news, latest-news

There's no shortage of people willing to wring their hands at the current condition of political government in Australia. In his book on the Rudd and Gillard governments, journalist Paul Kelly complains about "the corruption of the political culture". "The trust between the political system and the public ... is close to being severed," he writes. "This is related to the decline in proper process and the apparent abandonment of the proven techniques of inquiry, debate, consultation and compromise ..." Allan Behm, in his recent book on ministerial staff, comes to a similar conclusion but for different reasons. He says "our national political enterprise is seriously and systemically damaged" although he says "Kelly's eschatology is somewhat more doleful than mine". More than enough ink has been used in speculation about the causes of these discontents, some of which are convincing. Nevertheless, there's still room aplenty to wonder how things could have gone so sour so quickly. The country has experienced one of the longest periods of prosperity in its history. While there are serious problems affecting public finance, health and education, the environment, more effective engagement with Asian countries and the circumstances of indigenous Australians to name just a few, the overall policy environment is more benign and far less complex than at many points over the last 150 years. Thoughtful visitors from other countries willingly offer to swap their problems for ours. Still the systemic malaise persists. While there are many responsible for it, including an over-tolerant citizenry, governments can take a lot of the blame, often aided and abetted by "the media" – perhaps most notably the Murdoch press, which has tried vainly to make a virtue of playing favourites and bullying those it dislikes. When the Abbott government was elected, some might have hoped that the working of the federal government would improve. Others might have thought that to be a triumph of hope over experience because Tony Abbott's aggressive methods as opposition leader made a distinctive contribution to the present failings. Abbott denies there's a systemic weakness. At a speech at the launch of Kelly's book, he said: "It's not the system which is the problem; it is the people who, from time to time, inhabit it." He thinks the Rudd-Gillard period is, in his words, "just a passing phase" after which his ascendancy will bring a new era of model governance. It hasn't happened. As he doesn't recognise a problem that clearly exists, he's consequentially done nothing about it. Improvement is left to the mercy of the innate virtue of Abbott and his ministers, maybe not the strongest reed in the swamp. Even a debater of Bob Santamaria's talents would be hard pressed to argue successfully that things have not worsened. After Abbott survived a challenge to his leadership earlier this year, he proclaimed that "good government starts from today". That is, for more than the first year he was Prime Minister, he concedes he provided something less than good government. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings ..." (Psalms 8:2) What's happened since this belated declaration of elevated intentions? First, problems before the government have been exaggerated and distorted for political purposes, none more so than those related to national security. It's a repeat of the "debt-and-deficit disaster" that now apparently no longer exists, even though the debt and the deficit have increased. National security has often been a moveable feast for Australian governments but something was more than usually awry when Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in April this year that terrorism was "the most significant threat to the global rules-based order to emerge in the last 70 years" – greater, she said, than the threats of the Cold War or the rise of communism after World War II. Bishop has clearly forgotten that the Cold War brought high risks of major nuclear conflict with the potential to erase life on earth and the reality of so-called proxy conflicts with the Communist powers that killed many millions. The Oslo Peace Research Institute has estimated that deaths per year from war-related activities in the first decade of the 21st century were about one-third of those during the Cold War. That figure may well have increased in the last five years but it's unlikely to have brought the average figure for the last 15 years to Cold War levels. The last major territorial war fought by regular armies – between Eritrea and Ethiopia – ended 15 years ago. That is, there seems to have been less armed conflict in the 21st century than in the second half of the 20th. Anyway, with Bishop's misunderstanding of history, it's little wonder national security policy is a mess. Adorned by the Prime Minister's constant reminders of the "death cult" that's "coming after us", a range of policies have been introduced that are: Terrorism is a serious threat but dealing with it is not helped when the demands of politics over-egg it. It looks as if policy has been fitted around a set of slogans, as it was with the then opposition's approach to the carbon and mining taxes. Or perhaps Abbott (or more likely George Brandis) has been reading Constantine Cavafy's elegant poem in which he reports a city's elaborate preparations for the arrival of "the barbarians". When they don't turn up, the inhabitants become restless. "What will become of us," Cavafy says, "without barbarians? They were a kind of solution." Second, in the era of good government, processes (including those of cabinet) designed to transform base political impulses towards a broader concern for the public interest appear to have been undermined. The cabinet system is critical. When working properly, it forces the careful definition of problems, the gathering of information, the analysis of options for action, consultation with affected and interested parties and the presentation to ministers of written submissions that enable them to make the best possible decisions. While evidence is hard to gather, the system seems to be falling short and has been damaged by leaks, even though some show the the Prime Minister in a good light. Decisions earlier this year on new submarines could not have gone through a standard cabinet process; insufficient time was allowed for it. When it came to the stripping of citizenship, an extraordinary leak indicates that an initial decision was sought without prior consultation with interested ministers or a written submission. Needless to say, the reintroduction of knighthoods into the Australian honours system did not involve cabinet (that was before the inauguration of the era of good government). At lower levels, other elements of process are also being subverted. For example, the Arts Minister, Brandis, has trousered $100 million from the Arts Council's budget, which he will now dispense like a modern-day Medici. That is, he is politicising public support for the arts. As a matter of principle, that should be avoided or minimised. By the way, Brandis has still not dealt with a recommendation for a new general manager for the Australian Film, Television and Radio School – it's not a good look given his jobs-for-favourites record. Further, as did its predecessors, the Abbott government is corroding democratic norms that posit an equal contest between political parties by spending vast amounts of money on partisan advertising, especially on its latest budget. Finally, the government has been far from shy about the abuse and misuse of public service organisations. For example: The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, said recently it's one thing for politicians to be stupid but quite another to assume that electors are. In subordinating much of policy, process and public institutions to politics, Abbott and his ministers are treating electors as mugs who can be brought to their side – the side of Team Australia – by sloganeering pitched at the lowest common denominator of public sentiment. It doesn't seem to be working in the government's favour. While there have been a few ups and downs in the polls, for the most part they've shown Abbott stuck in a losing position. After what some were brave enough to see as recent popular work on national security, the subsequent Newspoll came up 53 to 47 per cent in favour of the Labor Party. If Abbott is to improve his chances at the next election, he needs to recognise the systemic problems Kelly and Behm have identified and try to do something about them. Essentially, he should try to reverse many of his government's operating methods, for example: Of course, many of these things are easy to say and harder to do. However, unless Abbott bites the bullet on some of them he will encourage the impatience of voters and put the fortunes of his government at greater risk. He said he could do better than Rudd and Gillard but, thus far, he's been unable to. It's time. Paddy Gourley is a former senior public servant. pdg@home.netspeed.com.au

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/c24be046-cb05-43ee-aebf-26d119e93286/r0_127_2000_1257_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg