Former independent senator Rex Patrick
Former independent senator Rex Patrick (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)

Can you ban the government from handing out highly paid jobs to mates? Independent Senator Rex Patrick thinks so, and will give it a go in the Senate as early as this week. 

Patrick is targeting appointments to one agency in particular, the powerful Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), which as Crikey has reported has been stacked by Coalition party figures in recent years. He has written an amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill that would make it illegal to appoint members who were not lawyers or in some cases accountants.

But he faces some challenges, namely that Labor is unlikely to support it. 

What would the amendments do? 

Although mostly former judges and lawyers are appointed to the AAT, there is a special provision that allows members with no legal experience to be appointed as long as they have “special knowledge of skills relevant to the duties of a senior member or member”. 

Patrick says this special knowledge is too often the phone number of the attorney-general. 

“The AAT is the place Australians go to address wrongs in administrative decision-making through a process which is fair, just, economical, informal and quick,” he said.

“They don’t need to turn up and find that the matter will be heard by someone without legal qualifications and who are only sitting on the bench because they were a former politician or staffer or friend of a government minister.”

Why won’t Labor support it? 

Labor has frequently criticised the government for appointing mates to high-paying roles, including at the AAT. But a spokesman for shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said Patrick’s bill amendment would not “ban” political mates from being appointed to the AAT.

“Rather, the amendment would ensure that the only mates the Liberals would be able to appoint in the future are lawyers or certified accountants,” he said.

Patrick disputes this, saying the amendment would go a long way to preventing “appointment corruption”.

“This is Labor again pretending they care, pretending they want to stop the stacking, but not willing to actually stand up and do something,” he said. 

Why the AAT? 

Crikey has reported extensively on the Coalition stacking the AAT. Our investigation found dozens of people with ties to the Liberal Party have been given high-paying jobs at the tribunal in the past six years, despite many having no formal legal qualifications.

Labor claims that during its time in government between 2007 and 2013 it appointed just two Labor-connected members — former senator Linda Kirk and former MP Duncan Kerr, both lawyers.

Patrick says the bill would fulfill a recommendation by former High Court justice Ian Callinan, who said in a 2018 review of the AAT that there was “no necessity to appoint professionals other than lawyers to the AAT (except perhaps for accountants to the taxation and commercial division).”

Should jobs for the boys, and girls, be banned in politics? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.

*This story originally claimed that former Labor Party Victorian state member Philip Dalidakis was appointed by the Labor party. In fact Mr Dalidakis was appointed by the Coalition.