Ever since the Roman Emperor Caligula in the first century BC appointed his horse (at least anecdotally) as consul, executive governments have been abusing their powers of appointment. Maybe, earlier.
This week’s nomination of Geoff Cousins to the Telstra board was mainly portrayed as a story about a stoush between the Government and Telstra. But it is also yet another example of the Howard Government appointing a “mate” or like-minded person to a key position.
Cousins has been an adviser to Howard.
In Australia, appointments of mates, politicians from your side, and people with similar political views political has steadily increased in the past quarter century.
Any individual appointment might well be defended. Cousins is obviously well-qualified for the job. But the trend is bleak.
Much of the blame for the appalling record on political appointments of the Howard Government can be put down to Paul Keating. He may not have started it, but he certainly ratcheted the practice up. It meant Howard had to “undo” the Keating appointments. Instead of heading to neutral territory he over-compensated.
Howard learnt from Keating, as he did with the misuse of government advertising.
The appointments started in the first days of Howard’s Government in 1996 when he replaced Mike Keating, Head of the Department of Prime Minister, as Cabinet Secretary with Michael L’Estange, whose doctor father was a friend of John Howard.
Mike Keating was replaced as Secretary by Max Moore-Wilton when Howard axed six heads of department.
Then Liberal Senator Michael Baume – the man who exposed Paul Keating’s piggery interests – was given the plum diplomatic post of Consul-General in New York.
Also in 1996, the Liberal Minister Jim Short, who shared a flat in Canberra with Howard in Opposition days, was forced to resign for a technical breach of the ew Government’s Ministerial Code of Conduct. He was rewarded with a post at the European Bank, and then to Cyprus.
Soon after the 1996 election, the Public Service and statutory bodies were cleared of Keating appointees and replaced with Liberal trusties.
Janet Holmes a Court, a Keating supporter, lost her place as head of the Australian Centenary Foundation.
Hugh Morgan, whose views on unions co-incided with the new Government’s, went to the Reserve Bank Board, along with former National Farmers’ Federation head Donald McGauchie. McGauchie was a key player in the 1998 waterfront confrontation and was appointed to the Telstra board shortly after that dispute and only a day before the 1998 election.
Liberal Party donor Rob Gerard was also appointed to the Reserve Bank Board.
Steve Vizard, a friend of the former communications minister Richard Alston, was appointed to Telstra.
Tony Clark, a former managing partner of KPMG in NSW and a regular Howard golfing partner, went to Telstra and the Australian Tourist Commission — now Tourism Australia – now chaired by former National Party leader Tim Fischer.
Former Commonwealth Bank CEO David Murray, a public supporter of Government policy and the Prime Minister, was appointed head of the Future Fund.
Graeme Samuel, a former treasurer of the Victorian Liberal Party, was appointed head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in 2003.
I can go on.
The head of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and strong supporter of Government policy, Mark Patterson, was appointed secretary of the Department of Industry.
Pru Goward, biographer and friend of the Prime Minister, was appointed to head the Office of the Status of Women and was then made Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner.
Her husband and co-biographer, David Barnett, was appointed to the board of the National Museum of Australia and engaged in a confrontation over the way the museum portrays Australian history with views aligned to those of the Prime Minister.
Also, put on the museum board was Christopher Pearson, the Prime Minister’s former speech writer. He also got two terms on the Australia Council and was appointed to the board of SBS.
Janet Albrechtsen, historian Keith Windschuttle and businessman, academic and writer Ron Brunton, all described in Parliament by Labor Senator John Faulkner as ”self-proud, right- wing political warriors”, were appointed to the board of the ABC. The Liberal party heavyweight and close Peter Costello associate Michael Kroger also spent time on the ABC board. Howard’s friend, Donald McDonald, was appointed its chair.
True, some of these appointments did not turn out exactly the way the Government wanted. Some showed spirited independence – like Goward and McDonald, for example.
Constitutional monarchist David Flint, an admirer of Howard and broadcaster Alan Jones, was appointed to head the Australian Broadcasting Authority.
Executive appointments of people with similar political views and connections to the Government go right down the chain and into the judiciary.
Early on the then Tourism Minister, John Moore, appointed Tony Clark (friend of John Howard), Greg Daniel (Liberal advertising executive) and Marylyn Rodgers (millionaire WA Liberal) to the Australian Tourism Commission.
Another long-time Howard associate, the former chair of George Weston Foods, John Pascoe, was appointed Chief Federal Magistrate. George Weston Foods had been a large donor to the Coalition parties.
An array of former Liberal MPs have been given plum diplomatic jobs in addition to Baume and Short: Andrew Peacock (Washington), David Connolly (South Africa); Bob Halverson (Dublin), Alan Roche (Los Angeles), John Olsen (Los Angeles), Peter Reith (European Bank), John Herron (Dublin), Richard Alston (London), Bob Charles (Chicago), Robert Hill (United Nations).
Most recently, Innes Willox, former chief of staff of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, was appointed consul-general in Los Angeles.
This eclipses Labor with 10 former MPs appointed to diplomatic posts in 13 years.
How dispiriting for a career diplomat to have worked for decades at Foreign Affairs to see the prize snatched by a political appointment.
The above list is not complete. Even so, it represents wholesale political stacking, even though any individual appointment might well be defensible.
What is to be done? Surely, if we are to have appointments by the executive without any process, as in the US, we should adopt the same safeguard as the US with a requirement that the appointment be confirmed by the Senate. Indeed, some appointments in the ACT can be disallowed by the Assembly.
Perhaps better would be to adopt the British, Irish and Canadian systems. They have commissions for public-sector appointments. All positions are advertised. The three work slightly differently, but the basic plan is that the commission selects either one or more suitable candidates. The Minister either has to appoint from that list or can appoint outside it, but must give reasons to the Parliament.
In any event, the process should be more public and more merit-based. Economic efficiency and good public administration demands the best person be selected for the job and that suitably qualified people get a chance to put their names forward. The public would then have greater confidence in those appointed.
Also, the present system is unfair to those selected under it because they can be branded as undeserving political appointments irrespective of their merits. Under a more open system they would not have to carry the stigma of being little better than Caligula’s horse.