Communications minister says it has been Tony Abbott’s preference not to reappoint board members selected by former Labor government

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Malcolm Turnbull has weighed in to the row over appointments to government boards, saying Tony Abbott expressed a preference to “refresh” the members who had been selected by the former Labor government.



The outgoing CSIRO chairman, Simon McKeon, said many people were disappointed and worried about the “quite brutal rule” that no one on the board of a federal agency be reappointed.

“All I’m saying is we’re missing out on the corporate memory,” McKeon told an audience at an Australian Institute of Company Directors event on Thursday.

A government spokesman said on Friday that there was “no such policy” and that “a quick check would reveal over 50 government agencies which have reappointed board members who were originally appointed under the former government”.

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Turnbull, the communications minister, described the renewal of board memberships as a “preference” rather than a blanket rule.

“I think it’s fair to say that the government has had a policy or a practice of, by and large, not reappointing people, with a view to refreshing government boards,” Turnbull told the ABC. “That has certainly been the preference. There’s doubt about that … but like all things, it has exceptions.”

When asked whether the directive was issued by Abbott or the prime minister’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, Turnbull said: “The prime minister has had the view that we should refresh the membership of government boards and, generally, that is what we have done.”

Turnbull said there was “nothing unreasonable about saying that you want to have turnover” to refresh the membership of boards. “Of course it’s a reasonable approach,” he said.

But the shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said the alleged ban showed Abbott was “a wrecker, more interested in the cheap and confrontational politics over the genuinely conservative and cautious politics”.

“The ultimate victim of this confrontational and personal attack on serving directors of government boards will be the agencies themselves, as they lose the corporate memory and expertise that has developed over the years,” Bowen said.

He praised McKeon, the 2011 Australian of the Year, as “an Australian businessman and philanthropist of repute who has served on government boards and agencies under Labor and Coalition governments”.