ON paper at least, federal political standards, though very high, have been declining for the past 20 years. The general trend is that ministerial resignations on grounds of high principle have dribbled to nothing and that resignations on grounds of alleged impropriety or short-comings have increased.
But conflict-of-interest resignations are rare; Jim Short became only the third since 1901. (I am indebted to the Parliamentary Library for digging out some details about ministerial resignations.)
Leaving aside the non-contentious resignations for electoral defeat, health, age and to take up appointments in greener pastures, what do we find? There is a marked propensity to keep the job. There have been only about 50 contentious resignations since federation among the thousands of appointments. Arguably that shows competence and diligence under fire from incessant parliamentary and public questioning that few professions endure. The largest category of contentious resignations is resignation of matters of principle. But these are concentrated in the first half of the century.
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