Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, in a debate on an appropriation bill all members of the House are able to comment on matters of public importance. The member before me spoke to the AWB matter and so am I. It does not matter how strong the evidence is that Howard government ministers knew or should have known of these kickbacks, and it does not matter how often the gun is found in their hands; they say, ‘Show us the smoke.’ As a result, ministerial standards continue to decline. For example, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade put out a statement to say that it knew nothing of kickbacks paid by AWB, and Minister Downer says that he relies on that as evidence. But such a press release could only have any credibility if there were a possibility that the department would put out a press release contradicting the minister—and that idea is ludicrous. Permanent heads are no longer permanent; they are on three- to five-year contracts which can be terminated at the decision of the Prime Minister.

But we can see here that Minister Downer is attempting to put so much distance between himself and his department that they put out their own press releases, as though ministers are not even nominally responsible for their actions. A key problem in this breakdown of ministerial accountability has been the explosion of ministerial advisers. These are political appointments whose growth in numbers has two serious consequences for public accountability. Firstly, they contribute to the politicisation of the Public Service by interfering at ever more junior levels of decision making—ministers used to have to work through departmental heads but now, through their advisers, they are everywhere. Secondly, the advisers now constitute a key line of defence for ministers when the balloon goes up. People can say that they have written to ministers—and departmental minutes and correspondence can be found—but ministers allege that they personally did not know, despite the matter having gone to their office. The advisers only speak to the media or to the public when it suits them and cannot be called by Senate estimates committees, so the old principle of neutral, impartial public servants giving advice which ministers accept or reject—accepting responsibility for the consequences—has gone. We now live in a shadowy nether world where finding out what ministers personally knew or what they personally did is like finding a white mouse in a snowstorm.

Let me provide the House with some examples. Presently, this country is engaged in a war of aggression in Iraq which is without the sanction of the United Nations. When the Prime Minister gave an address to the nation on 20 March 2003 announcing Australia’s decision to participate in the invasion of Iraq, he said:

I want to assure all of you that the action we are taking is fully legal under international law. Back in the early 1990s resolutions were passed by the Security Council authorising military action against Iraq.

That action was only suspended on condition that Iraq gave up its weapons of mass destruction.

The Prime Minister went on to say:

Clearly we all know this has not happened.

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