Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022 is an extremely important piece of legislation, but it's also an extremely important broader topic, because there are few things more important than the integrity of government and government processes and the way in which that is perceived by the broader community. So I'm going to spend a bit of time today talking about the arrangements that the former Prime Minister put in place but I'm also going to talk about the fact that these arrangements were emblematic of a broader pattern of stretching and bending rules, of acting in a way that undermined confidence in some of our key conventions and patterns of behaviour. This is something that is of first-order importance and that we, as a government elected just 10 months ago, are right in wanting to correct, because the behaviour of the previous government undermined institutions that were already suffering from challenges in public perception.

The ANU's Australian Election Study found that Australian's satisfaction with democracy in 2019 was at its lowest level since the of the 1970s. Indeed, it had fallen in a little over a decade. Fifty-nine per cent of Australians were satisfied with democracy. This is 27 percentage points below the level that it had been at in 2007. I contend—I think, with very good reason—that the behaviour of the former Prime Minister when it came to secretly appointing himself to multiple portfolios and the behaviour of the previous government in stretching the rules when it came to allocating funds were material contributors to that broad trend. It's absolutely critical that this parliament, in a cross-partisan way, embrace a different way forward.

This parliament has done so—or at least parts of this parliament have done so—in a range of ways, including by passing legislation in relation to the National Anti-Corruption Commission. Passing this bill will be a further step. But it's also important that we change the culture—the culture of the way in which ministers are held accountable in this place, the culture of the way in which ministers interact with government departments and the culture with which we appropriate funds.

I want to go to the Bell report and its findings in relation to the way in which the previous Prime Minister, the member for Cook, was appointed to a number of portfolios. Going to the Solicitor-General's opinion, cited in the report, I quote paragraph 29:

While I consider that Mr Morrison's appointment to administer DISER was valid—

technically valid, in a legalistic sense—

that is not to say that the absence of any notification of that appointment to the Parliament, the public, the other Ministers … was consistent with the principle of responsible government that is inherent in Ch II of the Constitution. In my opinion, it was not.

In other words, 'in my opinion' it was not consistent with the fundamental principles of responsible government.

I think it's worth referring to High Court statements on responsible government in other contexts. The High Court, in an earlier judgement, said that responsible government is a system by which the executive is responsible to the legislature and, through it, to the electorate. It is one of the most fundamental aspects of the Westminster system, where the executive is within parliament and the executive is answerable to parliament, in many forums, including question time, Senate estimates and many other forums. That is a fundamental tenet of how ministers, the executive and the Prime Minister are held accountable to this place, but also, even more importantly, to the electorate. The High Court has also said on previous occasions that responsible government is a fundamental, central feature of the Australian constitutional system.

I want to go to another aspect of the Solicitor-General's opinion, and it is, in a sense, a more practical observation, which was made at paragraph 32:

Plainly enough, it is impossible for the Parliament to hold Ministers to account for the administration of departments if it does not know which Ministers are responsible for which departments.

That's where this all leads to. At the most fundamental level of question time, who can know who should be asked about what if you don't even know who's holding which portfolios? If multiple ministers are holding the same portfolio, who's going to make the decision? We saw in at least one instance, the Prime Minister making a decision himself, overriding a minister. Who's to say that wasn't to occur in all sorts of other contexts, and, potentially, who's to say that that kind of overriding wasn't to occur in a way that wasn't particularly transparent? It fundamentally undermines question time in a very practical way. But, as I said before, question time is but one of the ways in which the executive is held to account. I would argue that it undermines all of those different mechanisms. Which minister should turn up to Senate estimates? It is a fundamental undermining of the core of our very system.

Let's go to some of the practices that have arisen as a part of responsible government. There is the publication of ministerial appointments in the Gazette, and ministerial lists are published in parliament. One can go to these various mechanisms and argue whether or not they're strictly required, but to me that's not the point. To me the point is all of these different aspects of accountability and transparency are a reflection of how important responsible government is, and how responsible government can only be implemented in a way that is meaningful if it's done in a way that is transparent in a practical way. That kind of behaviour on that side of the House, and I hope across this parliament as a whole, should not be permitted again.

Another aspect of this broader issue of integrity in government is the National Anti-Corruption Commission. I go to that because this was such a major topic of discussion in the previous term of government. The previous government was elected on a promise of implementing, of legislating a national anticorruption commission. We prioritised that in our first 10 months, amongst other important policy areas that needed remedying. The previous government promised to pass legislation to implement a national anticorruption commission. What we found ourselves with at the end of the last term was this ridiculous situation where a piece of legislation was in the public realm, but the government refused to bring it into this place because they claimed they didn't like the signals they were getting from the opposition.

This was one of the more bizarre instances that I've ever seen of a government clearly breaching a commitment. They had the legislation. The legislation had taken much longer to draft and there had been much less consultation than was ideal, but the government had gotten around to having a draft piece of legislation. But there was this bizarre situation where they refused to bring it into this place. I have never seen something so unusual. What the previous government tried to do was to somehow blame everybody else in the chamber for that. They didn't like the fact that we wouldn't give a commitment for its carte blanche passage, that we said we wanted to have a look at it because we said we may disagree with parts of it.

Let's go to the model the previous government, now opposition, put forward. The Centre for Public Integrity labelled it the 'weakest integrity commission in the country' after comparing it with a range of state and territory watchdogs. The former Victorian Court of Appeal judge Stephen Charles labelled it 'a fraud'. The former New South Wales Supreme Court judge Anthony Whealy said the coalition's model was 'a farce' because it wouldn't be able to scrutinise and investigate corrupt conduct by politicians, ministers, their staff or two-thirds of the Public Service. We had a flawed model that wasn't even brought into this place, and that was another key element of why integrity was so seriously undermined in the previous term of government.

We have remedied that particular aspect of what had gone on in the previous three years—or one could say the previous nine years—of inaction. We have brought forward legislation and passed it, and none too soon. It's important to note that we find ourselves where we are, with a community that is sceptical of a lot of what goes on in the political realm, in part because of what the previous government did with such an important piece of infrastructure.

I want to talk about the way in which taxpayers funds were allocated in a range of contexts by the previous government. Now this is referred to as rorts, and in many instances it went above and beyond what people could consider reasonable. But at the heart of this problem is that people lose faith in the way in which government allocates funds if governments don't do it in a way that involves good faith, that involves rigour and that involves transparency. As a parliament, as an executive a government, what we need to constantly remind ourselves is that it is important that we constantly retain the trust of the people, that it is such a precious thing and such a fragile thing. In so many instances those opposite pushed the boundaries in a cynical way, in such a way it didn't pass the pub test. Again, we can get into debating legalities, we can get into debating all the different aspects of it in an administrative sense, but so much of it just seemed unreasonable and politically cynical that I believe it was also a major contributor to the public's declining faith in our most important institutions.

There was the $4.8 billion Urban Congestion Fund, in which 83 per cent of projects went to Liberal-held seats. There was, of course, the $660 million Commuter Car Park Fund, so many projects of which seemed to materialise in marginal seats at the last moment without rigorous analysis. Not one of the 47 car park sites promised by the coalition at the 2019 election was selected by the infrastructure department. These are just basic things that they were getting wrong—well, I suppose the word 'wrong' may not be the appropriate word. It depends on what your frame is. 'Inappropriate' is probably the best word there. There was, of course, the rorting of projects under the sports program. Nearly three-quarters, 73 per cent, of the projects that then sports minister Bridget McKenzie approved were not recommended by Sports Australia. Of course, there were the multicoloured spreadsheets, which, for anybody in the community with any familiarity with Excel or anything to do with the most basic IT, would set off alarm bells. This is the kind of example of government administration that makes people cynical. In both cases, we see not just a skewness in the allocation of funds but decisions being made either against or without any reference to departments.

There was the Community Development Grants Program, $1.7 billion, distributed between 2013 and 2021. Safe Labor seats received $22 a head; marginal coalition seats and safe coalition seats received $202 a head; and marginal seats received $84 a head. Again, the optics of this are terrible, and those opposite were not able to demonstrate to us at any point in the last term a process that was transparent or rigorous where these projects had been allocated according to some kind of process of working it through with experts. Of course, this was the program to fund female change rooms and pools in remote areas of the country. As was noted so often in this place—and it became almost an icon of poorly appropriated funds—the North Sydney Olympic Pool somehow managed to squeeze itself in this very low-socioeconomic regional area.

I could go on and on about this, but there are a number of major concerns. One is the sheer quantum. If you add up all these funds, we're talking billions of dollars. The second is the skewness. The third is the total lack of rigour. Of course people's alarm bells are going to ring when they're seeing Excel sheets and no reference to departments or departments being overridden.

The immediate thing we're debating here today is a very important piece of legislation to remedy a breach in practice that I believe was completely unnecessary and egregious. It's a reflection of a previous government that acted in that manner in so many other ways—in delaying the national anticorruption commission and in the way it allocated funds. This bill is very important, and it's critical that this government continues to build on integrity in government to improve the way in which government operates for the sake of all.

See this speech in context