was savaged in an auditor-general’s report which found the process lacked integrity. Just as these damning findings were washing down the gutters of Sydney’s Macquarie Street, there was further confirmation of Barilaro’s complete lack of self-awareness. The man who set the whole system of NSW public administration on fire when he wanted to be NSW senior trade and investment commissioner in New York City has clearly learnt nothing.
Despite a brutal parliamentary committee examination of that trade job (released on Monday), Barilaro couldn’t see an open field of exposed landmines on the path to a job as chief lobbyist for ClubsNSW. Now-departed Clubs boss John Landis was shown the door at the gaming and leisure outfit after some less-than-politic word association between Perrottet, his deep Catholic faith and an anti-poker machine play by the state government.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Barilaro, who’s never seen a chance he won’t make a grab for, sounded out ClubsNSW insiders about taking on the high-profile job, a courageous idea which would throw the lobby group into a fresh controversy while it is fighting a government decision to make all NSW poker machines cashless in a bid to curb money laundering and ease problem gambling.
The idea hardly lasted the conversation Barilaro had with ClubsNSW president George Peponis, a measure of how toxic the one-time Nationals boss has become.
All this shows why politicians must be on the radar for whoever is appointed to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
Despite intense opposition from former prime minister Scott Morrison — he infamously called the NSW ICAC a “kangaroo court” — integrity was critical in the election of the Albanese government.
How the new body operates when it gets going midyear will have a significant impact on whether Albanese and Labor are given a second term in 2025.
Barilaro shows why punches shouldn’t be pulled. Accused of, and unapologetic about, pork-barrelling while brazenly searching out favours for himself after politics, he is the pin-up guy for why such a body is long overdue and why it shouldn’t have any restrictions on what it does and who it goes after.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says it will have full authority and there will be no protected people or organisations. The test will come with how the new NAAC handles pork-barrelling — and there will be complaints about vote-buying and political favouritism as surely as night follows day.
It’s not good enough to argue Barilaro is an exception who proves the rule, and the picking of low-hanging fruit shouldn’t mean the more fundamental problems of the tree should escape scrutiny.
More immediately, Barilaro’s reemergence couldn’t have come at a worse time for Perrottet. Barilaro was, until October 2021, Perrottet’s senior colleague as deputy premier, sitting in cabinet while some of the more controversial issues that have returned to the news now were discussed.
Integrity, accountability and transparency will be on voters’ minds come March 25.
The gatecrashing of the news cycle over the past week by Barilaro means any benefit of the doubt the NSW Coalition might have hoped for is as likely as a safe Labor seat getting grant money after a bushfire.
