Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night's Four Corners program raised some very concerning allegations regarding two senior coalition government ministers. Four Corners revealed details of a secret affair between a former political staffer and Minister Alan Tudge. The program also documented multiple unsavoury allegations regarding Attorney-General Christian Porter, including an incident in a Canberra bar involving a staffer.

I'd like to make a few observations about the issues raised. It's worth noting a few passages from the Prime Minister's Statement of Ministerial Standards, issued under Mr Morrison's signature in August 2018. That statement rightly opens with the observation that:

The ethical standards required of Ministers in Australia's system of government reflect the fact that, as holders of public office, Ministers are entrusted with considerable privilege and wide discretionary power.

Ministers stand at the apex of Australian government. The higher the office, the higher the responsibility and the higher the rightful expectations of integrity—both in respect of ministers' public duties and private conduct.

The Statement of Ministerial Standards goes on to say that ministers must ensure:

Put simply, ministers exercise judgement all of the time, and we need to be confident in that judgement. As is well known, the Statement of Ministerial Standards provides a provision relating to personal relationships, inserted by Prime Minister Turnbull and retained by Prime Minister Morrison, that states:

Ministers must not engage in sexual relations with their staff.

That rule reflects the reality that, while adults are free to determine their personal relationships, there is an imbalance in authority and power between ministers and their staff. That specific rule was not in place when the conduct and incidents reported by Four Corners apparently took place, but that's not really the point. Regardless of how you view the division between public and private life, the question of whether the two ministers featured in the Four Corners program upheld appropriately high standards of personal integrity is moot. I don't believe they did. Again, this is about judgement, and I don't think the judgement exercised here was up to standard. The conduct of the two ministers cannot be brushed aside as the Prime Minister sought to do at a press conference today by reducing it to a mere instance of human frailty.

It's quite clear that both ministers feared public exposure of their private conduct—both wanted to keep things secret. They sought to prevent public disclosure and to deal with the potential fallout if their private conduct did become public. Neither minister volunteered anything to former Prime Minister Turnbull or apparently to Prime Minister Morrison. It was Mr Turnbull who took the initiative in raising concerns with Mr Porter. Both ministers had, over an extended period of time, clearly placed themselves in circumstances in which they were put at risk of compromise, and the threat of exposure of their private conduct could have been used to place pressure on them in relation to their ministerial and political responsibilities. This is an unhealthy state of affairs. It is precisely the sort of thing that can be the subject of lengthy questioning in the course of security clearance processes that all Australian public servants are subject to. However, ministers, despite their higher responsibilities and access to the most sensitive national security information, are excluded from any security checking process. I've previously raised this important gap in Australia's national security arrangements and introduced legislation to address the problem. That has been greeted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm by both the coalition and Labor. I believe the revelations about Ministers Tudge and Porter clearly underline the need for a confidential security checking process to assist the Prime Minister in the discharge of his or her responsibilities as the chair of cabinet.

There's also been much discussion today about sexist attitudes and predatory behaviour in the workplace here in Parliament House. Anyone in the parliament who isn't completely oblivious to their surroundings would recognise that there is a chronic problem in the working environment of this place. Most senators would be aware, as former Prime Minister Turnbull observed, that the behaviour that takes place in some political offices would not be tolerated in most other workplaces. Despite the many fine words spoken in this parliament, and, indeed, Australia's major political parties more broadly, the parliament is decades behind the rest of the country in combating sexist and predatory behaviour in the workplace.

There is a widespread notion that what happens in Canberra stays in Canberra and that the media can be relied on not to probe into the private affairs of MPs. Last night's Four Cornersprogram was unusual in that regard. There's a widespread sense that blokes will be blokes and that women in the parliament, especially young female staffers, are the supporting cast in political dramas. There's also a strong disinclination on both sides of politics to not look too closely at these things, because it's seen in terms of mutually assured destruction. One of my staffers, who first came to work in parliament for one of the major parties a quarter of a century ago and later served in the press gallery, observed that 'nothing has changed, nothing at all'. That's the truth of it. All sides of politics ought to reflect on that.

I don't think the Prime Minister's response today was adequate. He was wrongfully dismissive of the specific incidents raised by Four Corners. Whilst these incidents may not have happened on your watch, Prime Minister, these two ministers still sit in your cabinet. There's an age-old saying that the standard you walk past is the standard that you accept. It's time to show some leadership and put integrity and standards ahead of your mateship. However, in the interests of actually making some progress on what is a deeply entrenched problem in our national political life, I'm going pick up on the Prime Minister's declaration that he took the broader issue raised by Four Corners extremely seriously. If that's so, I would urge the Prime Minister to take the initiative and convene a roundtable of politicians from all sides of politics to discuss the workplace environment at Parliament House and at electorate offices. Such a body should also include broad representation of staffers employed under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act. Out of that, there could be agreement on an improved set of arrangements to afford protection to political staffers in the workplace. Even better, there could come a long overdue, enforceable code of conduct for federal MPs and senators. Neither major party has been prepared to accept a legislative code of conduct and, indeed, as recently as August, they rejected a Greens proposal for such a code. In this, the Australian parliament lags well behind the ethics arrangements already in place in our state parliaments. The conspicuous absence of a code of conduct for federal politicians will only continue to erode public confidence in the parliament. If some good is to come from the Four Corners story then we should put aside partisan differences and get together and create a more acceptable working environment for the parliament. I urge the government, the opposition and the crossbench to set aside differences to fix the sick culture here in the national parliament.