"Labor was in power for six years," he said. "Virtually everybody currently serving on the boards of government bodies was either appointed or reappointed while Labor was in power. If Abbott persists with his policy, there will be a clean-out of directorships."

Though many government ministers denied the edict's existence, it was widely acknowledged privately.

Malcolm Turnbull acknowledged its existence in March when he said: "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 and that has certainly been the preference."

Geographical diversity

There was also a perception that the process of making appointments had got bogged down in the Prime Minister's Office under the previous regime.

There was a backlog of 64 appointments waiting to be approved when the change of prime minister took place in September.

Cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos was given the responsibility for clearing the backlog and, with the Prime Minister's Office, overseeing a review of the appointment process which aims to devolve more appointments to individual ministers, and to achieve greater gender equity and more geographical diversity of appointments.

This follows a cabinet discussion of processes and an agreement there should be no "blanket rules" about who may be eligible for an appointment.


Though senior sources defend the right of the government of the day to make appointments that mean boards "are more in their own image", they concede there were practical problems with this being imposed in such a rigid way, particularly in areas that required technical expertise and the talent pool was often quite shallow.

The move to try to devolve appointments to ministers wherever possible – rather than having them come to cabinet – is part of the Prime Minister's general commitment to give his colleagues greater control over their portfolios, but also increase accountability.

Positions that would still be considered by the cabinet might include key jobs like the chairman of the CSIRO, or last week's appointment of the Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, or the appointment of an entirely new board for an organisation.

A recent cabinet discussion revealed considerable concern that government board appointments were too Sydney and Melbourne-centric and that the outlying states should get more of a share of positions.

"There was a lot of focus not just on gender balance but also geographical diversity," one source said.