An accountability crisis
Accountability Round Table
In a well-functioning democracy, Government must be held accountable by the Parliament and members of parliament act in the interests of their constituents and the nation.
Democracy should serve everyone in Australia, not just those with access to decision-makers. The benefits of being an MP are not meant to deliver political power to the MP or their party. Nor should sector lobbying interests be dictating policy. The Parliament and its elected members of parliament must act in the public interest.
In reality, the major parties determine how their MPs and Senators vote and this ‘solidarity’ is not always in the nation’s interests. For example, most voters support action on climate and an end to new coal and gas but fossil fuel interests hold sway. Promised restraints on gambling advertising were reversed thanks to lobbying.
Buyer beware!
Before you vote, check the candidates’ policies and record. Find out:
- What is their stance on pork-barrelling – the uneven distribution of grants to electorates they hope to win over?
- Are they beholden to big money businesses, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, mining, fossil fuels, property developers etc.?
- Are they representing agendas of other countries or are they spreading misinformation?
- Ask what they personally stand for?
- What is their voting record in Parliament?
- Do they raise issues you want to see addressed?
Ask your local candidate:
- What is your stance on ‘pork-barrelling’ – the opportunistic distribution of grants to electorates parties want to win, without a rational economic or social justification?
- Are you and your party influenced, and sometimes bought by, big business, gambling, mining and fossil fuels?
- Will you fairly represent the people of your electorate?
- Do you have strong personal beliefs that differ, in some degree, from the parties that endorsed you?
- Do you raise issues in your party room and in the Parliament that your constituents are concerned about?
- Will you or your party knowingly mislead people with false advertising?
Voting advice
We suggest you vote ‘below the line’ in the House of Reps and the Senate so you choose your own voting order. Make a ‘how to vote card’ beforehand.
Find out what you can about the candidates in your electorate. These websites will help: https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/ and https://www.clueyvoter.com/
Accountability Round Table (ART) is non-partisan and develops policies to improve accountability in areas like access to information, campaign financing and failing to act on corruption. More information on ART is available from their website here: https://www.accountabilityrt.org/
Authorised by: Accountability Round Table, Stuart Hamilton, 13 Bowen Street, Richmond Vic
Voters plead for integrity
Ken Coghill
Demands for integrity in government are emerging as a key concern in voters’ minds. Opinion polls and chats with friends and neighbours all confirm that Australians want public funds and political powers treated as entrusted for use in the public interest. Those we elect must put the public interest ahead of their personal, private, business, or political party interests.
Christiaan Van Vuuren’s recent ABC TV program Big Deal highlighted the risks to Australian democracy of poorly regulated political donations and campaign spending. Big Deal exposed the huge donations made by business interests and the access that big businesses and industry associations have to ministers responsible for decisions affecting those self-same businesses.
About half of donations remain secret and are not included in the narrowly defined donations reported by the Electoral Commission. Donors who contribute less than about $14,000 (adjusted for inflation) can remain anonymous. Donations can be hidden as extravagant meal tickets. A check of published lists of donors shows that many are companies that do business with government. They benefit from government contracts and approvals. What’s more, they’re a tiny proportion of all companies. In the year of the 2019 election, out of a total of over two million actively trading businesses (30 June 2019), less than 300 were listed as donors to political parties and candidates.
Any donations by registered businesses raise worrying issues. By law, company directors must act in the best interests of their company. How is making a political donation serving any business’s interests? If the business donates hoping that that is in the company’s interests ie that it hopes to receive favourable treatment by the politician or party, is that not attempted bribery? Such favourable treatment could include Government policies, negligent enforcement, and Opposition support for legislation. Again, the everyday voter is at a disadvantage and cannot hope to match the influence of businesses that donate campaign funds or duchess politicians and candidates.
The implications for politicians and candidates are the worst effect. It is a rare politician who likes fund-raising. Most find it distasteful to the very reason that almost all donors want some favourable treatment. That may be simply support from some public policy, although some donors may have fervent beliefs which are pressed uncomfortably. More worrying are the company representatives who, when attending a fund-raiser, press their case for an approval or a grant to the business. These cases are not the ones that have been making the headlines over the years.
The headlines have been captured by political rorts. The Accountability Round Table views a rort as ‘any arrangement or practice that enables, or results in, the misuse of public resources, assets or powers for personal or partisan gain’. The proper use of public resources, assets or powers is for them to be used consistent with the public trust principle and with transparent, reviewable procedures for identified public benefits. Rorts have seen Ministers totally disregard laws, such as the Community Sport Infrastructure Program where sports grants were required to be decided by Sport Australia. Instead, the Minister decided, although there remains suspicion that the Prime Minister’s office had a role. In this case, the Minister did lose her ministerial post until convenient circumstances arose for her reinstatement.
Most concerningly, the Constitution requires that funds allocated must be within the powers created by the Constitution. Despite the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) and other authorities drawing attention to the failure to act legally, government have simply snubbed its nose at due process and barged ahead.
Local communities were the real losers. They had applied for grants in good faith, but Sport Australia’s recommendations based on the published criteria were put aside in an obscure political process. The carpark rorts brought this politicised decision[1]making home to the Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs. Sites were selected and funding approved without any proper analysis of need, location, or design.
Again, we see a pattern that corrupts the democratic system and undermines public faith in it. Little wonder that there is such a strong demand for integrity in the Parliamentary system, to be underpinned by a powerful, independent integrity commission.
Adjunct Professor Ken Coghill lives locally and is a member of the Accountability Round Table. He can be contacted at kencoghill1944@gmail.com
Source of image: Researchgate
The accountability of ministers to parliament has a gaping hole. 
Julian Gardner
Both major parties decline to allow ministerial staff to be questioned by parliamentary committees. Who then holds these staffers to account? The Statement of Ministerial Standards states that ministers must accept responsibility for their staffers’ actions. But do they?
Critical to good governance, critical to the maintenance of the rule of law, are the mechanisms by which those who are entrusted with power are held accountable for the exercise of that power. Increasingly, however, accountability mechanisms are seen to be deficient. This should alarm all who value responsible, ethical and honest government.
In theory ministers, who are part of the executive arm of government, are accountable to parliament. This includes through Question Time and the work of parliamentary committees. A report in March 2021 by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure highlighted significant deficiencies in Question Time and yet no action has been taken on its recommendations.
Ministers are also questioned by parliamentary committees. Their staff are not. Staffers were central to the making of grants for car parks under the Urban Congestion Fund. As confirmed before the Senate Estimates Committee by an Executive Director of the Audit Office it was staffers in then-infrastructure minister Tudge’s office who had drawn up a list of (originally) 20 marginal seats. This was shared with a staffer in the Prime Minister’s Office.
In a press conference on 5 August 2021, Mr Tudge said he was “not aware” of the top-20 marginal seat list. Surely, pursuant to the Ministerial Standards it is incumbent upon the minister to make enquiries of his staff to ascertain whether the list identified by the ANAO does or did exist, by whom it was prepared and for what purpose was it used? Presumably he has not. Despite questioning, the Prime Minister has not directly answered whether he or his office had seen the list. He did, however, say seven times in two minutes that the grants for car parks were a decision of the minister. Required by Senate Estimates to produce the list, Minister Fletcher, now responsible for Infrastructure, declined on the basis that the list was a cabinet document. If the document went to Cabinet, how is it that Mr Tudge was not aware of it? If decisions were made by the minister and not Cabinet, how is the list a cabinet document?
The community that entrusts governments with powers is entitled to have answers to these questions but this seems unlikely to occur when Senate Estimates cannot question the minister’s staff. The funding decisions may have been made lawfully and appropriately but we will never know. Too often the unseen actions of staffers provide a minister with an avenue for plausible deniability. In this case it looks more like an implausible one.
The gaps evident in the chain of accountability mechanisms make the need for a federal integrity commission all the more urgent. It must be one with wide enough jurisdiction and powers to be able to call political staffers to answer questions. Perhaps then we can start to restore trust in government and protect the important role of the rule of law from further decay.
Julian Gardner, former Public Advocate and member of the Accountability Round Table.