A federal ICAC has much to accomplish — where do you start? Here’s Crikey’s list

After a near decade in power, the Coalition has left government integrity in tatters. How much of it might end up being investigated by a federal anti-corruption commission?

Without knowing the precise remit of a commission, it is impossible to know what will and won’t be investigated. What we do know is that the former government corrupted the processes of government in a way not seen before in Australia. It has left behind a dangerous perception of corruption in the case of some ministers and departmental actions. So much has been shrouded in secrecy.

Crikey has decided to chronicle as much as we can of the degradation. It’s not all about money in brown paper bags. 

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has done great work, but its recommendations have more often than not been ignored. And in return the government cut ANAO’s funding. Freedom of Information (FOI) processes have been rendered meaningless. Departments and ministers’ offices are accustomed to paying lip service to journalists’ questions. Accountability is dead. 

Whatever else an anti-corruption commission does, it must go beyond individual cases and repair the systemic corruption that is entrenched federally. The horror is that virtually every Coalition member has been scooped up in the net of the former government’s corruption, as millions of taxpayer dollars have flooded into electorates or former MPs, and as staff are handed government jobs and sinecures as a reward. Only a very few have left unscathed. 

Here’s Crikey’s first go at areas for action, change and, possibly, investigation. 

Grants programs involving ministerial discretion, using taxpayer money for blatant political benefit: aka pork-barrelling

• Community sports infrastructure program, “sports rorts” — $102.5 million — Bridget McKenzie
• National Commuter Car Park Fund projects — $750 million promised — Alan Tudge and Michael McCormack
• Regional jobs and investment packages — $220 million — decisions by a “ministerial panel”
• Safer Communities fund — $184 million — Peter Dutton (ANAO found no clear basis for 50% of the grants, which were made before the 2019 election; 80% went to religious organisations).

Party loyalists given taxpayer-funded positions

In the three months leading to the 2019 election, there was a rush of government appointments: almost 300, including many former politicians and staffers, according to Grattan Institute research.

Administrative Appeals Tribunal

Jobs for five to seven years, paid $200,000-$500,000. 

As Crikey has reported exhaustively, the government has given jobs to dozens of former party figures, often without qualifications and with no transparent process.

The attorney-general announces the appointments, but other members of the government have a say, most prominently the social security and immigration ministers of the day. Then there is the wider party interest of looking after state and territory politicians at a loose end after losing office.

This reward-for-service system must surely prevent any Coalition apparatchik from speaking out against the party, lest they lose their post-politics payoff. Don’t expect to see Julia Banks being given any reward. 

Boards, government agencies, commissions

There are equally dozens of paid positions on boards and government agencies that have been doled out to party loyalists. Examples include: 

Fair Work Commission

Sophie Mirabella, former Liberal member for Indi, appointed to a $387,960 a year post, due to expire in 2033.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Former MP Louise Markus was appointed chair, a part-time position paying $84,000 a year.

Australia Post 

Former MP Michael Ronaldson was appointed to the board on a six-year term.

Former president of the Queensland Liberal National Party Bruce McIver was appointed to the board on a six-year term.

Deidre Willmott, former chief of staff to West Australian Liberal premiers Richard Court and Colin Barnett, was appointed to the board on a six-year term.

The perennials 

The perception lingers in a number of cases that something not quite right has occurred. It might be a perception only, but for the sake of restoring faith in government some arrangements should be cleared up. 

Angus Taylor

• The “watergate” case, where $80 million of public money was used to buy water licences from a company of which Taylor had been a director 
• The “grassgate” case, where there was illegal land clearing by a Taylor family company.

Peter Dutton

• Dutton’s intervention to give visas to two European au pairs.

Barnaby Joyce 

• Gina Rinehart hosted a fundraiser for the then Nationals leader, inviting donors and friends of Barnaby to a $10,000-a-head soiree at her Noosa hideaway
• Rinehart flew then Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce (and then Liberal Party deputy leader Julie Bishop) to India for a three-day wedding celebration of a prominent Indian industrialist
• Joyce was paid $675,000 as special envoy for drought while filing no reports of any actual work.

Tender processes 

• An $80,000 contract was awarded without tender by the Department of Home Affairs to a company owned by close friends of Scott Morrison
• An award of close to $1 billion in COVID contracts was given without tender to Aspen Medical, a donor to the Liberal Party
• An award of more than $440 million was given to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

Stuart Robert’s blind trust

Stuart Robert, a close friend of Scott Morrison and a fellow Pentecostalist, placed his investment portfolio into a “blind trust”, theoretically to avoid conflicts of interest in his position as a cabinet minister. The arrangement kept Robert’s affairs beyond public view. 

Oversight of Robert’s arrangements was done by the Morrison cabinet’s governance committee, comprising Morrison, Joyce, Michaelia Cash and Josh Frydenberg.

Retrospection shouldn’t magically stop at 2013. All previous governments could be open to scrutiny.

The Gillard government’s sleazy deal to hand Peter Slipper the speakership in 2011 should be examined. The use of a financial crisis stimulus program for pork-barrelling by Labor, uncovered later by ANAO, should be scrutinised, as should the Gillard government’s pork-barrelling in the run-up to the 2013 election.

Pork-barrelling is defended on the basis that “both sides do it”. In which case, both sides should be facing a federal ICAC.