Power Without Responsibility?: Ministerial Staffers in Australian Governments from Whitlam to Howard

Power without Responsibility charts the rise and rise of ministerial minders – the personal staff of government minister...

Author: Anne Tiernan

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Power without Responsibility charts the rise and rise of ministerial minders – the personal staff of government ministers – under federal governments from Gough Whitlam to John Howard. Over the past 30 years, these backroom operators have become increasingly powerful, growing in numbers, seniority and status. With close personal relationships built on loyalty and trust, and unfettered access to government ministers, staffers have substantial influence on policy processes , and their existence has challenged – many say diminished – the role of the public service. Yet while they wield significant covert power, ministerial staff are constitutionally and managerially ‘out of control’. Anne Tiernan describes the contemporary working environment of political staffers, the issues they face, and the growth in their influence. In considering some well-known cases including ‘Children Overboard’, Tiernan identifies systemic weaknesses in the operations of ministerial staffers that pose risks for ministers, the public service and Australia’s system of governance. Tiernan also suggests responses such as better training, greater accountability and a clearer delineation of roles and responsibilities as means to address the ongoing problems with governance and accountability issues she so clearly identifies. Power without Responsibility will promote public debate about the role of ministerial advisors in Australian governments.

unsw press

POWER WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY

‘This is political science where it matters – at the cutting edge of power. Ministerial Offices have become major political institutions needing the sort of examination Anne Tiernan has provided.’ – Dr Geoff Gallop, Premier of Western Australia, 2001–2006

ANNE TIERNAN

ANNE TIERNAN

POWER WITHOUT RESPONSIBILTY ‘Anne Tiernan . . . shines light into some of the darker corners of government, and raises pertinent questions about reform.’ – Michelle Grattan

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Dr Anne Tiernan is a postdoctoral fellow with Griffith University’s Centre for Governance and Public Policy, and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) Research Program. She brings both an academic and a practitioner perspective to the issue of ministerial staffing and political-bureaucratic relations. Dr Tiernan has worked in policy roles in both the Commonwealth and Queensland public sectors, and as a policy and research consultant.

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ANZSOG Program on Government, Politics and Public Management The Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) is a network initiative of five jurisdictions (the Australian and New Zealand, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland governments) and nine universities. Established in 2003, ANZSOG represents a new and exciting prospect for the development of world-class research and teaching in the public and community sectors. ANZSOG has announced an extensive research program that promotes innovative and cutting-edge research in partnership with academia and the public sector (see ). In association with UNSW Press, ANZSOG has undertaken to publish a series of books on contemporary issues in Australian government, politics and public management. Titles in this program will promote highquality research on topics of interest to a broad readership (academic, professional, students and general readers) and will include teaching texts relevant to the ANZSOG consortia in the areas of government, politics and public management. Series editors are Professor John Wanna and Professor RAW Rhodes, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra. Recent titles include: • Terms of Trust: Arguments over Ethics in Australian Government by John Uhr • Westminster Legacies: Democracy and Responsible Government in Asia and the Pacific edited by Haig Patapan, John Wanna and Patrick Weller • Fighting Crime Together: The Challenges of Policing and Security Networks, edited by Jenny Fleming and Jennifer Wood • The Australian Electoral System: Origins, Variation and Consequences by David M Farrell and Ian McAllister • Cabinet Government in Australia, 1901–2006: Practice, Principles, Performance by Patrick Weller.


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Ministerial staffers in Australian governments from Whitlam to Howard

Anne Tiernan UNSW

PRESS


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A UNSW Press book Published by University of New South Wales Press Ltd University of New South Wales Sydney NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA www.unswpress.com.au © Anne Tiernan 2007 First published 2007 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Tiernan, Anne. Power without responsibility Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 978 086840 981 8. 1. Australia - Politics and government. 2. Australia Social conditions. I. Title. 320.994 Design Joshua Leui’i Cover photo Newspix Printer Griffin


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CONTENTS Foreword by Michelle Grattan Acknowledgments Table of acronyms

vi ix xi

1

New actors, new politics, new problems

2

Ministerial staffing system overview

19

3

Ministerial staffing system establishment

39

4

Developments under Labor 1983–96

52

5

The Howard agenda

84

6

Staffing the Howard ministry

123

7

Travel Rorts affair

151

8

Children Overboard affair

171

9

Power without responsibility?

209

10

Reforming the staffing system

233

Appendix

244 245 260 275

Notes Bibliography Index


1

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FOREWORD

When early in 2007 John Howard appeared to be floundering, many observers blamed the departure, at the end of 2006, of Arthur Sinodinos, Howard’s chief of staff. Sinodinos had been as important as many ministers, and more influential than any public servant. The prime minister’s troubles may or may not have been related to the loss of his long-time adviser, but the fact people inside and outside government made the link is testament to the role of ministerial staff to modern governments. It cuts both ways. High-profile staffers can be the backbone of a government, or have an extremely negative effect that grows in legend. The name Junie Morosi became synonymous with much that was wrong with the Whitlam Government. As right-hand woman to deputy prime minister and treasurer Jim Cairns, with whom she had a close personal relationship, Morosi determined who got in to see Cairns and, more significantly, who did not. Her sway over him was bad for Cairns and for that government. A few years earlier, before ministerial staff were either numerous or much remarked upon, another attractive and influential female staffer became front-page news and a centre of controversy. Critics within the Gorton Government resented the power of prime ministerial confidante Ainsley Gotto. The rise of this great army, which effectively started under Gough Whitlam, and expanded under successive prime ministers, has transformed the advisory process, for the better and, many would say, for the worse as well. Ministers have much more help available to them, a necessity in the complex world in which governments now operate. This


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Foreword

vii

strengthens their hand, both politically and in advancing and judging policy. It has made them less dependent on the public service, which they like, but this also has its negatives. The role of ministerial staff has been just one factor in reducing the clout and robustness of the bureaucracy, but it should not be underestimated. Bureaucrats often have to persuade not just the minister of the virtues of a policy but also the ministerial staff (which can improve or spoil outcomes). The diminution of public service supremacy has increased the strong pressure for short-termism in government. The natural inclination of the public service is to elevate policy over politics; ministerial staffers tend to put the politics first. Also, the number and power of ministerial staff, fosters (or reinforces), a them-and-us mentality in governments: whether the ‘them’ is the bureaucracy, or those in the outside world who are perceived as likely to be unsympathetic. There is a paradox here. A big personal staff around a government helps diversify the advice it receives, but it can also make it more fortress-like. Crucial among ministerial staff are the media minders who massage the message. They are the gatekeepers for today’s governments. Armed with formidable weapons, including modern communications technology and taxpayers’ funds, they are well placed in the battle to control information. Some ministers become, by necessity or convenience, highly dependent on their press secretaries, seeing them as a safeguard against a media they do not trust. The staff serve their ministers’ political interests but they often serve their own as well. The minister’s office has become a muchused staging post for those, Labor and Coalition, who aspire to a political career. It would be neither desirable nor possible to return to the days when ministers had skeleton staffs. But ministers and their political hired hands can’t have things every which way. There are concerning gaps in accountability and responsibility. At present, a system of ‘what the traffic will bear’ operates. In the 1997 Travel Rorts scandal, Howard’s then chief of staff, Grahame Morris, had


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viii Power without responsibility to quit over not passing on information (which he said he did not remember receiving), but in the 2001 Children Overboard affair, staff who behaved badly were protected. The ill-defined position of ministerial staff means they can be firewalls for their bosses. Both sides of politics have been anxious to protect staff from, for example, being forced to appear at parliamentary inquiries. Such lack of public exposure and responsibility contrasts with the American system, where staff are considered players in their own right and, consequently, regarded as more directly accountable. Ministerial staff have, in a generation, helped transform the way federal politics operates. Despite their centrality in the political process, the power of political staff is a relatively undocumented area. Anne Tiernan’s comprehensive study shines light into some of the darker corners of government, and raises pertinent questions about reform. Michelle Grattan


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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ministerial staff operate in the shadows of Australian politics. Their place within our political system is ill-defined and often not well understood. This book aims to move the debate about ministerial staff beyond the realm of myth and stereotype towards a realistic and informed assessment of ministers’ support needs and the structures of advice necessary for them to cope and be effective in their roles. A critical and evidence-based appraisal of the implications of the development of the ministerial staffing system is essential to this endeavour. I hope that a better appreciation of the systemic dilemmas of personal staffing arrangements might motivate current and prospective governments to give more attention to their advisory systems, and particularly to organising and managing their ministerial staff. I have incurred many debts in the research and writing of this book. Particular thanks to Professors Patrick Weller and John Wanna for their confidence in and unflinching support for this research, as well as for comments and suggestions on the draft text. Thanks to Ian Holland, Jim Walter, and John Hart for helpful comments on the text, and to John Nethercote for reviewing draft chapters and providing the benefit of his knowledge and publishing experience. Colleagues at the Centre for Governance and Public Policy at Griffith University provided support and encouragement. Special thanks belong to Liz van Acker, John Kane and Haig Patapan. Thanks also to Professor Rod Rhodes, John Uhr and Marian Sawer at the Australian National University. Opportunities to test out key


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x Power without responsibility arguments and ideas with practitioners through forums including the Institute for Public Administration (IPAA) and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) have been appreciated and hopefully have improved their quality. Special thanks are due to John Elliot and Heather Cam of UNSW Press, and to Jessica Perini for meticulous attention to detail during the editing process. Obviously the research would not have been possible without the cooperation of all those who provided background information or agreed to be interviewed, and with whom I have discussed the issues of staffing and advice over the years. I thank them all and acknowledge their contribution. I am especially grateful to Chris, James and Michael without whom this project would never have been completed, and to other family members who shouldered the burden along the way.


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TABLE OF ACRONYMS

ADF

Australian Defence Force

AFP

Australian Federal Police

AGLS

Australian government liaison service

AIRC

Australian Industrial Relations Commission

ALP

Australian Labor Party

ANAO

Australian National Audit Office

APS

Australian public service

APSC

Australian public service commission

AWA

Australian workplace agreement

AWB

Australian Wheat Board

CDF

chief of the defence force

CPU

cabinet policy unit

DAS

department of administrative services

DASET

department of arts, sport, the environment and territories

DLO

departmental liaison officer

DML

defence media liaison

DoFA

department of finance and administration

DoTAC

department of transport and communications

ERC

expenditure review committee

F&PA

finance and public administration

GIU

government information unit

GMS

government members’ secretariat

IPAA

Institute of Public Administration Australia


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xii Power without responsibility M&PS

ministerial and parliamentary services

MMG

ministerial media group

MoP(S) Act

Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984

MRI

magnetic resonance imaging

MSA

ministerial staff allowance

MSAP

ministerial staff advisory panel

NLA

National Library of Australia

NMLS

national media liaison service

ONA

office of national assessments

PACC

public affairs and corporate communications

PM&C

prime minister and cabinet

PMO

prime minister’s office

PSA

parliamentary staff allowance

PSB

public service board

PST

people smuggling taskforce

RCAGA

royal commission on Australian government administration

SES

senior executive service

SIEV

suspected illegal entry vessel

SMOS

special minister of state

SSCCMI

senate select committee on a certain maritime incident

SSCMAP-TVTP

senate select committee on matters arising from pay television tender processes

SSCSE

senate select committee on the Scrafton evidence


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ONE New actors, new politics, new problems As he strode through the centre of Sydney, to his appearance in April 2006 at the Cole commission of inquiry into Australian Wheat Board Ltd (AWB) payments to Iraq, John Howard cut a purposeful figure. Calm, confident and meticulously prepared, he exuded the authority of a leader at the top of his political game. Walking behind the prime minister, just out of the frame, but within public view, were two people central to Howard’s success. To the right was Arthur Sinodinos, the prime minister’s chief of staff. To the left press secretary, Tony O’Leary, a more familiar face, often glimpsed in the background at prime ministerial press conferences and public appearances. Both long-term personal loyalists who have worked with Howard for almost two decades (in Opposition as well as in government), Sinodinos and O’Leary were two of the most influential figures in Australian politics.1


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2 Power without responsibility Yet they have been rarely visible, known only to political insiders, journalists, analysts and commentators. They are backroom operators, political appointees, who serve on the prime minister’s private staff. An experienced political professional and former treasury official, Sinodinos handled policy and politics. O’Leary, a crusty Canberra veteran, manages the media and ensures the government stays ‘on message’. Together with Tony Nutt, principal private secretary to the prime minister, and Peter Conran, head of the cabinet policy unit, Sinodinos and O’Leary formed the core of Howard’s advisory system. Howard’s personal staff, now numbering almost 50, is indispensable to the operations of the contemporary Australian prime ministership. Within the corridors of power in Australia, the personal staff of the prime minister have extensive influence and reach. Their power derives from their relationship with and proximity to the prime minister and is wielded vicariously on his behalf. He depends on their loyalty, skills and experience; their ability to know his mind, to filter and prioritise the people and issues that require his attention; to coordinate the actions of ministers and cabinet; and to offer advice and judgment that he can trust absolutely. Such influence has not always been the norm. Historically, the primary source of advice and support to Australian prime ministers was the secretary of the department of prime minister and cabinet (PM&C); a public servant rather than a personal staffer. Figures like Frank Strahan, Allen Brown, John Bunting, Lennox Hewitt and Geoffrey Yeend, loom large in accounts that assumed a close, cooperative relationship between ministers (acting individually or collectively as cabinet), and their public service advisers (the permanent officials who had the files, knowledge and expertise to operate the machinery of government). Australia’s longest serving prime minister, Robert Menzies, for whom John Howard has the greatest admiration, was content to rely almost completely on these ‘official’ advisers, with support from a small private office staff, comprising a private secretary and two personal secretaries. Menzies also had several influential press secretaries who were


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3

‘more powerful than any contemporary political advisers’, and whose efforts enabled him to exercise ‘total control over the release and presentation of government news’. 2 The secretary of PM&C remains a key figure in the prime ministerial advisory system, but no longer the primary one. In a contestable environment for policy advising, secretaries must share the advisory space with the new legions of ministerial staff. In the relatively short period since their formal introduction by the Whitlam government in 1972, this new group have become increasingly powerful political actors within the Australian core executive. Their growing importance is reflected in their increasing seniority and status, in the progressive expansion of their role and influence, and the significant growth in ministerial staff numbers. But who are the ministerial staff, where do they come from and what do they do? What has driven the growth and development of personal staffing arrangements in Australia and what has been their impact on the provision of advice and support to ministers? Why has the arrival of these intensely partisan backroom operators provoked suspicion and resentment? And why, despite bipartisan support for ministerial staffing arrangements, do staff remain so controversial? Is it true, as some have claimed, that ministerial staff are the ‘black hole’ of accountability, shielding ministers from unpalatable or inconvenient information and providing plausible deniability when things go wrong? Do they exercise power without responsibility? Has their arrival shaped or changed Australian politics? This book aims to provide a more realistic account of how executive government in Australia functions by exploring these questions.

Staff support for ministers Australian parliamentarians employ a range of political staff. The majority assist members and senators to carry out their electorate, parliamentary and other official duties. Some support the leader of the Opposition, shadow ministers and the leader(s) of the minor parties. The focus of this book is the personal staff of government


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4 Power without responsibility ministers and other office holders known as ‘ministerial staff’. Most work for individual ministers, but staff employed in units that serve the government as a whole, or by other office holders (such as parliamentary secretaries and whips), are also identified under this umbrella term. Ministerial staff are thus a diverse group, providing political, policy, administrative, media and communications advice, and personal support to ministers. Unlike the non-partisan advice they receive from public service departments, ministers receive support that is explicitly partisan from their staff, whom they personally select. It is also highly personalised; tailored to the personality and working style of the individual incumbent. A key rationale usually given for the introduction of ministerial staff was ministers’ need for help. 3 It has long been recognised that the scope of a minister’s responsibilities far exceeds the capacities of any individual. Their need for help to cope with the demands of their jobs has seen the emergence of a variety of advisory models. In Westminster systems, a politically neutral, tenured public service supplanted earlier models of patronage and ‘court politics’, and became the dominant form of support. It required a partnership between ministers and professional and impartial public servants, whose permanence ensured continuity even when governments changed. The public service provided advice to make and implement policy, giving it a virtual monopoly over the provision of advice and support to ministers. Over time, however, ministers became frustrated with the power of the public service, particularly the senior cadre known as ‘the mandarins’. Permanence came to be associated with belligerence and complacency. As ministers became better educated, more professional and ambitious, they pressed for reforms to break the public service monopoly, and make it more responsive to political direction. The recruitment of staff personally selected to work in ministers’ private offices was an important aspect of this reform agenda. Ministers’ demand for additional support can be seen as an attempt to bolster their capacity to deal with the problem of overload, to assert control over policy, and to function effectively


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5

in an increasingly competitive and professionalised political and policy environment. Leaders in all types of political systems are reshaping advisory arrangements to cope with common pressures. Important changes in the context of executive leadership over recent decades have made the task more complex. Leaders are under pressure from forces including: rapid developments in technology, public expectations about the roles that leaders will play, the political demands of the electronic media, fragmentation, institutional pluralisation and a generally more crowded and competitive political and policy space.4 Trends in the evolution of the Australian ministerial staffing system, towards large, centralised, active and partisan staffing arrangements reflect the international experience (Peters, Rhodes & Wright 2000). But, as the next chapter shows, Australian arrangements have developed along a rather different trajectory to British and Canadian equivalents. Australian ministers have long relied on key personal advisers, but these arrangements tended to be sporadic and ad hoc. Until 1972 ministerial office staffs were small, comprising secretarial staff, a press secretary who often doubled as the minister’s political adviser, and a private secretary, often but not invariably seconded from the minister’s department. In the three decades since, the advisory arrangements supporting Australian ministers and prime ministers have been transformed. Ministers have asserted their right to greater support from their ministerial staff, and to determine the arrangements by which it is provided. Successive governments have built on the foundations of their predecessors, developing staffing arrangements to suit their operating styles and position them to respond to the contested and unforgiving environment of professional politics. But demand factors, though significant drivers of staff system growth and development, are of themselves not sufficient to explain the nature of ministerial staffing arrangements as they have evolved. Environmental factors, notably the expectations of other political actors including interest groups, the political party, parliament, the media, and so on are also important. Ministerial staff positions are a reward for personal and party loyalty. They


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6 Power without responsibility have become a training ground both for the next generation of politicians and a broader supply of political professionals who move between Canberra and state jurisdictions as election outcomes determine. In the US context, Walcott and Hult (2004; 1995) identify three clusters of explanatory variables that account for the emergence, stability, nature and differentiation of presidential staff structures. 5 These include first, environmental factors noted above, and second ‘presidential choice’, the influence of individual presidents’ personalities and working styles on staffing arrangements. Organisational factors are a third set of variables, recognising that as organisations become more complex they develop their own dynamics. Walcott and Hult (2004, p 9; 1995 p 5) identify the ‘path dependence’ of presidential staffing structures, noting the decisions and choices of one administration can affect later organisational patterns, shaping and constraining presidential choices. They note that often the expectations of external actors reinforce the tendency to retain certain structures and arrangements. The persistence of staffing structures and practices across governments of different political hues suggests that ‘deep structures’ are becoming evident within the Australian ministerial staffing system (Moe 1985). Organisational factors are thus also an important influence on its shape and operations. Supporters argue the growth and institutionalisation of ministerial staffing arrangements has brought many benefits. Aside from additional help for overburdened ministers, appointment of ministerial staff has created greater contestability in the provision of policy advice, opening policy processes to a wider range of ideas and participants than was formerly the case. By virtue of their direct access to, and knowledge of, their minister’s goals, style and preferences, and their greater availability, ministerial staff also assist departments in being responsive and delivering what ministers want. Staff extend ministers’ reach as well as their capacity for political control of policy, the bureaucracy, of issues and the media (Dunn 1997; Maley 2002b). Indeed it is impossible to imagine how ministers could function without such support.


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7

Proponents of ministerial staffing arrangements argue their development has insulated the public service from pressure to act in ways that might otherwise be construed as partisan. In theory, reflecting their very different skills, motivations and expertise, ministerial staff and public servants provide distinct but complementary advice to ministers. Often this arrangement works well. Bound by their shared responsibility to help and support their minister, partisans and non-partisans develop cooperative relationships based on mutual respect and trust. Sometimes, however, it does not. Under pressure, or when certain personalities become involved, roles become confused, relationships become strained, the boundaries between the political and administrative become blurred, and problems spill over, sometimes becoming public. Arthur Sinodinos is regarded as one of the most professional and effective individuals to have held the role of prime ministerial chief of staff. He was, in the words of his prime minister, the ‘ideal ministerial adviser’ (Howard 2001). He did the job quietly and efficiently, and developed a reputation for diplomacy and fair dealing as well as for political nous. But his rebuke of Australian Federal Police (AFP) commissioner, Mick Keelty in March 2004, for comments made during a Sunday morning television interview, serves as a reminder of the fundamentally ambiguous position of ministerial staff within the Australian system of governance. Less than eight minutes after he came off air, Keelty received a telephone call from Sinodinos, communicating the prime minister’s ‘extreme displeasure’ at the content of the interview. Responding to a question from Sunday journalist Jana Wendt, Keelty had conceded a possible connection between Spain’s involvement in the war in Iraq and the Madrid train bombings. Howard was reportedly angered that this could be construed as contradicting the government’s position that Australia’s involvement in the war did not increase its likelihood of becoming a terrorist target. Under intense criticism from ministers and colleagues including chief of the defence force, general Peter Cosgrove, Keelty issued a statement clarifying his comments. Though the prime minister’s spokesman maintained that regular contact with


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8 Power without responsibility the AFP was appropriate during a period of ‘heightened security’, Sinodinos’ actions were seen as an attempt to intimidate and bully the commissioner, and an inappropriate intervention by a ministerial staffer.6 While clearly acting at the prime minister’s behest, Sinodinos’ capricious handling of Keelty points to fundamental tensions in the relationship between ministerial staff and public servants. While such behaviour would appear to be a departure from the norm for Sinodinos (see Chapter 6), it reinforces popular stereotypes of ministerial staff as the ‘hard men and the hit men’ of modern politics (Weller 2002, p 72). In 2006 there were 445 personal staff supporting Howard government ministers and office-holders, costing Australian taxpayers over $44.2 million annually. The consistent upward trajectory in ministerial staff numbers has accelerated markedly since the early 1990s. Support for the prime minister has expanded considerably over the same period: from 21 under Whitlam to Howard’s current complement of around 47.7 The trend to larger, more active and partisan personal staffing arrangements is also evident at state levels of Australian government. There is now broad (albeit often grudging) acceptance that ministerial staff play necessary and legitimate roles, assisting ministers to deal with the unrelenting demands of their roles at the centre of policy and decision-making. But while institutions and actors have adapted to their presence, ministerial staff remain controversial; an important but somewhat awkward third partner in the traditional dance of executive advisory arrangements. To many they remain completely unaccountable. Their involvement in a series of controversies has raised questions about how effectively Australia’s Westminsterstyle political system accommodates their presence. These cases have exposed limitations and deficiencies in the minimalist framework developed to regulate the rapidly evolving roles of ministerial staff. Governance arrangements have not kept pace with ministers’ demands for more staff, and more active roles for them. Political practice has outstripped constitutional theory, creating uncertainty and confusion for public servants, for ministerial staff and ministers themselves.


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9

A series of controversies has highlighted concerns about ministerial staff conduct and behaviour, their relationship with the public service, and their roles as gatekeepers in the flow of information, analysis and advice to ministers. These have affected governments of all political persuasions. Under the Keating government, staff had key roles in the 1993 ‘Pay Television’ and the 1995 ‘Sports Rorts’ affairs. Since coming to office in 1996, the Howard government has become mired in numerous cases where the role of ministerial staff has come into public question. These include: the 1997 ‘Travel Rorts’ affair (where staff politicised an essentially administrative process, eventually leading to the resignation of three ministers and two prime ministerial staffers); the 1999 sacking of secretary of the department of defence, Paul Barratt (which began as a conflict between Barratt and the minister’s chief of staff over whether the staffer was over-reaching his authority); and the Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scandal (known colloquially as the ‘scan scam’) in 1999 (where details of a confidential budget initiative were apparently leaked to an interest group); a road funding controversy in 2001 that claimed the jobs of two staff in the office of former deputy prime minister John Anderson (over their failure to bring to the minister’s attention the adverse findings of an audit report); the Keelty affair in 2004; and the 2005 controversy over the role of staff in the approval of funding grants provided under the Regional Partnerships and Sustainable Regions programme. Concerns about ministerial staff have also been expressed in several of the Australian states. 8 For many, the 2001 ‘Children Overboard’ affair, in which ministerial staff played key roles, crystallised their problematic potential. The senate select committee on a certain maritime incident (SSCCMI), which investigated the controversy, identified a number of instances where, in its judgment, ministerial staff had ‘embroiled agencies improperly as means to advisers’ politically partisan ends’, where they had created confusion, or where their conduct had been improper or discourteous. Of particular concern was what the committee described as a ‘serious vacuum of accountability at the level of ministers’ offices’ (SSCCMI 2002, p xxxiii).


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10 Power without responsibility A heated public debate about the role and accountability of ministerial staff ensued. They were described as ‘the new class of untouchables’, an ‘accountability-free zone’, and as ‘unelected rulers’ whose growing power and influence has ‘distorted the traditional values of the Westminster system of government’ and ‘the notion of an independent public service’. 9 Terms like ‘plausible deniability’ and ‘executive privilege’ entered the Australian lexicon, as reformers pressed for changes to strengthen the accountability of ministerial staff and accommodate the realities of their expanded roles. Ministers and government senators meanwhile downplayed suggestions there were any problems with staffing arrangements, resisting calls for greater scrutiny and accountability as overwrought and a threat to the principle of individual ministerial responsibility. Ministers value the support they receive from their personal staff. They are wary of reform proposals that might limit their flexibility to develop arrangements to suit their needs and preferences. In the United States, the problems of political staffing are well documented (see Chapter 9). Four broad themes recur in debates about the personal staff of American presidents. First, there are problems of staff conduct and behaviour. Staff are accused of being arrogant, aggressive, impatient and imperious in their dealings, especially with bureaucrats. Second, staff may disrupt relationships between the president and key governmental actors, particularly cabinet and the public service, with deleterious impacts on both process and performance. A third problem is associated with increasing staff numbers. Larger numbers of staff impose additional administrative burdens on presidents, making it more difficult for them to ensure staff are acting on their authority and in their interests. Finally, there is the problem of how to manage and control the staff and make them accountable. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, a need to curtail the activities of the White House staff and to strengthen their management was identified. Presidential studies scholar, John Hart (1995, p 7) notes, ‘there was a widely shared feeling that the presidential staff system was out of control – too large, too


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11

powerful, too unaccountable, too inexperienced, too isolated, and counterproductive to the proper functioning of government’. Critics argued there were systemic problems with the presidential staffing institution, a view reinforced by frequent scandals and controversies involving presidential aides. Hart (1995, p 11) notes that presidents from Nixon to Clinton have had problems with the ‘behaviour, role and function of their closest aides’.10 George W Bush has also encountered staffing problems.11 Australia’s ministerial staffing system is far larger and further developed than its Canadian and British equivalents, but in these countries too the emergence of personal staff as a political force has raised serious concerns (see Chapter 9). In Canada, ‘exempt staff’ (so called because they are exempt from certain provisions of the Public Service Employment Act 1985 relating to their hiring, firing and pursuit of partisan activities), have become involved in a number of scandals, most notably the 1964 ‘Rivard’ and 1991 ‘AlMashat’ affairs.12 More recently, the exempt staff of former prime minister, Jean Chrétien, and those of the minister for public works and government services, Alfonso Gagliano, were implicated in the ‘sponsorships scandal’, which in February 2006, brought down the Liberal government of Paul Martin. Justice John Gomery, who headed the commission of inquiry into the affair, was critical of the involvement of political staff from the prime minister’s office in the administration of a government programme and the serious irregularities that ensued. He also criticised Chrétien and Gagliano for refusing to accept responsibility for the actions of their exempt staff (Gomery 2005). Gomery commissioned a special report on the role of exempt staff; it rehearsed similar themes to those canvassed in the United States and Australia. Describing exempt staff as the ‘statutory orphans’ of the Canadian parliament, its author, Liane Benoit, was critical of the lack of clear and shared understandings about the boundaries and parameters of their roles. She argued for ‘a comprehensive set of standards for political staff … supported by appropriate mechanisms for reporting, oversight and sanction’ (Benoit 2006). Gomery recommended better training for exempt


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12 Power without responsibility staff, that they be prohibited from directing public servants, and that they be subject to a code of conduct. In April 2006, the new government of Conservative Party prime minister, Stephen Harper, introduced the Federal Accountability Act 2006, which gave effect to some of Gomery’s recommendations, but not more stringent regulation of ministerial exempt staff (Smith 2006). In the UK, the doubling in the number of ‘special advisers’ under the Blair government has attracted criticism (see Chapter 9). Beyond matters of cost and numbers, debate has focused on the role, conduct and behaviour of the staff, particularly the political and media staff, known pejoratively as ‘spin doctors’. Two cases have become emblematic of anxieties about the developing role of special advisers within the British system of government. The first involved Jo Moore, special adviser to the British secretary of state for transport, local government and the regions, Stephen Byers. Within an hour of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001, Moore sent an email to the department’s director of communications, a civil servant, suggesting that ‘this was a very good day to get out anything we want to bury’ (Blick 2004, pp 13–15). Although it did not become public until a month later, when it was leaked to The Independent newspaper (presumably by a disgruntled civil servant), Moore’s comment provoked a storm of outrage. For many it was proof positive of the Labour government’s cynicism and obsession with media manipulation and spin. Blair and Byers stood by Moore, arguing her ‘error of judgment’ did not warrant her sacking. Moore apologised for her ‘mistake’ in sending the email but after allegations emerged about her capricious dealings with civil servants and of other efforts to ‘bury’ bad news, her position became untenable and she resigned in February 2002. Byers tendered his resignation in June 2002. A subsequent public administration select committee inquiry into the affair led to the establishment of an independent review into government communications. The second and perhaps even more controversial case concerned the role of special advisers in Number Ten in the preparation of intelligence dossiers justifying the British government’s


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13

decision to join the United States’ ‘coalition of the willing’ in the war in Iraq. At issue were allegations that the prime minister’s office pressured intelligence analysts to provide evidence in support of a troop commitment, and that they facilitated poor and informal processes for cabinet decision-making. The suicide of weapons expert, Dr David Kelly, following revelations that he was the source for media reports of concerns about the contents of the dossier, focused attention on the tactics and strategies that political staff might use against critics of the government.13 There is thus growing awareness that personal staff are an awkward fit in Westminster-style political systems. In Australia, there are concerns that their presence has challenged, and, some argue, diminished, the role of the public service in the provision of advice and support to ministers. There are particular worries about the accountability of ministerial staff and about their conduct and behaviour. That similar anxieties are being expressed in Canada and Britain lends support to Hart’s contention that ‘although some of the many problems associated with the development of the White House staff may be unique to that institution; some of those problems may also be endemic in the very nature of political staffing’ (Hart 1995, p 2). There is mounting evidence internationally that political staff are a potential management problem. In addition to understanding their place in the political system therefore, we need also to consider the adequacy and effectiveness of current arrangements for their regulation and control.

A promise fulfilled? The 2006 AWB scandal has again revealed serious deficiencies in the flow of advice and information to ministers, reinforcing suspicions that the lessons of earlier controversies have not been learnt. Although the government has been keen to portray this and earlier controversies as public service failures, ministerial staff are almost invariably part of the cast. Taken together, the AWB, Children Overboard and Travel Rorts cases expose serious systemic weaknesses in the advisory systems supporting Australian


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14 Power without responsibility ministers. The prime minister, his deputy and a series of cabinet ministers have at different times claimed they did not know or were not told about problems or issues within their areas of portfolio responsibility. This is despite their advisory systems now combining a large, active and partisan ministerial staffing institution with the support of a responsive, professional and impartial public service. It is therefore pertinent to ask whether these new advisory arrangements have delivered on their promise: has the growth of personal staffing arrangements ensured ministers are better advised and supported than was the case in the past? In fact, expanded staff support for ministers has brought problems as well as benefits. The Australian debate about the role and impact of ministerial staff is intense, and highly polarised. Opinions are divided between those who see the growth in staff numbers and importance as marginalising and politicising the public service, and those who believe the demands on ministers are such that they are entitled to garner support from individuals they know and trust, and who share their political philosophy. Despite the intensity of feelings on both sides, this debate is being conducted in the absence of reliable information and data about how the staffing system works in practice. Ministerial staff play key roles in Australian politics, yet comparatively little is known about them. The only book on the topic to date, James Walter’s The Ministers’ Minders, was published in 1986 and covered advisers under the Whitlam, Fraser and first Hawke governments from 1972 to 1984. Walter’s book remains the seminal work on ministerial staffing, but the research on which it is based is now more than 20 years old. This timing is significant for three reasons. First, his empirical work was undertaken during 1983–84, preceding the institutionalisation of staffing arrangements under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (Cth) (the MoP(S) Act), and the significant growth in staff numbers that followed. Second, Walter’s research was completed before two other developments that significantly enhanced the scope, power and influence of ministerial staff. These were major machinery of government changes implemented in 1987, and the


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15

move to new and permanent Parliament House in 1988. Third, throughout the period of the Hawke government, important changes were occurring in the relationship between the political executive and the bureaucracy. The third Hawke government is frequently cited as a watershed in political-bureaucratic relations in Australia: the point at which the executive achieved political control over the bureaucracy through changes that limited the tenure of departmental secretaries, and increased the power of the prime minister to determine appointments, rotations and terminations (see, for example, Campbell & Halligan 1992; Weller 2001). Constitutions change and political institutions constantly adapt to shifting circumstances – governance is necessarily dynamic – but such changes bring both intended and unintended consequences. In a relatively short period of time advisory arrangements have undergone important transformations, but new arrangements have developed through contingency and accumulation rather than from wide-ranging appraisal of ministers’ support needs. The system has been grafted onto an existing set of institutional structures with scant regard for its compatibility with existing traditions of governance, or its impact on key processes and relationships. Ministers perceive the benefits of personal staff, but seem unaware or unconcerned about the unintended consequences that have also flowed from this development. Over time, the staffing system has broken out of the frameworks and understandings which underpinned its development. Key principles have come into question as the scope of the staff’s activity has expanded, the capacity of ministers to manage and supervise their staff has reduced, and ministers’ willingness to accept responsibility for the actions of their staff has diminished. This book examines four problems that have arisen as a result of these developments. These are first, problems of accountability, specifically whether the convention of individual ministerial responsibility is an adequate mechanism for ensuring the accountability of ministerial staff. A second issue concerns the conduct and behaviour of ministerial staff. According to popular stereotype, they are young, arrogant, ambitious, impatient, and in


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16 Power without responsibility their dealings with bureaucrats, frequently bullying. This has been a persistent concern throughout the staffing institution’s history and suggests a third issue: the adequacy of current arrangements for managing and controlling ministerial staff. Finally the book assesses how well the Australian government copes with ministerial staffing arrangements as they have evolved. It considers the implications of the staffing system’s development for key tenets of Westminster governance, especially relations between ministers and their public service advisers.

Structure of the book Ministerial staffing arrangements are frequently perceived as idiosyncratic and highly personalised; geared to the particular needs of an individual minister. While this is sometimes the case, over time the ministerial staffing institution has become an organisation of considerable complexity and diversity. However, unlike other core executive organisations – the ministry, cabinet and the public service – it has a weak and fragmented governance framework. Premised on conventions of individual ministerial responsibility and assumptions derived when staff numbers were small and relations with public servants were assumed to be complementary, current arrangements provide a tenuous basis for regulating and controlling the contemporary staffing institution. Chapter 2 profiles the ministerial staffing system, describing key elements and features including the types of staff employed in ministerial offices, the roles performed by ministerial staff and the governance structures within which they work. Prior to 1972, limited personal staffing capacity existed for Australian ministers. Constrained by the physical space restrictions in the old Parliament House, and enjoying generally harmonious relations with departments, most were content to rely on the public service for policy advice, and on a small private office staff for personal, secretarial and media support. The election of the Whitlam government altered this situation, introducing for the first time an institutionalised personal staffing capacity into ministerial offices. Chapter 3 traces the establishment of


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17

the ministerial staffing system under the Whitlam and Fraser governments. It reviews the royal commission on Australian government administration’s examination of the ministerial staffing issue, noting that many of its concerns have contemporary salience. The period 1983 to 1996 was a crucial stage in the life of the ministerial staffing system. Chapter 4 explores its evolution under the Hawke and Keating governments, focusing on the growing importance and professionalisation of policy and media advisers, particularly following the move to the new Parliament House. Two brief case studies from the latter years of the Keating period show there were developing problems in managing and controlling a more active and policy-oriented ministerial staff. Chapters 5 and 6 profile the advisory infrastructure developed to support the Howard ministry. They show that many of the problems of the staffing system have been exacerbated by the emergence of a larger, and more politically-focused ministerial staff. Chapters 7 and 8 show that the government’s handling of significant controversies involving ministerial staff has undermined, perhaps fatally, the already weak governance framework regulating and controlling them. Weller (2002, p 72) notes that development of the staffing system has been a boon for ministers on all sides of politics. But as Chapter 9 demonstrates, there are endemic problems with personal staffing systems. US experience suggests this is a problem for governance that can lead to serious and even potentially criminal, abuses of power. Calls to reform the Australian ministerial staffing system have intensified since 2002 when the senate select committee on a certain maritime incident (SSCCMI) concluded that ministerial staff had been key actors in the ‘Children Overboard’ controversy. The inquiry was a catalyst for further investigation of the staffing issue, including a subsequent inquiry into staff employed under the MoP(S) Act by the senate finance and public administration (F&PA) committee. Chapter 10 examines reform proposals advanced in the wake of the Children Overboard controversy,


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18 Power without responsibility and assesses the prospects for reform of ministerial staffing arrangements. This book explores the new politics of executive government in Australia. It documents the development of the ministerial staffing institution and builds an empirically-informed account of its contemporary operations. By bringing ministerial staff from the periphery into the main frame, the book aims to provide a foundation for informed debate about the place of ministerial staff within Australia’s system of governance, and about how its newest political institution might best be accommodated and managed.


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TWO Ministerial staffing system overview Walking through a contemporary minister’s office in Parliament House one might find several discernible groups of staff. Most ministers, it seems, favour a mix of generalists and specialists. Key staff include administrative and support people who help organise the minister, take care of appointment and diary scheduling, travel, correspondence and so on. They range from receptionists, administrative assistants and personal secretaries through to office managers. A second group is concerned with the provision of advice to the minister; assisting with the policy issues that must be dealt with in his or her portfolio. In most offices, staff assume responsibility for a particular agency or a cluster of policy issues. They liaise directly and regularly with public servants, key stakeholders and lobbyists on the substance of policy, providing a political perspective on how particular issues, ideas or proposals might be negotiated, packaged


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20 Power without responsibility and ‘sold’. Political staff are a third group, taking responsibility for issues associated with the minister’s responsibilities as a member or senator, maintaining relations with the political party, backbench colleagues, and various others. These last two groups are sometimes distinguished as ‘ministerial advisers’.1 A fourth group is the minister’s media staff. Changes in information and communication technologies, notably the internet and email, have increased scrutiny and time pressure on ministers, requiring corresponding changes in the advice and support they receive. The development of the mass media, particularly television, has had an important effect on Australian politicians and hence their advisory and support needs. It is widely observed that Australian prime ministers have adopted an increasingly ‘presidential’ style of media control and management (see, for example, Hart 1992; Seymour-Ure 2003). John Howard provides a useful illustration of the media imperative in contemporary politics. During his prime ministership he has given more than 1000 radio interviews, 400 television interviews and over 1000 press conferences.2 Given the extent of his media commitments, which also include regular appearances on talkback radio in the capital cities, Howard has been the most media-active prime minister Australia has ever seen. In this modern leadership context, where a substantial amount of a prime minister’s time is devoted to the media and to the strictures of the ‘permanent campaign’, substantial staff support is needed to sustain these key communications functions. The press secretary or media adviser has assumed particular significance; these staff are at the centre of the governing enterprise, and have a significant impact on relationships with other actors, including the public service, as well as on the overall performance of their minister. Departmental liaison officers (DLOs) are a fifth group of staff found in ministerial offices. They facilitate liaison between minister and department or agency on policy and administrative issues. DLOs work under the minister’s direction for the duration of their appointment, but remain departmental officers employed under the Public Service Act 1999 (Cth), and are funded by their home departments.


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21

As this brief sketch suggests, there is growing diversity in the staff employed by Australian ministers. Functional specialisation is increasingly evident, but there is considerable fluidity and flexibility in the roles performed by ministerial staff. It is difficult to draw distinctions based on job title or perceived job role. Staff may progress through several positions within a ministerial office, from administrative to media and policy roles, for example. Their responsibilities and influence are highly personalised, reflecting the strength of their relationship with the minister, rather than strict functional distinctions.

How many ministerial staff? Ministerial staff numbers periodically become the subject of intense debate. Several different approaches can be taken to counting the numbers of ministerial staff. Because official data was difficult to obtain, analysts tended to count staff numbers using ministerial directories. This led to confusion and inconsistencies in the calculation of staff numbers. 3 These dilemmas have been substantially overcome by the recent release of government data on ministerial staff numbers, following criticisms that the staffing system is secretive and lacks transparency. Through estimates hearings and its 2003 inquiry into staff employed under the Members of Parliament Staff Act 1984 (Cth) (MoP(S) Act), the senate finance and public administration (F&PA) committee has obtained current and historical data on staff numbers from the agency responsible for administering MoP(S) Act staff, the department of finance and administration (DoFA). This data shows that by May 2006, the total number of ministerial staff had reached 445. Figure 2.1 tracks the growth in ministerial staff numbers from 1983 to 2006. As this indicates, all recent governments have developed and expanded the staffing system. Over time, the average number of staff per minister has increased. For example, as deputy prime minister and minister for transport and regional services, Mark Vaile has a staffing complement of 19. Deputy prime minister under Paul Keating,


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22 Power without responsibility Kim Beazley, who was also minister for finance, had 15 staff including two consultants. Currently around 47 staff work directly for the prime minister, while cabinet ministers have between 11 and 19 staff, depending on seniority and range of responsibilities. Junior ministers have between six and 11 staff, again depending on the nature and scope of their responsibilities. Parliamentary secretaries receive a staffing allocation of between two and five staff, at more junior classifications. Since 2001, other office holders – government whips and the Nationals senate leader, for example – have also been entitled to staff support. Another area of growth has been among staff employed as members of units that serve the government as a whole: such as the cabinet policy unit (six staff) and the government members’ secretariat (12 staff). Figure 2.1 Growth in ministerial staff numbers 1983–2006 4 500 450

Keating

400 350

Hawke

Howard

Number of staff

300 250 200 150 100

200 5

3 200

200 1

9 199

7 199

5 199

199 3

199 1

9 198

198 7

198 5

0

198 3

50

Year

Except for the first two years of the Howard government, considered in detail in Chapter 5, the total number of ministerial staff has risen consistently since 1983–84. There are now marginally fewer ministerial staff than the total number of public servants employed in the department of the prime minister and cabinet (PM&C). 5


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23

Roles of ministerial staff An important contribution to our understanding of ministerial staffing arrangements was made by Maria Maley, whose doctoral research examined the work of ministerial staff under the Keating Labor government 1991–96.6 Maley found that under Keating, ministerial advisers became an important part of the machinery of central government, performing five crucial roles in assisting ministers to navigate the complexities of modern governance. These include first, personal support: encompassing managing the minister’s time, being their ‘eyes and ears’ on policy and political issues, providing emotional support to ministers, helping them to cope with the pressures of office by, if necessary, weathering and tempering emotional outbursts. Providing intellectual support by acting as a sounding board to develop and debate ideas is another aspect of personal support. A second role identified by Maley is ‘political support’. This includes assisting the minister with ‘parliamentary work’: consulting and negotiating on legislation, helping them to prepare for question time. Political support involves working with the party on local or regional issues, on policy directions and new policy ideas for election campaigns. It also includes political positioning: the development of tactics and strategies to attract and maintain political support, and to attack opponents. A task described by staff as ‘issue management’ – helping ministers to capitalise on political opportunities or to manage the fallout of political problems – is another major political support role. Assisting ministers with communication is a third role identified in Maley’s research. It includes political communication and articulation, speech writing, media presentation, as well as the packaging and promotion of policy initiatives and decisions. Media management is an increasingly important and specialised dimension of this role, as are the linkage roles played by staff. Maley (2002b, p 76) found ministerial staff are ‘essential channels of information’ within government, exchanging information across the complex networks of policy and decision-making, and mediating ministers’ relationships with key players.


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24 Power without responsibility Ministerial staff have become increasingly important in policy matters and are a major alternative source of policy advice. ‘Steering policy’ is a fourth major role performed by ministerial staff (Maley 2002b, pp 83–88). This includes helping ministers to engage departments in policy, by supervising, orienting and mobilising the work of the department. It also involves their own engagement in policy-making; generating ideas, developing policy proposals and policy implementation (Maley 2000b). A final role is coordination. Ministerial staff played crucial roles in coordinating within the Hawke and Keating governments; both within portfolios (between portfolio and other ministers), and within the ministry (between ministerial offices) (Maley 2002b, pp 88–91). The prime minister’s office (PMO) and the offices of key economic ministers (treasury and finance) were particularly influential in policy and political coordination, ensuring greater control and cohesion across the ministry. Later chapters confirm similarly crucial coordinating roles are being performed by Howard government ministerial staff. It is often argued that ministerial staff offer political support which it would be either impossible or inappropriate for public servants to provide. The staffing system is thus premised on the assumption that staff and public servants provide distinct but complementary advice and support to ministers, based on their respective skills and expertise. Sandy Hollway, a former departmental secretary and head of the PMO under Hawke characterised these differences as follows: The public servant should contribute depth of analysis, sustained coverage of issues over long periods of time, an understanding of how realities of implementation need to influence policy design, the capability to test an idea and subject it to critical analysis, a capacity to flesh out proposed initiatives, a corporate memory and an ability to comprehend the diversity of perspectives and stakeholders on any particular issue. The ministerial staffer’s particular contributions will be fast footwork, capacity for troubleshooting, immediate access


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25

to the minister of a kind a public servant generally does not have, a personal closeness to the minister, a relationship of trust and savvy about the political, media and parliamentary environments [Hollway 1996, p 135].

Current secretary of PM&C, Dr Peter Shergold (2003b, p 4), offers a similar, more contemporary view: There is, I believe, an essential difference between public servants and ministerial staff. We have equally important but quite distinctive roles. Public servants are non-partisan. We are, if you will, a professional administrative class. We have a high degree of job security across government. Over a career we are likely to serve successive Ministers and Prime Ministers of different political persuasions. We have a vitally important role at the heart of public administration. We preserve the corporate memory that is placed at the disposal of successive governments. We maintain, through our Ministers, lines of public accountability. By contrast the political adviser is necessarily and appropriately partisan. The fortunes of a ministerial adviser are tied to the political career of a Prime Minister, Minister or government. Our roles are complementary. In the words of Public Service Commissioner, Andrew Podger, the two groups have ‘different responsibilities’ but share a ‘common commitment to serve the Minister’. The public service provides advice which is based on careful analysis, independent assessment and long experience which resides in large stable organisations. It should be responsive to the policy directions established by government but it is not party political.

Complementarity has become the dominant account of core executive relationships in Australia. The importance of mutual respect and trust in relationships between ministerial staff and public servants is constantly emphasised. But while these are noble sentiments, persistent controversy involving the staff suggests they may be aspirational. There are inherent tensions


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26 Power without responsibility in relationships between ministerial staff and public servants. Theoretically, competition and a degree of overlap in the provision of advice should contribute to ‘better’ decision-making by avoiding the potential for groupthink (Walter 2005, p 189). However politicians and public service leaders seem discomforted by the notion of competition, stubbornly maintaining the myth that distinctions can be drawn between the roles of partisan and non-partisan advisers. Recent cases, including those documented in this book, point to significant confusion about ministerial staff and public service roles. These cases also indicate that rather than enhancing decision-making by contesting public service advice, the aggressive pursuit of responsiveness by some ministerial staff has had a ‘funnelling effect’ (Walter 2005, p 205), limiting and stifling alternative perspectives, and in the process undermining the integrity of advice to ministers.

Comparing staffing arrangements Australia’s ministerial staffing system differs considerably from the advisory and support arrangements available to ministers in comparable political systems. First, it is far larger. Table 2.1 shows comparative staff numbers across the Westminster-style political systems of Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. While personal staffs in Canada grew substantially from the 1960s and in Australia from the 1970s, Britain and New Zealand have only recently experienced significant increases in their numbers. In the UK, ministers’ private offices are staffed primarily by permanent officials, typically talented up-and-comers marked for career advancement within the civil service (Rhodes 2005, p 7). Table 2.1 Ministerial staff in Westminster political systems

Australia

United Kingdom

Canada

New Zealand

445

78

201

51


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27

A second distinctive feature of Australian arrangements is that ministerial staff are employed under separate legislation, the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (Cth), passed by the Hawke Labor government in 1984. In comparable jurisdictions, including the Australian states, personal staff are employed as temporary public servants, exempt from legislative provisions that would require them to be impartial or non-partisan. Separate legislation for political staff has certain benefits, notably that it helps make clear the distinction between partisan and non-partisan advisers, negating the potential for confusion over issues of discipline, responsibility and ownership (see, for example, King 2003). In Britain, the committee on standards in public life recently recommended a new statutory framework to regulate and control special advisers, particularly in their dealings with the civil service (Wicks 2003). The Blair government rejected the call for separate legislation, but accepted the need to clarify the roles and responsibilities of special advisers and to provide annual reports to parliament about their activities and cost. These changes are reflected in the Civil Service Bill, currently under consideration by the British parliament.7 Paradoxically, despite the existence of separate legislation, and their vastly greater numbers, Australian ministerial staff are subject to far weaker regulatory arrangements than apply to their British counterparts. The geographic isolation of ministers and their staff from portfolio departments and agencies is a third distinguishing characteristic of Australian staffing arrangements. Unlike their British and Canadian counterparts whose offices are collocated in their departments, Australian ministers and their staff work from parliamentary offices. Later chapters will show that since the relocation to the new Parliament House, ministers have developed more distant relationships with their public service advisers.

Governing ministerial staff Ministerial staff are governed by the MoP(S) Act and a number of conventions and assumptions that have developed over time. Unlike public servants whose functions, employment arrangements, standards of conduct and accountabilities are prescribed in


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28 Power without responsibility legislation, codes and other formal mechanisms, ministerial staff are recruited, deployed and supervised by their minister and are accountable to their minister. Their positions are explicitly political and contingent upon the fortunes of their minister.

Members of Parliament (Staff) Act The personal staff of members of parliament, senators, ministers and other office holders are employed under specific legislation. The MoP(S) Act comprises four main parts: • • • •

Part I deals with preliminary matters: the Act’s title, commencement and interpretation. Part II provides for the employment of consultants in the offices of individual ministers. Part III provides for the employment of personal staff by ministers and government office-holders. Part IV governs the employment of electorate office staff by members and senators.

The Act’s provisions are deliberately flexible, reflecting the volatile and partisan nature of political office. Prime ministers determine the broad parameters within which ministers may engage and deploy staff, including the allocation of staffing resources, classification and remuneration levels. They also determine the employment conditions of all MoP(S) staff; the Act does not require that these take any particular form. The terms and conditions for MoP(S) Act staff, including ministerial staff, are now set out in: •

terms and conditions prescribed under the MoP(S) Act;

•

certified agreements (CAs) periodically negotiated with MoP(S) Act staff and accompanying guidelines;

•

individual employment agreements, being Australian workplace agreements (AWAs) or written agreements with ministerial consultants;

•

other relevant employment legislation such as the Maternity Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1973; and


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•

29

ministerial determinations made under the MoP(S) Act [ANAO 2003, p 32].

Before December 1999, terms and conditions for MoP(S) Act employees were the same as the Australian public service (APS) unless otherwise determined. In 1999 this formal link was removed through amendments to the MoP(S) legislation arising from implementation of the new Public Service Act 1999 (Cth). These amendments removed provisions in the MoP(S) Act that gave the public service commissioner a role in reintegrating public servants working in MoP(S) positions back into public service jobs. Under the new provisions the commissioner has no role in relation to MoP(S) staff. Instead, the prime minister may issue directions under the Public Service Act. These have been used to preserve a right of return to the public service of APS employees who have taken a position as a ministerial staffer (F&PA 2003, p 8). In a further consolidation of prime ministerial authority over personal staffing arrangements, all determinations about MoP(S) staff terms and conditions are now made by the prime minister, who has delegated some of his powers under the legislation to the special minister of state (SMOS). 8 Prime ministers also set the tone for the culture within which ministerial staff work. They thus have a decisive influence on the shape and style of ministerial staffing arrangements although powerful and influential ministers, such as the treasurer, the minister for finance and administration and sometimes the government leader in the senate, have a degree of autonomy over the organisation and conduct of their offices. Within offices arrangements reflect the personality, preferences and working style of the individual minister. While there may be some differences in the roles and functions performed by staff within different ministerial offices, the centralisation of staff allocation in the hands of the prime minister, which has reached new heights under the Howard government, ensures most share a broadly similar organisation and structure.


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30 Power without responsibility

Recruiting and selecting ministerial staff There are diverse pathways to employment as a ministerial staffer. It is common to be recruited in Opposition where smaller numbers and the task of preparing for government fosters close working relationships between staffers and their ‘boss’ (see L’Estrange 1996; Warn 1996). By bi-partisan agreement, the Opposition receives a staffing establishment calculated at around 21 per cent of the government’s staffing entitlements (F&PA 2003, p 11), although Labor has complained recently that a major disparity between government and Opposition staffing has developed under Howard (Senate, Debates, 13 June 2006, p 184). It can be difficult to attract quality staff in Opposition, especially since, given the tendency for long-term governments in Australia, and the benefits of incumbency, the quest for the treasury benches can be long and arduous. Unlike public servants who are selected on merit, ministerial staff are recruited and selected according to what Biggart (1985) describes in the US context as ‘particularist criteria’: on the basis of their relationship with the minister; for reasons of loyalty, trust and patronage, as much as for specific skills or competencies. Ministers emphasise the benefits of having support from people who share their philosophy and who have valuable links to the local constituency, party and wider community (Howard 1998; 2001). The presence of staff with relevant credentials and experience can bolster ministers’ confidence and comfort in dealing with portfolio departments and agencies. Ministerial staff positions can be a reward for services rendered. Politicians incur many debts on the road to ministerial office. As one former Howard government minister observed: Opposition frontbenchers rely very heavily on personal staff and they don’t like to walk away from them on transition to government. [Reward for loyalty] is very much part of the equation. If you’ve done the barren years of opposition – the hard slog of B-grade motels and 6 am starts day after day, month after month, then suddenly the junior frontbencher becomes a minister and says ‘Goodbye, I’m now in the hands


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31

of the department and I don’t need you anymore’. Well, that is against the Australian commitment to loyalty and mateship and all. But there is something else operating in the back of the mind of the person involved and that is I just need to keep a healthy balance viz a viz my new department – a conduit created by those personal ministerial staff.

People seek ministerial staff positions for different reasons. Some are motivated by a particular policy or ideological agenda; some want to ‘make a difference’; some relish the prospect of travel and excitement and the rush of being at ‘the centre of things’. Some have an investment in the political career of their minister, or are attracted by the opportunity of helping a charismatic person achieve his or her political vision. Most come for the experience. A position on a minister’s staff is a strategic career opportunity; an invaluable source of experience and contacts, and potentially a ‘fast-track’ to more lucrative positions, often in lobbying and governmentbusiness relations.9 Increasingly working on a minister’s staff is an essential apprenticeship for one’s own political ambitions. Thirty-eight per cent of current parliamentarians (from all sides of Australian politics) have previously worked in ‘politics-related jobs’, including 17 per cent as political staffers.10 A significant proportion of Howard government staffers have achieved or sought preselection at federal, state and local government levels. Anderson (2006, p 176) argues that as a consequence, staff tend to be more aligned to the political culture than oriented to policy concerns. Traditionally, a significant proportion of people working in ministerial staff positions were drawn from public service backgrounds, selected for their expertise in the portfolio. The MoP(S) Act facilitated smooth transitions between departments and ministerial offices. Under the Keating government, the proportion of staff with some bureaucratic experience was around 70 per cent (Maley 2002b, p 293). For many public servants, working as a staffer was a professional development opportunity that enabled them to develop more sophisticated understandings of ministers’ advisory needs. Such secondments were actively


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32 Power without responsibility encouraged, including among the senior executive service (SES). The lack of survey data on the backgrounds of Howard government ministerial staff makes comparison impossible; however anecdotal evidence suggests fewer are now coming to staff positions with previous experience of working in government (F&PA 2003, p 84). It was suggested by respondents to this study that officials are less inclined to seek secondments to MoP(S) positions out of concern they could be perceived as being politically aligned.

Employment framework The employment framework for ministerial staff ties the fortunes of the individual staffer to those of their minister. Ministerial staff have no employment security. They can be easily terminated, though they receive generous severance payments. Their job is to serve, support and seek to advance their minister’s interests. Their tenure lasts as long as they are of value to their minister. The highly personalised nature of the employment contract encourages close and interdependent relationships between ministers and their staff, but it can also create perverse incentives. For example, there is a powerful self-interest motive for staff to zealously pursue political advantage, especially if it improves the minister’s stocks in the eyes of his or her colleagues and the public. Their minister’s career, and by extension their own, may be enhanced by such a course. This dilemma is highlighted by former Coalition media adviser and now Howard government health minister, Tony Abbott (1997): To work extremely hard for someone else to get the credit, to be completely frank with your boss, but utterly discreet with everybody else, to be deeply involved in politics without becoming a political player oneself and constantly to judge not what’s right so much as what’s right for the minister, takes a special kind of vocation [author emphasis].

In his seminal study of ministerial staffing arrangements, Walter (1986, p 188) noted that for most, a career on a minister’s staff


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was likely to be a short-term prospect. More recently, Maley (2002b) has identified the development and professionalisation of the staffer’s career as one of the major changes that occurred under the Hawke and Keating governments. Later chapters of this book will show that these trends have continued and arguably accelerated under the Howard government.

Managing staff Currently, responsibility for the supervision and management of ministerial staff rests with ministers, who may lack the time, energy or inclination to monitor their performance (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 2 September 2003, pp 79–80). This has created an additional burden on ministers already struggling to cope with the demands of office. Over time, as demands on ministers have increased, it has become increasingly implausible that ministers can directly manage and supervise their staff. However the system has not yet developed formal alternative arrangements to address this obvious management gap. In practice, supervision has defaulted to senior ministerial staff. As the average number of staff serving individual ministers has grown, an experienced, more senior staffer, now conventionally termed ‘chief of staff’, has assumed responsibility for coordinating the activities of the ministerial office. The extent to which managerial authority is delegated varies according to the personality and style of the minister. Over time the chief of staff position has grown in status and significance, nowhere more so than in the PMO. Recognising this, advocates of a stronger managerial framework for ministerial staff have suggested chiefs of staff have a potentially useful role to play in strengthening staff accountability and performance (F&PA 2003, pp 51–53). However current arrangements assume they exercise no independent authority or influence. The Howard government is the first to make explicit its expectations about how staffers should behave, devoting a specific section to the topic in A Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial


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34 Power without responsibility Responsibility. Section 9, entitled ‘Ministerial staff conduct’, directs that ministers will be responsible for the conduct of their staff, including consultants. It suggests that because ministerial staff take action on behalf of the minister, they are subject to similar rules of conduct as ministers. The guidelines for ministerial staff are focused mainly on conflict of interest and financial issues such as share ownership. It also contains conventional warnings about acceptance of gifts, sponsored travel or hospitality, but offers limited guidance on how staff should behave in the course of their duties. More specific instructions about the conduct of ministerial staff are directed towards ministers who are notionally accountable for the actions of their staff: Ministers’ direct responsibility for actions of their personal staff is, of necessity, greater than it is for their departments. Ministers have closer day-to-day contact with and direction of the work of members of their staff … Ultimately, however, ministers cannot delegate to members of their personal staff their constitutional, legal or accountability responsibilities. Ministers therefore need to make careful judgments about the extent to which they authorise staff to act on their behalf in dealings with departments [Howard 1996b].

Aside from questions about their focus, there are concerns about the extent to which the guidelines inform the conduct of ministerial staff, particularly in dealings with public servants (Uhr 2003; 2005). Since the Children Overboard controversy, considerable support has been expressed for the development of a code of conduct for ministerial staff along the lines of arrangements that apply to staff in some jurisdictions.11 So far however, for reasons that will be canvassed in later chapters, there has been limited support among ministers for this type of reform. As well as receiving scant guidance from ambiguous and fragmented governance arrangements, ministerial staff are poorly supported to cope with the demands of a working environment that is often tense and fraught. Ministerial staff work at a frantic pace, with complex and competing demands and with little time for


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considered judgment. They may work 12 to 14 hour days, often more when parliament is sitting. The workload for senior staff trying to filter and prioritise what the minister needs to read is brutal (Barns 2003a; Hollway 1996). Ministerial staff receive limited training or induction when they arrive to begin work in a minister’s office; what they do receive depends on their minister’s initiative. Unlike public servants and ministers who can access formal orientation and induction programmes, ministerial staff are expected to work many aspects of their roles out for themselves (F&PA 2003, pp 84– 86). This poses obvious difficulties for staff recruited to ministerial offices without prior government experience. Other aspects of the work environment create difficulties.12 Ministerial staff work in secrecy, primarily in the ministerial wing of the new Parliament House where the culture is insular, remote and highly competitive and where ‘the office is stuffy and overheated, the air thick with a sense of self-importance and an energy fuelled by adrenalin, crisis and intrigue’ (Maley 2002b, p 1). Given the potential for sycophancy and zealotry, many commentators have called for higher standards of accountability and closer scrutiny and monitoring of ministerial staff (see, for example, Waterford 1996). The emergence of staff as executive decision-makers may fragment and further dilute the principle of individual ministerial responsibility, a foundation convention of ministerial staffing arrangements. Although the tendency of governments to redefine the doctrine of ministerial responsibility for reasons of political expedience predates development of the staffing system, concerns about the accountability of ministerial staff are a commentary on the weakness of this convention in contemporary Australian politics.

System conventions The operations of the staffing system are premised on the convention that ministerial staff are an extension of their minister. They have no authority and no power, and no justification for exercising or wielding executive authority except as so authorised by their minister. As ‘surrogates’ of the minister, staff act on the


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36 Power without responsibility minister’s authority and within parameters agreed or authorised by them (Maley 2003a; Weller 2002, p 70). In theory, advisers are constrained by their dependent status, and the precariousness of their employment situation, which depends on the strength of their relationship with their minister. Ministerial staff are bound by none of the arrangements that govern the conduct of other core executive actors. They are not subject to any equivalent of the code of conduct for public servants under the Australian Public Service Act 1999 (Cth) (Holland 2002a, p 18; McKeown 2004). Their actions are not reported in departmental annual reports, and they are not subject to audits or other forms of public scrutiny. The auditor-general has no power to investigate the conduct of ministerial staff, except when conducting an audit of administrative systems. Although proposals have been mooted, neither side of Australian politics has indicated any enthusiasm for the auditor-general’s powers to be extended in this way (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 25 February 1998, p 123). However, ministers may agree for their staff to be interviewed by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) under the provisions of section 20 of The Auditor-General Act 1997.13 According to Hollway (1996, p 142), the lack of governance arrangements for ministerial staff creates a situation in which: There may now be no group of people in the contemporary system of government in Canberra who in fact have such a high ratio of power (considerable) to accountability (limited) as ministerial staff.

In theory, following the doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility, ‘ministerial staff are accountable to the minister and the minister is accountable to the parliament and, ultimately, the electors’ (House, Debates, 12 March 2002, p 995). Ministers thus have a ‘vicarious liability’ and are responsible for the actions of their staff (Waterford 1996). Two working assumptions derive from the convention that the accountability of ministerial staff is addressed through the principle of individual ministerial responsibility. First, because


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they act in the name of the minister, it is assumed that when they ask for information or advice, or propose a particular course of action, they are doing so with the minister’s authority. Second, advising a ministerial staffer is the same as advising the minister.14 Don Russell (2003, p 2) argues that: As long as ministerial staff are viewed as an extension of their minister, there is a structure of accountability that can accommodate a growing role for the ministerial adviser … If staff cease to be an extension of their minister and ministers can disown their staff, then a major gap in accountability is created.

Since the behaviour of staff is presumed to be controlled by ministers, both Labor and Coalition governments have resisted calls for ministerial staff to appear before parliamentary committees. But as will be seen in later chapters, recent controversies in which ministers have refused to take responsibility for the actions of their staff have called into question the validity of this assumption, raising concerns that staff are operating in a managerial and constitutional vacuum. Constitutionally, the lack of accountability of ministerial staff exposes the shortcomings of the convention of individual ministerial responsibility as a mechanism for regulating and governing their activities. In his study of ministerial staff under Hawke–Keating and the nascent Howard government, visiting North American academic Delmer Dunn, found the staff were conscious of their unelected status and ‘appropriately sensitive’ to the limits of their discretion. He concluded that: In a real sense, as staff work in a ministerial office, they acquire knowledge of norms and expectations that govern their behaviour and in that sense, develop an internal guide to direct their action [Dunn 1997, p 105].

Others are more sceptical, noting that ‘the basis or limits of ministerial staff authority are not always known and sometimes not necessarily understood even between the minister and the staffer’


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38 Power without responsibility (Waterford 1996, p 87). Dunn (1997, p 107) concedes that given the increasing roles being played by staff, more attention is needed to the ‘appropriate political direction of ministerial staff’. The deficiencies of the framework for regulating and controlling ministerial staff have become more clearly apparent as the staffing system has grown and developed. Here parallels to US experience are instructive. Presidential staffing scholars Charles Walcott and Karen Hult argue that by the 1960s it was clear the White House staff was too large and complex to be governed on an ad hoc basis. Moreover, presidents no longer had time to cope personally with issues of staff management. They argue that as the demands on the executive, and the structures for coping with them escalate, there is a need for additional structuring to provide coordination (Walcott and Hult 2004, p 9). Similarly in the Australian context, it is likely that the problems of staff exposed by recent cases have developed over time, rather than being attributable to a particular incident, administration or timeframe. Since current problems have their origins in the staffing system’s growth and evolution, subsequent chapters trace the development of staffing arrangements over its 30-year history.


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THREE Ministerial staffing system establishment

Whitlam’s modest beginnings The election of the Whitlam government brought important changes to Australian government and politics. Particularly significant were its efforts to develop and expand ministerial staffing arrangements. Whitlam’s reasons for preferring that his ministers be supported by personal advisers have been extensively traversed.1 Mediansky and Nockles (1975, p 210) argue ‘the main thrust of [these] changes was to assail the virtual monopoly of the public service in the formulation and coordination of public policy in order to strengthen the control of ministers over policy creation and implementation’.


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40 Power without responsibility After 23 years in Opposition, Labor came to office with a reformist policy platform that its supporters were anxious to see implemented. Whitlam ministers wanted to avoid being ‘run’ by Canberra’s permanent public service elite. Labor attitudes towards the public service were influenced by contemporary debates about the secrecy and unrepresentativeness of the bureaucracy and overseas critiques of the senior civil service.2 Bill Hayden argues ‘the complete absence of anyone with cabinet or ministerial experience in the ranks of the new government left many ministers hostage to their own suspicions about the motives and commitment of the public service which had served the conservative Coalition so well for so long’. He notes that as a consequence, and to its detriment, ‘Labor did not always harness the goodwill, excellent resources and human skills within the public service to further the objectives of the government’ (Hayden 1996, pp 166–167). Whitlam signalled Labor’s intention to seek alternative sources of policy advice during the 1972 election campaign. Then as prime minister, he used his 1973 Garran oration to assert the primacy of the political executive over policy-making. He challenged the power of the Canberra mandarins, describing them as only one part of the ‘system of support’ for the Labor government. He noted its advisory system would involve a blending of five elements: •

the Public Ser vice, impartial, responsible and professional;

•

Task Forces and Committees of Enquiry, with all or a large part of membership consisting of outside experts, highly competent in their particular field;

•

Commissions and other continuing authorities, drawing staff from inside and outside the service, investigating and managing new areas of government initiatives;

•

a new form of long-term priorities advice – a ‘thinktank’ named the Priorities Review Staff (PRS);

•

consultants and outside advisers for ministers [Whitlam 1973, p 6].

Despite its suspicions, Labor did not fundamentally alter the public


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service, opting instead for machinery of government change and innovations to advisory arrangements to enhance the capacity of ministers to implement the government’s agenda. Whitlam did, however, establish the precedent for greater ministerial choice and control over the selection of department heads. While initially controversial, over time this has become accepted practice (Weller 2001). The introduction of ministerial staff and greater flexibility to engage consultants to provide expert advice provided significantly enhanced advisory resources for Whitlam ministers.

Governance framework Labor’s initial ideas about the form and functions of ministerial offices were drawn primarily from Britain and Canada. They were expressed in a Transition to Government report prepared for Whitlam by academic Dr Peter Wilenski (Walter 1986, p 71). Earlier consideration of a French ‘ministerial cabinet’ system was abandoned in favour of an expanded system of personally selected partisan advisers whose primary loyalty was to the minister (Wilenski 1979, p 36). Of the various ministerial staffs appointed under Whitlam, the prime minister’s office (PMO) was the prototype, influenced by the Canadian model developed under Pierre Trudeau (Hawker et al 1979, p 115). Envisaged as a policy powerhouse that would drive the implementation of its platform, Labor’s plans for the PMO were much further developed than for other ministerial offices. Much thought had been given in Opposition to the role of the prime minister’s staff. Staffing arrangements for ministerial offices were not resolved until June 1973, and then only after overcoming public service board resistance to the government’s plans (Smith 1977). Ministerial staff were employed under the Public Service Act 1922 (Cth), either on secondment from the public service or as ‘exempt’ staff under the provisions of section 8A. This section, inserted into the Act in 1951, asserted ministers’ right to control and direct the work of staff recruited to their offices. Though employed as public servants, staff were ‘nevertheless regarded as being under the direct control of the minister and outside the normal hierarchy


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42 Power without responsibility and lines of responsibility of the minister’s department’ (APSC 2003c, pp 3–4). This established a foundation principle of the ministerial staffing system: that ministers would take responsibility for their staff’s actions. This was articulated by the department of the prime minister and cabinet (PM&C) in 1974: Ministerial staff are under the direct control of the Minister … They occupy positions of a special nature, outside the normal hierarchy and lines of responsibility of the Department … In view of the Minister’s own absolute responsibility for the functioning of his staff, he has absolute discretion to recruit and remove individual members of his staff [cited in Smith 1976, p 298].

New arrangements also enshrined the principle that ministers were responsible for selecting their own staff from wherever they chose, and for placing them in an appropriate grade. Ministers could seek prime ministerial approval of changes to the numbers or classifications of their staff (Smith 1976, p 296). Total numbers of ministerial staff grew from 155 in April 1972 to 209 in December 1974, and to 227 at the time of the government’s fall in November 1975 (Maley 2000b, p 49). The time lag between winning government and the development of formal arrangements for their employment meant ministerial staff recruits received limited guidance about their new positions. Mostly, they learnt on the job; many finding the adjustment from Opposition difficult. 3 There was some ambiguity about their roles and functions, and considerable variance in the tasks they performed (Anthony 1975).4 From early in the staffing system’s history, ministerial staff behaviour became a key concern. Whitlam’s successor, Malcolm Fraser, suspected much of the Labor government’s indiscipline was attributable to the behaviour of its ministerial staff; in particular professional journalists employed as press secretaries (Schneider 1980, p 39). There is evidence Labor was damaged by the tendency of some press secretaries to brief against other ministers (Terrill 2000, p 175). Whitlam’s speechwriter, Graham Freudenberg


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(1977, pp 261–266) blames one of Lionel Murphy’s advisers for the attorney-general’s ‘raid’ on the offices of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation which, he argues, seriously damaged both Murphy’s and the government’s reputations. Freudenberg (2006, p 147) described the staff in general as: a mob of interlopers, freeloaders, ratbags and carpetbaggers who had contributed nothing to the election of the Labor government and would sooner or later destroy it.

The arrival of ministerial staff attracted hostility and suspicion from the public service and the media (Lloyd & Reid 1974, pp 266–268). Some perceived them as competitors, poorly qualified and insufficiently experienced to provide policy advice to ministers. 5 In the early days of the new government, advisers in key ministries, particularly the PMO, had a high public profile and were seen to exert considerable influence. Over time, the public service adapted to accommodate the new players, but as Hawker et al (1979) note, the adjustment was two-way. Advisers adapted to work with the public service, and in the process, were often overwhelmed by the demands of routine executive work. Some senior mandarins even welcomed their contribution to relationships with ministers (Hawker 1975, p 19). The absence of firm guidelines for staff recruitment and management, and significant differences between ministers in their deployment of staff, led inevitably to problems. Hawker (1981, p 40) argues ‘the excellent few were surrounded by the indifferent many’. A number of controversial appointments were made, attracting adverse media attention. Among the most celebrated was Junie Morosi, in the office of deputy prime minister and treasurer, Dr Jim Cairns. 6 Cairns’ office was the subject of other staffing controversies, including his decision to recruit family members (Walter 1986, p 56). The lack of external vetting of ministerial staff selections was a key defect of the system with the result that ‘good ministers tended to appoint good ministerial staff and become better ministers, while some mediocre ministers tended to appoint bad ministerial staff and possibly became worse


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44 Power without responsibility ministers’ (Wilenski 1979, p 36). These experiences would have important influences on later governments’ approaches to the recruitment and selection of ministerial staff.

Assessing the Whitlam government’s experiment While initially contentious, the experience of the Whitlam government’s advisory innovations was somewhat mixed. The new advisory system provided a wealth of policy ideas, but the government ‘lacked the expertise and general administrative capacity to implement them’ (Mediansky & Nockles 1975, p 218). Ultimately Whitlam recognised the need for greater coherence and administrative discipline. During his second term he relied more on the public service for coordination and control. The policy functions of PM&C were substantially upgraded and in October 1974, Whitlam appointed his former principal private secretary, John Menadue, as secretary. The government’s initiatives had only ‘modest success compared to [their] initial ambitions’ (Wilenski 1979, p 37). As ministers became more comfortable in their dealings with the public service, reliance upon personal staff declined, and with it their influence (Walter 1992, pp 47–48). But if the real impact of ministerial staff was limited during Whitlam’s government, the long-term consequences of Labor’s experiment were profound. First, their introduction broadened the channels of advice and support to ministers, and brought the issue of political advice to public prominence. Second, it challenged the public service’s virtual monopoly over the provision of policy advice to ministers, and in concert with Labor’s other advisory innovations, provided the context for a much-needed debate about the public service’s role. Third and relatedly, ministers asserted their prerogative to engage their own sources of information and advice, and their expectations of greater responsiveness from the bureaucracy. Finally, the Whitlam government’s innovations laid the foundations for the ministerial staffing institution.


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Royal commission on Australian government administration In 1974, the Whitlam government commissioned HC ‘Nugget’ Coombs to chair a wide-ranging inquiry into government administration. Amid contention over their proper role and function, and uncertainty over whether the expansion of ministers’ personal staffs would continue into the future, the issue of ministerial staffing was included in its terms of reference. The deliberations of the royal commission on Australian government administration (RCAGA) on ministerial staff were informed by a consultancy report from Dr Bob Smith of the Australian National University and the research of Roy Forward of the University of Queensland (RCAGA 1976, p 104). It heard evidence and received submissions from current and former ministerial staff, as well as from public service departments. In his report to the commission, Smith (1976, p 306) concluded the experience of larger ministerial staffs with expanded functions under Whitlam involved more gains than losses. He found their activities varied widely, according to the needs and preferences of the minister, and the skills and interests of the staff. According to Smith, the staff were highly dependent; ‘they have limited scope for entering the political process in their own right’. He noted the potential of good staff to enhance the effectiveness of the minister, and speculated that the system was likely to further evolve. But Smith (1976, p 303) identified a serious problem that has dogged the system since its inception; the anomalous position of ministerial staff: In both normative and practical terms, relations between ministers and their public service advisers do not provide for the easy inter-positioning of policy-oriented ministerial staff … The problem with policy-oriented ministerial staff is that their presence disrupts accepted patterns of bureaucratic influence. They challenge both the formal responsibilities and informal practices of senior public servants … No matter how skilled or tactful ministerial advisers are,


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46 Power without responsibility their position cannot be accommodated easily in either theory or practice. They are a response to the anomalies generated by problems of contemporary government and their position itself is anomalous [Smith 1976, pp 303–305].

RCAGA therefore rejected proposals that ministerial staff should become active in policy advising. Instead it concluded, ministerial offices should act as ‘a small servicing group’, and that ministerial staff should play facilitative, liaison and personal support roles (RCAGA 1976, p 416). The RCAGA commissioners were ‘not insensitive to the need of ministers to have better staff resources immediately available to them’, but they felt this could best be achieved by raising the level and status of the private secretary. RCAGA’s report, delivered in 1976 was handed to a new prime minister, who would make his own contribution to the developing ministerial staffing system.

Fraser consolidates the gains In Opposition, Malcolm Fraser was highly critical of the Whitlam government’s advisory changes, promising to restore discipline and orthodoxy on government administration. He publicly rejected the extra-bureaucratic advisory system and looked to the public service as the principal source of support to the government. Ministerial staff were retained, although (at least initially), their numbers and functions were limited, to the extent that new ministers were unable to extend patronage appointments to their campaign staff as they had anticipated.7 Ministerial staff numbers reduced to 138 in early 1976, but essential elements of the structure developed by Whitlam were maintained (Maley 2000b, p 49). Initially staff were seen to be less political and visible than their Labor counterparts. This situation did not last long, however, as Coalition ministers realised the value of their private office staff (Mediansky & Nockles 1981, p 405). As an active and interventionist prime minister, Fraser was concerned to develop an advisory infrastructure that would enable him to understand and influence the cabinet agenda, and


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provide the necessary information and advice to support him in performing his duties as head of the government. Described in detail by academic analysts, and also by former members of staff, Fraser’s system of advice included his private office, PM&C, and a network of private contacts. While resources available to other ministers were cut, reportedly at the urging of PM&C, Fraser maintained staffing levels within the PMO (Schneider 1980, pp 39–40). Press secretaries were limited to the leader and the top six ministers, and ceilings were placed on the resources available to the ministry (Forward 1977, p 164). The new cabinet handbook prescribed that only the most senior ministerial staff could see cabinet papers. Obsessed about leaks, Fraser denied press secretaries access to cabinet documents and ministerial staff were warned of strict penalties for breaches of cabinet confidentiality (Weller 1989a, p 190). Fraser brought with him to power a loyal staff assembled in Opposition (Walter 1986, p 78). 8 Like Whitlam, he enlisted the assistance of an academic to develop the structure and roles of the PMO. David Kemp, a political scientist from Melbourne University, had come to Fraser’s attention in 1973 when he published an influential article entitled A Leader and a Philosophy.9 Again, overseas models were reviewed for their potential applicability to the Australian prime ministership, but ultimately discarded in favour of a structure developed to suit Australian conditions and the unique and relentless demands of Malcolm Fraser (Weller 1989a). The functional arrangement of Fraser’s office recognised three arenas of prime ministerial activity: administration, policy and press. Shortly after he became prime minister, Fraser identified seven functions performed by his advisory staff. These included: speech work; evaluation of briefing material/proposals submitted to the prime minister; acquisition of information from inside and outside the public service; preparation of briefing material; an additional channel for policy and other suggestions; question time; and preparation of assessments of progress in government in particular policy areas/reception of government’s policy actions (Kemp 1988, p 308). It was not intended the staff would


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48 Power without responsibility initiate policy ideas or proposals; Fraser provided his own. He needed ‘machinery that would react quickly and that would thrive on the pressures he created’ (Weller 1989a, p 21). Like Whitlam, there was overlap in the roles performed by Fraser ministerial staff, although at least initially, the emphasis seems to have been on providing ‘backup’; that is, political, policy, administrative and personal support to enable the minister to ‘get the politics right’ (White 1988, p 21). This was confirmed by a former Fraser government staffer who commented that: There is no doubt that private staffs were really meant to just keep the show on the road – to be a personal aide and confidante to the Minister. But there were only two what I would call ‘Executive Officers’ in the office at that time. They were called the Senior Private Secretary and the Private Secretary. The Private Secretary traditionally ran the paperwork and the Senior Private Sec. did everything else, including the media and the whole works. So clearly you couldn’t run with topics of your own, you facilitated and that is what I would call the traditional view of how the private office should run.

Fraser’s advisory infrastructure evolved during his term in office. Unhappy with the quality of advice he was receiving, and determined to curtail its power, Fraser split the treasury in December 1976 (Wanna, Kelly & Forster 2000, pp 95–115). He broadened his sources of independent advice through the strengthening of PM&C and the recruitment of expert advisers, many from academic backgrounds. Frustrated with the performance of his office during the 1980 election, Fraser embarked on a substantial restructure (Walter 1986, pp 81–82). Kemp, who had left for academia in 1976, returned to head a revitalised private office. As director, he was paid on a consultancy basis, at a level commensurate with departmental permanent heads, outside the ministerial officer grading arrangements established under Labor. In this position at the ‘apex’ of the ministerial staffing structure, Kemp advocated an expanded policy and political role for the office, in keeping with the needs of the contemporary


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leader as he understood them (Walter 1992, p 52), but against RCAGA’s advice.10 With 23 staff by late 1981, Fraser’s PMO had become: a more powerful policy resource than any enjoyed by his predecessors. The PM’s office was a body of senior status and impressive credentials. Within the government, the partisan, political and policy role of the office (and by extension of other ministerial staff) was now recognised. The bureaucratic element was subordinate, as the value of a politically attuned staff was asserted [Walter 1986, p 84].

Thus, although the Fraser government had come to office ambivalent about the utility of the ministerial staffing system, and mindful of its dangers, it created a PMO that could serve as a significant resource for subsequent governments. However this was ‘a late development in Fraser’s term, impelled by the smell of defeat around the 1980 campaign and Fraser’s conviction that a more effective office was essential to his resurgence’ (Walter 1986, p 85). In the third term, members of the revamped PMO were more visible than at earlier stages, and more prone to public conflicts with the bureaucracy. One celebrated case saw tension and antagonism between secretary to the treasury, John Stone, and Fraser’s economic advisers, spill over into public controversy following the 1982 federal budget (Walter 1986, pp 156–157). By 1981, total numbers of ministerial staff had reached 217, only marginally fewer than had served the Whitlam government (Maley 2000b, p 49). Highly skilled professional people were attracted to ministerial staff positions because there was greater flexibility in remuneration and conditions of employment. In addition to improved financial conditions, there was a symbolic upgrading in the status of ministerial staff, notably in the PMO (Walter 1986, pp 83–84). Changes in the media were another factor influencing ministerial staffing arrangements under Fraser. Clem Lloyd (1992, p 121) argues that:


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50 Power without responsibility Following Whitlam, the growing dominance of television created opportunities for discriminatory media policies which were essentially manipulative … In the contemporary Australian context, Malcolm Fraser had both the will and the knowledge to manipulate the media.

This potential to be manipulated by the prime minister contributed to the suspicion and distrust that marked Fraser’s relationship with the Canberra press gallery. Journalists were reportedly frustrated by Fraser’s efforts to maintain strict control over the government’s media and public relations.11 Coordination and control were pursued through the PMO (in particular, press secretary David Barnett) and across the government by the government information unit (GIU). Established in 1978 to replace Labor’s Australian government liaison service (AGLS), the GIU was initially a small office, which distributed information on the policies and programmes of the government (Parker 1991, pp 39–40). Terrill (2000, p 174) reports that the GIU’s initial budget of $300 000 per annum grew to around $1.4 million by 1982, with staff numbers growing from 4 to 21 in the same period. During the Fraser period it also took on the role of media monitoring not only of government activities but also the Opposition. Fraser was regarded as something of ‘an innovator in his media relations, employing a range of media management techniques, largely of his own devising’ (Lloyd 1988, p 251). His abandonment of formal press conferences, his control over media appearances, his use of ‘the doorstop’ interview and his efforts to ‘split’ the press gallery into print and electronic media fuelled resentment among journalists, who perceived the government as secretive and sometimes less than forthright (Parker 1991, pp 36–38). Press gallery members were sometimes on the receiving end of a personal ‘browbeating’ from the prime minister if he was dissatisfied with some aspect of a story or editorial, or he was trying to identify the source of a leak.12 The deployment of Fraser’s media management techniques required staff support – greater numbers of people devoted to


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developing and managing the prime minister’s media strategy – organising media appearances, advising journalists of doorstop opportunities, providing transcripts and responding to journalists’ requests. Thus, the staffing apparatus adapted to environmental changes – the growing demands of the electronic media – but the nature of the response reflected the prime minister’s personal style. These would become progressively institutionalised under subsequent governments.

Fraser’s legacy The Fraser government experience vindicated predictions the staffing system would survive the change of government. The legacy was a ministerial staffing system of broadly the same size as that of Whitlam, but within which the resources available to the prime minister had been significantly enhanced. Fraser’s personality and style were decisive factors in shaping the concentration of resources around the leader, but this is perhaps also indicative of the Liberal leader’s status within the party more generally. Importantly, a higher proportion of the ministerial staff in Fraser’s government were of senior status, an early reflection, perhaps, of the different recruitment pools from which Coalition and Labor staff are drawn; a distinction that has become clearer as the system has evolved. Fraser’s other legacy was the expanded policy development and coordination capacity of PM&C. Under Fraser its influence grew, and cabinet processes were systematised and greatly enhanced. By 1983 when Fraser’s Coalition government was defeated, ministerial staff had become an important part of the Australian political landscape. Increasingly persuaded of the benefits of support from a loyal private office, ministers pressed for an expansion of staffing arrangements. But they never engaged with how these new arrangements might be managed, nor did they consider how problems anticipated by RCAGA might be addressed. The next chapter traces the evolution of the system under Hawke and Keating, exploring some of the issues and dilemmas that were exposed as the staff took more active policy roles.


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FOUR Developments under Labor 1983–96

Hawke government – avoiding past mistakes The Hawke government’s transition to office was carefully planned in Opposition (Weller 1983). Between 1975 and 1983, Labor undertook extensive analysis of the Whitlam government’s failings. Anxious to avoid similar problems, procedures were developed to ensure a disciplined approach to ministerial staff recruitment and selection. Prospective ministers were briefed about staff roles and functions and, just prior to the election, Hawke wrote to shadow ministers outlining his views and expectations about how the system would work if Labor won office. He specified that all ministerial staff appointments would be subject to his approval, and that the prime minister could dismiss a staff member whose


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Developments under Labor 1983-96

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actions embarrassed the government. A ministerial staff advisory panel (MSAP) was established,1 consisting of trusted Labor advisers, and in the week following Labor’s victory, applicants for advisory positions were sought through advertisements placed in major metropolitan newspapers (Walter 1986, pp 89–98). MSAP sifted through the applications to produce a shortlist of potential appointees. Notwithstanding numerous criticisms of the MSAP process, it is indicative of Labor’s commitment to the staffing system that significant attention and resources were devoted to its conceptualisation, establishment and administration. 2 The MSAP can be seen as a first foray into what has become a standard feature of the ministerial staffing institution: a centralised approach to recruitment and selection. Walter (1986, p 93) notes that ‘it introduced an element of formality and due process into what had previously been, under every government, an entirely idiosyncratic operation’. The prime minister was not required to subject his staff appointments to the MSAP process. 3 Hawke’s assertion of his leadership authority on the issue shaped the development of the staffing institution. Under successive governments, prime ministerial control over staffing arrangements has been progressively enhanced. These powers, which include legislative authority to determine the arrangements within which all parliamentarians may engage staff were formalised in the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (Cth) (MoP(S) Act). Walter (1986, p 98) argues that to the extent MSAP functioned as a constraint on the ministers’ autonomy in staff selection, it helped regularise and professionalise the staff who came to work in ministers’ offices. Later chapters show that the functions performed by MSAP have been entrenched over time.

Support for the prime minister Labor initially maintained the broad staffing structures inherited from the Coalition. Elements of Fraser’s arrangements were retained, including the division of tasks between three key functions: administration, policy and media relations. The size of


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54 Power without responsibility the prime minister’s office (PMO) remained the same, around 23, but party and political elements were more explicitly represented. Hawke’s senior political advisers were two experienced Australian Labor Party (ALP) ‘machine men’, Peter Barron and Bob Hogg. At first most members of the office were political appointments, but by the latter part of Hawke’s term, career public servants were represented in greater numbers. Throughout, the office was managed by a senior public servant, reflecting Hawke’s personal view this would ensure the incumbent would have requisite ‘skills in public administration, established bureaucratic networks and a ready-made understanding of how to link the private office to the departments’ (Hollway 1996, p 141). At the time of its election federally, Labor was enjoying electoral success at the state level also; with ALP premiers in New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. The Cain and Wran governments provided a supply of experienced personnel on whom the newly elected federal party drew in constituting its ministerial offices. Hawke’s PMO was a group of ‘exceptional talent’ which was ‘influential in the shape of the government’s policy in all areas’ (Bramston 2003, p 67). So influential was it in the early years of the government (especially on economic issues) that in 1986 treasurer Paul Keating described Hawke’s office as a ‘manchu court’.4 Accounts of Hawke’s advisory arrangements suggest there was complementarity in the support provided by the PMO and the department of prime minister and cabinet (PM&C) (Campbell & Halligan 1992, pp 64–71). The combination enabled Hawke to be master of his government for most of his time as prime minister. He was regarded as being well-briefed, disciplined and focused, with a disposition and physical capacity for hard work. 5 Hawke had good relationships with his departmental secretaries, first Sir Geoffrey Yeend and, later, Mike Codd, both of whom developed effective relations with the PMO. Blewett (1999, p 390) notes, ‘it was soon apparent that this was to be an orderly Labor government working in cooperation rather than conflict with the public service’. Perhaps because personal relationships existed


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between the main players, there was apparently greater cooperation between staff and bureaucrats than had characterised earlier periods, and greater acceptance of the role of ministerial staff. Under Fraser the prime minister was the major recipient of enhanced advisory resources. While prime ministerial resources expanded during Hawke’s term of office, under Labor, staff resources were distributed across the ministry. This was necessary since, under Hawke, ministers enjoyed significant autonomy in the management of their portfolios. According to Blewett (2003, p 76): Cabinet ministers ruled over relatively autonomous fiefdoms, with the Prime Minister maintaining a strategic supervision and concentrating on a few high-priority issues, while leaving his ministers relatively free to develop and implement their policies. Only if a minister got into trouble or his policy antagonised fellow ministers, or of course, when he or she needed significant moneys would Prime Minister and Cabinet swing into action.

Under Hawke therefore, PM&C took a less interventionist role in policy matters than had been the case under Fraser. Although it maintained its policy capacity, PM&C’s focus during this period was process management and coordination, and in particular on developing arrangements to support the cabinet committees established by the new government as the main drivers of priority setting and strategic directions (Keating 2003b, p 370). Hawke’s office and department were powerful in areas of prime ministerial interest: economic management and foreign policy and later, the new federalism initiative.

Managing the media The Hawke era coincided with major changes in the news media. Buckley (2003, pp 36–38) summarises these from a longer-term perspective: The media experienced throughgoing changes in these years, reflected in the Canberra Press Gallery. The eclipse


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56 Power without responsibility of newspapers as a primary reporting vehicle continued, amid the rise in importance of TV and radio, particularly commercial talkback radio. The steady increase in the speed and quality of broadcasting, and the opening of more current affairs and news outlets meant that the days of the newspapers’ supremacy were over. The news cycles shortened. When the Hawke government came in, we reporters in the gallery were still all generally working on similar stories each day, whatever our medium. At the end of the 1980s, by the time newspaper reporters arrived at work an important story would often have come and gone, exclusively reported by TV, radio and the wire services for the breakfast audiences. The Gallery doubled and tripled in size. What had seemed palatial surrounds when reporters moved into the new Parliament House press gallery in 1988 started to seem cramped. Parking spots became harder to find. The old blokey hard-drinking days of gallery reporters were over. Unbelievably, the bar in the new Parliament House was forced to close through lack of business.

Schultz (1998, pp 195–229) describes the development during the 1980s of a more assertive journalism, more inclined to challenge the power of governments. She also traces the rise of investigative journalism in both print and television; significantly aided by the advent of freedom of information (FOI) legislation. Phillipps (2002) identifies similar drivers of the trend to greater professionalism in media advising. In response, the Hawke government devoted considerable attention to media and communications management. Media strategy and relations were centrally controlled by a small leadership group, who cultivated relationships with press gallery journalists. Unlike Fraser who sought to limit and control journalists’ access to information, Labor responded to pressures on journalists by providing services including transcripts of interviews and other government information (see Terrill 2000, p 175). It also developed a searchable database of newspaper clippings, government and Opposition statements. 6


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The ALP’s media strategy was conducted by three organisational units. The first was the ministerial media group (MMG); a pool arrangement responsible for providing media advice to the ministry as a whole, except the prime minister, who retained his own media staff. The practice of appointing press secretaries was replaced by shared resources within the MMG, although by the second term most senior ministers had their own press secretary, with the MMG providing pool services for junior ministers (Walter 1986, p 94). The second unit was the national media liaison service (NMLS), an entity similar to Fraser’s government information unit (GIU).7 In Opposition Labor promised to abolish the GIU which it criticised for being a government-funded propaganda apparatus for the Liberal Party. In defending the government’s decision to establish the NMLS, special minister of state (SMOS), Mick Young, argued it would eschew the partisan role adopted by its predecessor. Instead NMLS would provide government information to the Australian public in a professional and impartial manner (House, Debates, 25 May 1983, p 929). Parker (1991, p 58) reports that for the government’s first term in office, the NMLS adhered to the role outlined by Mick Young. But a review of strategy in the wake of its poor showing at the 1984 election led senior party strategists to conclude the political potential of the NMLS had not been tapped. From then on, NMLS developed into a formidable political weapon, monitoring and transcribing the comments of Opposition members, and drawing journalists’ attention to inconsistent or embarrassing statements (Parker 1991, pp 59–61). Media monitoring units like the NMLS have since become a permanent and indispensable feature of contemporary Australian politics. The third unit was the prime minister’s press office. It was primarily concerned with Hawke’s media image and government strategy, but with the two other units reporting directly to the PMO, in practice the demarcation was less clear. Hawke was a confident media performer with a strong appreciation of effective media presentation, and a preference for ‘going public’ to exploit his


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58 Power without responsibility ‘love affair’ with the Australian public. Hawke’s press secretaries included Barrie Cassidy; a television journalist whose innovations in the role included careful targeting of the PM’s appearances to demographic groups (Seymour-Ure 1991, p 397). This reflected the ALP’s growing reliance on strategic opinion polling and focus groups (Mills 1986).

Reforming the public sector A key element of the ALP platform was an ambitious public sector reform agenda. A policy document released in Opposition, Labor and Quality of Government,8 outlined a range of proposals for increasing ministerial direction and control, including for example, that a proportion of senior executive positions should be direct political appointments. It was informed by public inquiries into aspects of Commonwealth administration, including the royal commission on Australian government administration, as well as by the deliberations of two special taskforces of caucus (House, Debates, 9 May 1984, p 2150). In government, major elements of the policy were reflected in the 1983 prime ministerial statement Reforming the Australian Public Service (RAPS).9 Labor’s concern to improve public sector management coincided with growing support for political and management approaches to address the perceived deficiencies of the public service. Moreover they gave expression to a long-held view that ‘the balance of power and influence [had] tipped too far in favour of permanent rather than elected office holders’ (RAPS 1983, p 21). Between 1983 and 1991, Labor implemented a comprehensive public sector reform programme, each phase of which was intended to enhance ministerial control over policy and the responsiveness of the public service to the government’s agenda. Former Keating adviser, Dr Don Russell (2002, p 9), argues that: The public service was given a key role in the Hawke-Keating years, but it was different from the role it had played during the [Fred] Wheeler years. [10] The public service was expected to work with the government but in a way that was productive and harmonious for all sides.


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In 1987 significant machinery of government changes were introduced, including abolition of the public service board. The existing complement of 27 departments was reduced to 16. These so-called ‘mega-departments’ were directed by a two-tiered ministry; each portfolio had a cabinet minister and, in many, two or three other ministers. An important effect of this change was to reduce the volume of material going to cabinet, allowing ministers more time to focus on strategic issues. FitzGerald (1996) argues another key outcome of these changes was that ministers took greater interest in and responsibility for developing policy options. Changes to cabinet processes under Hawke created important roles for ministerial staff and provided opportunities for them to exert greater influence (Maley 2002b, p 15).

Formalising the staff Formal arrangements for appointing ministerial staff were institutionalised through passage of the MoP(S) Act. The concept of introducing political appointments to the senior executive service (SES) was abandoned; 11 the government opted instead for a new group: the ministerial consultant. The Fraser government had instituted arrangements for engaging specialist consultants, primarily in the PMO. The MoP(S) Act took this further, legislating arrangements that gave all ministers access to independent experts as well as to political advisers. John Dawkins outlined the intent of the new legislation in his second reading speech: The Government believes that Ministers should have assistance in key projects from able people who share the Government’s values and objectives or who can bring to government relevant specialised or technically advanced skills. Governments have in the past engaged consultants to assist Ministers either by the use of simple contract arrangements or by the use of temporary employment provisions of the Public Service Act [1922 (Cth)]. To that extent, the Government’s intentions are not new. There are, however, legal concerns about contract arrangements of this kind, while the use of the


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60 Power without responsibility Public Service Act could be seen as an inappropriate vehicle for the appointment of consultants. To overcome these problems, the Members of Parliament (Staff) Bill makes provisions for Ministers to be able to engage a limited number of consultants for work on nominated projects or reviews directly for a Minister, or in duties agreed between the Minister and the secretary to the department and under the secretary’s supervision and direction … By providing for the possibility of consultants working in departments the Government’s proposal avoids the potential for divisiveness inherent in any substantial expansion in the numbers of advisers working in Ministers’ offices. The scope it provides for combining the talents of career officials with the special skills of other competent individuals and organisations will strengthen the policy development capacity of governments. Provisions of the Members of Parliament (Staff) Bill will also empower Ministers and other members and senators to engage their own personal staff. As honourable members will be aware these staff are now engaged under the temporary employment provisions of the Public Service Act and decisions about the engagement of these staff must formally be taken by officials in the Department of the Special Minister of State. This is quite unsatisfactory. The terms and conditions of employment for these staff will henceforth be determined by the Prime Minister [House, Debates, 9 May 1984, pp 2150–2154]. The Hawke government’s priorities are reflected in the relative weight given to each of the MoP(S) Act’s parts. Part II, pertaining to the engagement of consultants is the most detailed. It is also the only part of the Act that requires preparation of an annual report. No similar requirement was included for other personal or ministerial staff. In passing separate legislation for ministerial staff, Labor clarified their employment status and addressed some of the ambiguities that had created difficulties under earlier governments. For example, the role that public servants seconded to ministerial


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offices should be expected to play, particularly concerning the provision of political advice, was a source of concern which the 1984 legislation sought to address. The Act formalised that, for the duration of the secondment, a public servant’s accountability and loyalty was to the minister. It also provided formal arrangements for determining the level at which a MoP(S) Act staffer could return to the public service, although this attracted criticism from public servants concerned that some returning officers were being classified at unreasonably high levels (see, for example, Dodson 1985). Passage of the MoP(S) Act was an important development in Australian political-bureaucratic relations. Maley (2002b, p 13) claims it was a crucial step in legitimising partisan advisers within the political system and provided a mandate for ministerial staff to take an explicit role in policy-making and political control. She argues that ‘the partisan policy role that had been so controversial and fiercely resisted in the Whitlam period was asserted and legitimised from the outset of the Hawke Labor period’. The expanded role of the ministerial office augmented ministers’ capacity to question and challenge policy advice in a more generally competitive and sophisticated policy space (Keating 2003b, p 370). Pay and conditions for ministerial staff were also significantly improved. The government faced industrial difficulties with the staff shortly after the passage of the MoP(S) legislation; staffers were reportedly unhappy about severance pay and the lack of flexibility in salary rates (Dodson 1984). The issue of pay disparity with public servants was an ongoing source of industrial tension as staff perceived their pay and conditions were deteriorating relative to the SES.12 In 1990 cabinet brought ministerial staff salaries into line with public service classifications. While it is argued this improved ministers’ ability to recruit and retain high quality ministerial staff (Woodward 1993), it also had the practical effect of enhancing their seniority and status. The increased seniority and status of ministerial staff was also apparent in their involvement in key decision-making fora. Whereas Whitlam staffers had been excluded from important


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62 Power without responsibility meetings and briefings, Labor staffers now participated in policy-making groups including, for example, the joint economic forecasting group, and for the first time, cabinet committees, notably the powerful expenditure review committee (ERC) (see FitzGerald 1996, p 123). The Hawke government learnt from the Whitlam government’s experience. It moved quickly to develop a legislative basis for the employment of ministerial staff. While this was an important development, the MoP(S) Act did not provide a robust operating framework for the ministerial staffing institution. Instead it reflected the Hawke government’s desire to make extensive use of policy experts from outside the public service. While the Act codified employment arrangements, it did not address other recognised deficiencies of the system under Whitlam; namely the lack of management structures or systemic guidance to the staff.

Impact of new Parliament House In 1988, Australia’s parliament relocated from its provisional accommodation to its new and permanent home on Capital Hill. Freed from the physical space restrictions of the old Parliament House, ministerial staff numbers grew from 269 in 1987 to 302 in 1988. Towards the end of Hawke’s prime ministership, total numbers stood at 325. While some of this growth is attributable to changes in the size of the Hawke cabinet, for cynics it reflected a ‘natural law [that] the number of ministerial staff will expand according to the amount of space available’ (Volker 1993, p 119). The shift to the ministerial wing reinforced the position of ministerial staff as the ‘geography of influence’ became more pronounced. With a car trip required for ministers to have personal contact with their departments, relationships between ministers and officials became more distant. Because of their proximity collocated with their ministers, there developed a greater tendency for reliance on ministerial staff. The isolation and self-sufficiency of the new building created opportunities for staffers, including the communication activity


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described by Maley (2002b) as ‘corridor work’. Information is currency in politics, but unlike in the old building where overcrowding virtually precluded secrecy, the dynamics of the new building are such that information might be gathered and exchanged in a variety of locations: the gymnasium, the coffee shop, and indeed in the corridors between ministerial offices. The role of staff as the ‘eyes and ears’ of ministers thus expanded, as did their value as conduits for information about the minister’s views as the ability to gain direct access to ministers slowly diminished. The new building also had a decisive impact on relationships between politicians and the media. Unlike the old building where journalists roamed freely, frequently running into ministers in the corridors, access in the new building was more carefully controlled. Grattan (1996b, p 218) notes that ‘the new Parliament House offers private escape routes that were not available in the old one; the Prime Minister is driven into his courtyard making it impossible to intercept him’. As a consequence, according to veteran journalist Mungo McCallum, ‘in the new Parliament House, the cards are much more in the politicians’ hands’ (quoted in Sunday Age, 22 May 1994). The relationship between politicians (notably ministers and prime ministers) and the media is one of distrust, exacerbated by competition between journalists for leaks and scoops, as well as by the development of what Grattan (1998a, p 1) describes as: an ever more elaborate media management system, and an increasingly limited amount of direct, regular and in-depth media access to the leader making the decisions.

Assessing the Hawke legacy Throughout Labor’s period in office, the roles played by ministerial staff continued to evolve. Some senior bureaucrats have argued that under Hawke and later, Keating, the balance of policy advising, particularly on issues of policy formulation, shifted from departments to ministers’ offices (FitzGerald 1996; Sherman 1998). Ministerial staff extended their ambit from providing political


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64 Power without responsibility advice to greater involvement in policy such that by 1990 some backbenchers were complaining about their power, reportedly resenting the elevation of ministerial staff to the status of ‘de facto ministers’ (Dodson 1990). These concerns would be exacerbated as the system developed yet further under Keating.

Keating government – pushing the envelope? Paul Keating became prime minister on 19 December 1991. By this time he had spent nine years as treasurer and six months on the backbench. The government Keating inherited was in crisis. It was desperate, unpopular and lacking direction (Gordon 1993, pp 185–186). According to former speechwriter Don Watson (2002, p 29), ‘the government’s cycle had well and truly finished and it trailed miserably in the polls’. From the early years of the Labor government, Keating was regarded as one of its most senior figures, second only to the prime minister. Indeed, until leadership tension spilled over between them after the 1990 election, Hawke and Keating were seen as the ideal partnership; the basis of Labor’s unprecedented electoral and policy success. In treasury, Keating developed a reputation for forging productive relationships with public servants. He also assembled a core of trusted personal advisers; a talented group with whom he enjoyed close and affectionate relationships. The treasurer’s office, which included several treasury economists, developed a reputation for loyalty, efficiency and effectiveness (Edwards 1996, pp 237–238, 287–290). As Keating gained experience and confidence, he came to rely less on treasury and more on his private office staff. A priority following his victory over Hawke was to assemble the prime minister’s staff. Most of Keating’s former personal staff, who had been warehoused in other ministerial offices during his period on the backbench, joined the PMO. Reflecting the larger size of the prime minister’s staff, and his different responsibilities, a broader group of specialist advisers and support staff was recruited. Only one Hawke adviser, Simon Balderstone, made the transition to the new PMO (Watson 2002, p 37).


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The Keating style Keating’s leadership style differed significantly from Hawke’s emphasis on consultation and consensus. Keating was decisive and centralist, preferring to govern ‘more personally or through informal committee than through cabinet’ (Waterford 1996, p 92). Many in the government were critical of the prime minister’s ‘presidential style’, his remoteness from his ministers and his lack of consultation.13 The PMO was described as a ‘black hole’, with some senior ministers expressing concern about the adequacy of the support being given to the prime minister. Former finance minister, Peter Walsh, was highly critical of some of Keating’s staff appointments.14 Neal Blewett (1999, p 160) described the situation as: an administrative shambles, with Paul acting independently in every sphere but without the physical stamina to carry things through. Thus enormous power accrues to his office and the departments are by-passed not merely by the PM but also his staff.

Accounts of Keating’s prime ministership suggest that under his leadership, policy initiation and decision-making became centralised within a powerful and progressively more insular PMO. The public service’s role in policy advising was diminished. FitzGerald (1996, p 123) reports that ‘as the Keating government saw it, policy should be essentially the province of ministers’, with the bureaucracy’s role often confined to issues of implementation. Maley (2002b) rejects this analysis, arguing that ministerial staff and public servants competed for and shared policy roles. Keating (1993, p 4) noted that although ministers were responsible for driving policy and reform, some of the ideas for reform had been ‘generated by public servants attuned to the government’s wishes’. Maley’s (2002b) study found that under Keating, the power of the PMO grew significantly but selectively. She argues that several features of Keating’s personal style help to explain this development. First, power was more centralised than was formerly the case. Supported by his staff, the prime minister took a strong policy leadership role on key interests. Second, because of his


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66 Power without responsibility interest in and commitment to policy, Keating expected his staff to play active policy and political coordination roles across government. He vested them with significant authority, including over ministers. Third, Keating was personally committed to a small number of ‘big picture’ policy issues: an Australian republic, engagement with Asia, free trade and multilateralism, cultural policy and reconciliation with Aboriginal Australians (see Watson 2002, pp 91–93). He delegated control of other policy issues to his staff who, as a consequence, operated with considerable autonomy. Maley’s conclusions are supported by the reflections of engaged practitioners from the Keating PMO. In a recent senate occasional lecture, Don Russell (2002, p 15) noted that: during the Hawke/Keating years the role of ministerial staff and of the Prime Minister’s staff in particular, continued to grow. The Prime Minister’s staff had particular standing because of their role in directing and coordinating the Staff of other Ministers and in coordinating the Ministers themselves.

But the dominance of the PMO became a source of criticism, with critics blaming Labor’s 1996 defeat on the performance of Keating’s office.15

Changes to the public service On taking office, Keating accepted the resignation of PM&C secretary Mike Codd, selecting as his successor former finance department secretary, Michael Keating. The replacement of the PM&C secretary, together with significant changes to the appointment and tenure of departmental secretaries, and the sacking of three other department heads have been cited as evidence that Keating expected no less than the total commitment of senior bureaucrats to implementing the government’s agenda (Waterford 1995; 1996). According to Waterford (1993, p 12): [It is] not that the prime minister is personally hostile to most of the senior bureaucracy, or lacks respect for their talents


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or abilities. But their ways, increasingly, do not suit his style. Their function for him is to offer advice early in the policy process, well before any important decision, and then after it, to put it into action. The injection of political sense, or the coordination of a decision with broader government strategy, is left to political staffers.

Labor’s public service reform agenda had sought to make the bureaucracy more responsive to ministers. The growth and development of ministerial staffing arrangements extended ministers’ capacity to direct the bureaucracy and increase its responsiveness. Under Keating Labor’s public sector reform ‘plateaued’ (Campbell 1998, p 207). More policy than managerially oriented, Keating did not share his predecessor’s zeal for bureaucratic reform. However during his prime ministership, important changes were made to appointment and tenure arrangements for departmental secretaries. The Hawke government’s 1984 amendments to the Public Service Act made substantial changes to the position of secretary: aside from nomenclature, the most significant was that they could be rotated every five years. But they remained permanent appointments. In 1993 the government introduced limited-term appointments for secretaries, with a 20 per cent salary loading provided as compensation for the loss of tenure. Under the terms of the agreements outlined in the legislation: Appointments are for the term specified (not necessarily five years) and the occupant is eligible for reappointment. The appointment can be terminated at any time by the GovernorGeneral and, unless that person is given another job, they cease being a member of the [Australian public service] APS [Weller & Wanna 1997, p 16].

These changes were highly significant. Before 1994 (when the legislation took effect), if the government wanted to move an incumbent secretary it had to find them another position. It has been argued that Labor’s changes to the Public Service Act, in particular to the tenure of secretaries, has undermined the


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68 Power without responsibility capacity of the public service to provide frank and fearless advice (see, for example, Barratt 2003; Nethercote 2002), and created an ‘asymmetry’ in the relative position and status of ministerial staff and public servants (Walter 2006b). Labor’s reforms set the stage for further and more radical changes to the public sector under the Howard government.

Managing the media As with Fraser and Hawke, media advisers played key roles within Keating’s government. As treasurer, Keating cultivated good relationships with the press gallery, devoting significant time and energy to briefing journalists on the intricacy of Labor’s economic reforms (see, for example, Parker 1991, pp 67–70). Many believe the gallery’s support of Keating during his battle with Hawke assisted his victory (Buckley 2003). Keating considered himself an effective and experienced media manager; he was substantially assisted by the support of press secretaries including Tom Mockridge and Mark Ryan. In the PMO however, Keating’s relationship with the press gallery deteriorated. Steketee (2001) argues that ‘once he reached the Lodge, he [Keating] became much more distant, calculating that the media coverage would look after itself, though at the same time resenting gallery scepticism that he could win an election’. The prime minister believed the media failed to appreciate his efforts and reformist achievements (Watson 2002, pp 494– 495). He engaged in frequent disciplining of journalists, stern telephone calls and editorial complaints. Unlike Hawke who was usually accessible, Keating adopted a more managed approach to media relations. Taking their cues from the leader, his press unit limited journalists’ access to Keating, carefully structuring media opportunities, notably by conducting prime ministerial press conferences in the prime minister’s courtyard, where they could be easily terminated. Although the prime minister was himself less media accessible, the Keating government’s media management was frenetic. Exploiting new technologies and the benefits of incumbency, the


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MMG and the NMLS continued to refine their strategies of media manipulation. This enraged the Opposition who described the NMLS as a ‘propaganda unit for the government and the ALP’ (Senate, Debates, 30 August 1995, p 647) and ‘a political hit-squad’ (Senate, Debates, 19 June 1995, p 1368). The Coalition pledged to abolish NMLS if it was successful at the 1996 election. In April 1994 the auditor-general, John Taylor, sought to include NMLS in an efficiency audit of government information and advertising. He contacted its director, David Epstein, advising his intention to audit the unit’s information activities. Epstein refused to be interviewed, referring Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) officers to the minister for administrative services. Ultimately the minister, Frank Walker, wrote to the auditorgeneral citing advice from the attorney-general’s department that the inquiry was ultra vires the Audit Act 1901 (Cth) (Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 609). Labor senator Bob McMullan noted the potential for parliament to amend this situation through the provisions of the new Auditor-general Act 1997 (Cth), at that stage in the drafting (Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 609). In January 1995, the auditor-general published a provocative short report, National Media Liaison Service – a loophole in accountability?, which argued that NMLS was: not subject to normal accountability mechanisms in place over other Government programmes. As a consequence, although NMLS is fully funded by the taxpayer and its stated roles and functions are predominantly administrative in nature, its operations are not subject to the scrutiny normally associated with the expenditure of public monies [ANAO 1995, p 1].

While at one level the auditor-general’s handling of the NMLS case can be seen as an expression of Taylor’s antagonistic relationship with the Keating government (see Wanna et al 2001, pp 135–136), at another it indicates growing concern about the role and accountability of ministerial staff, and their potential to exercise executive authority in government decision-making. Coalition senators seized on the ANAO report, arguing that the


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70 Power without responsibility unit’s $1.5 million annual operating budget and the activities of its 23 staff should be subject to public scrutiny (Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 606). Liberal senator Rod Kemp, argued the voluntary attendance of former NMLS director Colin Parks in 1989 provided a precedent for Epstein to be called before the senate finance and public administration (F&PA) committee to answer questions about NMLS’ activities (Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 606). Then minister for finance, Kim Beazley, initially refused permission for Epstein to appear, on the basis he was a MoP(S) Act employee and therefore protected by the ‘convention’ exempting ministerial staff from parliamentary scrutiny (Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 606). Bob McMullan argued the government would answer any questions that Coalition senators put on notice. He defended Labor’s opposition to the calling of a MoP(S) employee on the basis that: ministerial staff are accountable to the minister and the minister is accountable to the parliament and, ultimately, the electors [Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 609].

This statement would later be invoked by prime minister Howard who christened it ‘the McMullan principle’. It was the first clear articulation of the accountability arrangements for ministerial staff; namely that it depended on the convention of individual ministerial responsibility. Despite Labor’s reticence, Epstein was compelled to respond to a senate direction that was passed with the support of the Australian Democrats (Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 612). Kemp rejected concerns that the senate resolution would create a precedent for other MoP(S) staff to be called, arguing NMLS was a special case, because unlike other units and individuals employing MoP(S) staff, its purpose was not party political. Its stated role and purpose was to ‘promote government policies and activities’ and not, as the Opposition alleged and was widely believed, ‘to carry out political work on behalf of the government doing research on the Opposition and putting out material on the Opposition’ (Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 606). The hearing went ahead


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but was ultimately farcical. Throughout, Epstein maintained he was in fact director of the MMG which reported directly to the prime minister and that the NMLS reported to him through a ministerial delegation. Since, according to Epstein, he was not an employee of NMLS, but rather a MoP(S) staffer, he could not be accountable for its performance (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 9 February 1995, p 51). Epstein was combative in his exchanges with Coalition senators, frustrating their efforts to implicate the NMLS in partisan political activity. The Coalition’s motivation in pursuing NMLS was entirely political; it hoped to neutralise Labor’s ability to, as a former NMLS employee described it, ‘exploit the Opposition’s lack of resources and their inability to coordinate themselves’. Both the Opposition and Australian Democrats argued the resolution compelling Epstein’s attendance was confined to NMLS and should not be seen as creating a precedent that ministerial staff should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. However as Democrats leader, senator Cheryl Kernot, argued, the NMLS case and the Pay Television controversy indicated a need to reform the ‘grey area’ of the appropriate demarcation of roles and responsibilities between ministerial staff and public servants (Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 612).

Staffing system under Keating The structures of policy making adopted by the Keating government, particularly the use of the ERC, created opportunities for ministerial staff to play more active roles. Maley (2002b, p 17) argues that over the 13 years of the Labor government, ministers, public servants and ministerial staff learned to operate within routines and structures that developed in long-term government. The public service came to recognise the legitimacy of staff roles and adjusted to their presence. However Maley (2002b, p 276) questions the conventional view that relationships between advisers and departments are complementary. Instead she identifies a ‘blurring of roles’ between senior public servants and ministerial advisers, but argues this posed few problems since


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72 Power without responsibility the distinction between partisan and non-partisan activities was well understood.16 But there is evidence that these distinctions were often not well understood. Two controversies – the 1993 Pay Television controversy and the 1994 Sports Rorts affair – point to tensions and problems in the ministerial staffing system as it had evolved under Labor. Each exposes weaknesses in the governance framework controlling and regulating the staff. In each case, problems arose in negotiating the boundaries between the roles of staff and public servants. In each case, the cost to the minister was high.

Pay Television controversy In May 1993, technical problems in the process for tendering satellite pay television licences became a source of criticism. It emerged that minister for transport and communications, senator Bob Collins, had signed a determination that contained no pre-qualification criteria for tenderers to satisfy, contradicting a cabinet decision that these should be insisted upon. It also required the payment of only $500 as a deposit for their bid. Usual practice had been that a percentage of the tenderer’s bid be lodged on submission of their tender. The minister signed the determination, which he later admitted he had not properly read or understood, on 19 January 1993 (Waterford 1996, p 92). It was urgent it be finalised since the prime minister was expected to call an election at any time. When controversy arose, the minister immediately sought advice from his department about why the determination made no provision for pre-qualification conditions. Secretary of the department of transport and communications (DoTAC), Graham Evans, commissioned administrative law expert, Professor Dennis Pearce, to inquire into the matter. While finding no systemic deficiency in DoTAC’s practices, Pearce concluded the department had made an error of judgment in not drawing the minister’s attention to the absence of a deposit requirement. He attributed


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this failure to the heavy workload of officers attempting to finalise the determination in the short time available (Pearce 1993, p 4). He found the department should have drawn the minister’s attention to the non-requirement of a deposit, arguing that: The Minister signs a large number of documents each day. He cannot be expected to peruse each of these closely [Pearce 1993, p 11].

The minister argued that in order to avoid later claims of political interference, he had deliberately distanced himself from the tender process (Senate, Debates, 5 May 1993, p 134). But he conceded he shared responsibility for the ‘system failure’ that had occurred between his office and his department (Senate, Debates, 6 August 1993, p 291). Collins claimed he was ‘profoundly distracted’ due to the imminent federal election campaign and because ‘his staff were absent during the holiday period, leaving the private office below strength and resulting in administrative deficiencies’ (SSCMAPTVTP 1993, p 25). He undertook to implement procedures to avoid a recurrence of the problems. When other flaws in the invitation to tender were discovered, cabinet decided to abort the tender process. This drew further criticism from the Opposition, which succeeded in having the matter referred to a senate inquiry. While DoTAC officials were extensively examined, the minister refused to allow ministerial staff to appear before the senate select committee on matters arising from pay television tender processes (SSCMAP-TVTP) on the grounds that: the ability of ministers and other parliamentarians to rely on the confidentiality of their working relationship with their personal staff and advisers would be put at risk if the latter could too readily be called as witnesses to testify about matters arising from that relationship [SSCMAP-TVTP 1993, pp 3–4].

Notwithstanding that Collins had a large and active ministerial staff, Pearce found they were not to blame for failing to draw the issue to his attention. Pearce accepted an adviser’s explanation that they ‘saw their role as being to advise the minister on policy/


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74 Power without responsibility political issues not on process’ (Pearce 1993, p 11). He argued an adviser’s notation on a briefing note that the determination was ‘OK to sign’ did not constitute endorsement of its content, only that it needed to be signed by the minister. Pearce did, however, raise concerns about whether a minute from DoTAC handdelivered to the minister’s office on 4 January 1993, was brought to Collins’ attention, noting deficiencies in systems for recording the movement of documents into and out of the minister’s office (Pearce 1993, p 11). But while Pearce took a somewhat benign view of the role of ministerial staff in the affair, their involvement became the SSCMAP-TVTP inquiry’s focus. There was particular discussion of the role of staff in evidence from former federal and state political leaders, including John Cain, Sir Rupert Hamer, Gough Whitlam and Neville Wran. Similar issues were canvassed in a roundtable arranged by the Institute of Public Administration Australia’s ACT division with a panel comprising academics and several current and former bureaucrats. Former Victorian premier John Cain, told the committee he believed problems of communication and coordination between departments and ministerial offices were attributable to their geographical separation: I am surprised that it has not had more problems. It is hard enough for a Minister to get well-rounded advice where they are all together, but where they are physically remote, I think it is impossible … This remoteness of a ministerial staff in Parliament House, clustered around the Minister, telling him what he wants to hear is the problem. Ministerial staff have to be robust: they have to tell a Minister what he should hear, not what he wants to hear; otherwise they are useless. I do not know whether that is what happened here, but it is more likely to happen if they are living in what is a big cocoon now; seeing nobody else except their own ilk, and totally sheltered [SSCMAP-TVTP 1993, pp 27–29].

It is clear from evidence presented to the SSCMAP-TVTP, and the commentary it generated, that ministerial staff were key


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actors in the Pay Television controversy. However the committee, dominated as it was by government senators, produced a majority report which argued that: The staff in such a [ministerial] office play a vital role, among other things, in advising the minister on his or her conduct of affairs and in representing his or her interests at appropriate forums. Their role is largely a political one and they do not usurp the functions of the relevant department [SSCMAPTVTP 1993, pp 15–16].

The evidence suggests Collins’ staff played very active roles in pay television tender processes, including in areas traditionally the province of public service departments. His advisers participated in meetings where technical problems with the invitation to tender were raised. From early February the senior adviser was aware of potential problems (SSCMAP-TVTP 1993, p 29), although there were questions about how much of this information he passed on to the minister. While acknowledging that the department was at fault in not drawing the significance of the omission of a deposit requirement to the minister’s attention, Waterford (1996, p 92) notes that: Bob Collins had political staffers to advise him on policy in the area who had at least some grounding in the base factual issues and who indeed claimed expertise. And just these advisers had been involved in the policy formulation process. It had not been a matter of a deficient submission finally surfacing in the minister’s office, with an omission that no one could have been expected to notice. Ministerial staff had sat in Departmental committees while facts were being established, while various forms of legal advice were being taken, and had been involved in the process of drawing up the department’s submission to the minister. And they had vetted the submission and recommended to their minister that he sign it.

In their dissenting report, Liberal senators were scathing about


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76 Power without responsibility ministerial staff, accusing them of failing in their duty to ensure Collins was across the detail of the tender process, including potential problems (SSCMAP-TVTP 1993, p 45). Describing the office as ‘a shambles’, they rejected Pearce’s finding that the staff were not to blame, arguing that cabinet clearly regarded pay television tender processes as a political/policy issue: This statement [by Pearce] verges on the disingenuous as ministerial staffers have been around for a number of years and are clearly well paid for the purpose of ensuring that the minister is kept fully informed of the implications of all decisions taken by the government and the minister, and particularly to ensure that all documents are put in context. The failure by the staff to advise the minister of the significance of the ministerial determination is apparent [SSCMAP-TVTP 1993, p 44].

The Pay Television case demonstrates the potential for errors to occur when there are political pressures for complex issues to be concluded quickly. Subsequent chapters show this problem has recurred many times since. DoTAC officers had done some initial work on preparing a determination in early 1992, but ‘this ceased when it became apparent that the proposal to introduce pay television was not then going ahead’ (Pearce 1993, p 4). The determination became an urgent priority in mid-November 1992, because of the need to ensure it could be approved before the 1993 federal election was called. Political expediency created the conditions for mistakes to occur. There was limited time to address technical flaws in the invitation to tender, or consider advice about the legality of imposing pre-qualification conditions on prospective tenderers. The case also exposes important deficiencies in the system of advice and support to Keating ministers. Former secretary of the NSW premier’s department, Gerry Gleeson, expressed concern about the increasingly distant relationship between ministers and departmental secretaries and the tendency for ministers to rely too heavily on their private offices (SSCMAP-TVTP,


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Committee Hansard, 21 July 1993, p 130). Maley (2002b, p 285) also identifies the decrease in direct contact between ministers and their departments as an important vulnerability of the evolving system. Advisers play important roles in supervising public service departments and agencies. Under the Keating government ministerial staff were active ‘gatekeepers’ such that: No brief went to the minister without being read and commented on by an adviser first. Advisers had the authority to check and question the department’s work and approve it to go forward to the minister [Maley 2002b, p 118].

Sir Geoffrey Yeend, told the committee, ‘There is no way in the world that a private staff member can cover the whole range of matters [in DoTAC] and be expected to be expert in them’ (SSCMAPTVTP, Committee Hansard, 21 July 1993, p 97). However, given the prime minister’s interest, and the deep involvement of PMO staff in the pay television tender processes, Collins might have been expected to be well across its details. The perverse consequence of ministerial advisers’ participation in key meetings about the tender process seems to have been that it created ambiguities about the flow of information to the minister. There was confusion about whether the department or the private office was responsible for ensuring Collins was fully briefed about the details contained in the determination. The senior adviser’s apparent failure to pass on information to the minister about problems with the invitation to tender indicates that not only did Collins’ staff not add value in their role as ‘gatekeepers’ of departmental advice, they were somewhat unreliable conduits of information for the minister. More recent controversies indicate this is a persistent problem associated with the growth and development of the ministerial staffing system. Later chapters demonstrate that role confusion has emerged as a recurrent theme in the Australian experience of ministerial staff. The role confusion apparent in this case challenges the contention that a ‘blurring of roles’ between Keating government


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78 Power without responsibility ministerial staff and public servants was unproblematic. In the Pay Television controversy, it was one of the key problems. The issue was not a partisan one per se; rather a question of respective roles and responsibilities when the boundaries between politics, policy and administration become indistinct. Departmental officers fronted the senate inquiry, accounting for their actions in the Pearce report and other investigations. A deputy secretary stood aside over the matter, and some senior DoTAC officers forewent performance pay, but the minister refused the secretary’s offer to also stand down. Despite his staff’s involvement, Collins was convinced he had been badly let down by his department (Pearce 1993, p 12). In contrast, as Waterford (1996, p 94) notes, ‘there was no evidence that the ministerial office suffered, except in esteem’. The Pay Television case highlights the pressures on ministers and their staff from the intense workloads that characterise ministerial offices. It also exposes deficiencies in the operating framework for ministerial staff. In addition to the pressures on ministers, workload issues and deficiencies in the operating framework for ministerial staff are apparent in the Pay Television case. Collins’ office was reportedly short-staffed in the period during which approval of the determination was sought (Pearce 1993, p 11). This seems unusual given the minister was trying to clear the decks in the expectation that caretaker conventions would shortly commence. The absence of key staff during this period also seems incongruous in the context of Maley’s (2002b, p 17) finding that Keating advisers were ‘on call’ for their ministers at all times; some even reporting taking work calls from their minister on Christmas Day. Sandy Hollway and others (for example, Barns 2003a; Maley 2002b) have drawn attention to the pressures on ministerial staff. The frenetic pace and complex demands of life in a ministerial office leave little time for reflection and considered judgment: People working in all these offices are very busy, frequently stressed and, when things are hopping, running on adrenalin and caffeine (and, in the old days, nicotine). There is a continuous risk of the urgent crowding out the important [Hollway 1996, p 144].


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Sports Rorts affair In 1988 the Labor government initiated the community recreational and sporting facilities grant programme. With an initial appropriation of $13 million over three years, its purpose was to provide grants to community-based organisations and local councils, to construct local cultural, recreational and sporting facilities. In 1991–92 the government extended the programme for a further three years, increasing its budget to a total of $30 million. In November 1992, just prior to the March 1993 federal election, the programme received additional funding of $18.75 million. Long criticised by the Opposition as a porkbarrelling exercise, it was identified for abolition in the Coalition’s election platform, Fightback! Controversy arose in November 1993 when an efficiency audit of the programme was tabled in parliament. The auditor-general’s interest in the programme was sparked by the way the minister, Ros Kelly, distributed grants totalling $29.5 million in the lead-up to the 1993 federal election. The ANAO found both the department and the minister played a role in its operations, noting that the programme was ‘unusual’ in that the department did not make recommendations to the minister (ANAO 1993, p 7). The audit report was highly critical of the programme’s administration. It found that grant assessment and selection processes, conducted personally by the minister, were inadequately documented. Aside from representing poor public administration, this meant that there was no basis for refuting Opposition claims that the grants were politically motivated. The auditor-general’s review of selection decisions showed that 73 per cent of grants were made to ALP marginal electorates, and that the average value of grants to Labor held seats was $326 000 compared with $163 000 for Coalition-held seats (ANAO 1993, pp 11–12). The auditor-general observed that: The ANAO’s analysis does not demonstrate one way or another that projects are approved on party political grounds … ANAO believes that it is in the interests of a Minister to have a


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80 Power without responsibility more open and documented process to allay such allegations which can only continue while the process remains as it is [ANAO 1993, p xi].

The report found Kelly’s ministerial staff were active in making recommendations about grant selection; in conducting most of the negotiations about grant applications with members of parliament and in directing the department about information to be sent to the minister’s office. The auditor-general noted that: in the latest round of approvals, the Minister’s office asked for details of the electorates in which the applications were located but was not prepared to put its request in writing when asked to do so by the Department [ANAO 1993, p 11].

The auditor-general expressed concern that the department believed it did not have a role in the decision-making process (ANAO 1993, p xi). Relations between the minister and the department of arts, sport, the environment and territories (DASET) were strained; to the point where she was no longer speaking to its most senior officers.17 DASET’s role was confined to administration. The auditor found successive ministers had rejected departmental advice that programme guidelines needed to be strengthened. And while the minister rejected the finding her staff had exercised administrative authority (ANAO 1993, p 11), it was clear from the audit report and a subsequent senate inquiry that they had been actively recommending applications for approval, perhaps lacking the experience to appreciate the risks of pursuing such a blatantly partisan approach. The ANAO expressed concern that: there may be unintended consequences for good administration which can flow from a practice of placing ministerial advisers between the permanent public service and the responsible minister. This is not to say that ministers should not employ such staff, but that if such staff exercise power then they too should be held publicly accountable for the exercise of that power. Where there are, as in the last round, over 2800 applications


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and detailed negotiations with Members of Parliament on their relative merits, it seems clear that ministerial staff are making recommendations on which applications should be approved and which should not. Were this power exercised by the Department, officers of the Department would be accountable for their decision-making processes [ANAO 1993, p 11].

The ‘Sports Rorts’ affair is notorious for the shamelessly political process used to distribute grants, but also for the minister’s ineptitude in responding to her critics in the wake of the ANAO report’s release.18 Kelly endured months of media and parliamentary pillorying over her infamous revelation she used a whiteboard to determine grant selections, before finally resigning in February 1994 (Wanna & Gash 2001, pp 146–147). But while the minister made an (albeit unedifying) appearance before a house of representatives committee, the government was again unwilling to allow ministerial staff to appear. FitzGerald (1996, p 128) may have had DASET officials in mind when he commented that: Under the system evolving in Canberra under Hawke and Keating, it was ironically, often the public servants who were hauled before parliamentary committees to answer for mistakes in policies to which they may have had limited input, with ministers and their staffs having undertaken the policy development and the relevant department being confined to mainly factual, administrative and technical input. Equally ironically, ministerial staff are not subject to that kind of accountability.

The Sports Rorts case provides useful insights into the difficulties that can arise when ministers and their staff transgress the boundaries of politics and administration. Jack Waterford warned ministers against interfering in administration, noting that ‘whether exercised with good intentions or bad [the practice] is fraught with dangers’ (Waterford, quoted in Senate, Debates, 5 May 1993, p 137). Unconstrained by advice from the public service, and focused on winning the ‘unwinnable’ election, the minister, aided and abetted by her staff, pursued a blatant and ultimately naïve


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82 Power without responsibility political strategy that led to her resignation. It is unclear whether this was attributable to Kelly’s senior political adviser’s role as the ALP’s marginal seats strategist in the 1993 election campaign, as was claimed by the Coalition (Burton & Dwyer 1994).

Howard’s inheritance Between 1983 and 1996, the ministerial staffing system evolved from the modest innovations of the Whitlam and Fraser governments into a large and active political institution. Growth in numbers of ministerial staff and expansion of their role and influence was driven by more assertive, policy-oriented ministers who sought assistance in an effort to achieve political control and to cope with the demands of office. Under Hawke and Keating, ministerial staff became an important part of the Australian political executive. However, as the case studies in this chapter indicate, the system was not without its problems. Gradually and cumulatively problems inherent to the ministerial staffing system from its inception were becoming evident, as it outgrew the minimalist framework provided by the MoP(S) Act and other system conventions. Larger, more active and partisan ministerial staffs, and an increasingly distant relationship between ministers and senior public servants exposed the potential for information distortion and role confusion as the boundaries about respective roles and responsibilities became blurred. Greater numbers of staff and increasing demands on ministers also raised questions about ministers’ capacity to monitor and supervise their staff. Notwithstanding the appearance of David Epstein before the F&PA committee in February 1995, there remained bi-partisan support for the conventions underpinning the accountability of ministerial staff. However given their greater activism and autonomy, staff accountability was emerging as an important concern. Concerns about the role and accountability of ministerial staff were particularly evident during the Keating government’s final term in office. Significantly, in both the Pay Television and Sports Rorts cases, ministers gave evidence to the parliamentary


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committees investigating their cases and accepted responsibility for the actions of their staff, even if they were personally inclined to hold departments culpable for their predicaments. Contemporary ministers seem less willing to accept individual responsibility for the actions of their staff. Developments under Hawke and Keating provided the Howard government with a considerable inheritance. Despite its efforts in legitimising the role of ministerial staff, the Labor government had not evolved a framework for accommodating their presence within a Westminster-style system. By 1995 the strains were evident. They would become more obvious and serious as the staffing system evolved further under the Howard government.


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FIVE The Howard agenda Following its 1983 election loss, the Liberal Party spent 13 years in Opposition. It was a period of bitter division and policy turmoil. Leadership tensions, notably the debilitating rivalry between Andrew Peacock and John Howard, contrasted with Labor’s discipline and professionalism. After four election defeats, the Liberals were desperate to break with the past. They elected relative political new-comer, academic economist and former Fraser government staffer, Professor John Hewson to the leadership in 1990. Hewson approached the 1993 election with an ambitious policy platform called Fightback! and a comprehensive transition to government strategy. He faced a prime minister whose government was divided in the wake of the bitter leadership struggle with Bob Hawke. Senior ministers were retiring, taking with them valuable experience and policy energy. The economy was in recession,


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unemployment was at record levels, interest rates were high and Paul Keating’s lack of empathy with the economic plight of many Australians was a key reason for his faltering electoral popularity. It was the ‘unlosable’ election and yet the Liberal Party experienced a devastating fifth defeat; delivering Keating the prime ministership in his own right and which he famously described as ‘the sweetest victory of all’ (Watson 2002, p 353).

Valder report As it contemplated what had gone so wrong in the 1993 campaign, the Liberal Party came to recognise its comparative disadvantage on matters of personnel and organisation. These themes had been identified previously in the only significant critique of its performance: the Liberal Party committee of review, chaired by John Valder. The committee, comprising senior Liberals, delivered its report (the Valder report) to the federal council in September 1983.1 Henderson (1998, p 280) notes the report was launched with some publicity, but then quickly forgotten. In fact, many of its recommendations have been given practical effect under the Howard government. Aside from raising concerns about the Liberal Party’s structure and organisation, the Valder report identified an urgent need to professionalise its operations. Labor’s professionalism, its links to the community, academia and its ability to provide a career path for staff to develop substantive policy experience and political skills, were seen as giving it a significant edge. It recommended that ‘developing the political support staff needed for the Liberal Party in government should be a matter of priority’, with particular focus on support for the cabinet (Valder 1983, p 108). The report laid the foundations for development of the cabinet policy unit (CPU), and the Liberal Party’s approach to ministerial staffing. It argued that ‘if the next Liberal Government is to meet Liberal objectives, it will be essential for it to allow its ministers considerably more professional (and office) support’ (Valder 1983, pp 109–110). The report’s recommendations set the stage for a primarily political


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86 Power without responsibility focus by the staff, an emphasis on directing rather than engaging the public service, and a commitment to strategic, coordinated communications management. These are distinctive elements of the ministerial staffing system that translated into office under John Howard’s leadership.

Professionalising the staff The period following the 1993 defeat was used to professionalise the staff and the party organisation, along the lines suggested by Valder. Personal staff were now recognised as a crucial political resource, whose efforts and energies could be harnessed towards the achievement of the party’s goals. Rather than being seen as individuals within discrete offices, staff were regarded as a team needing coordination. That responsibility rested clearly within the leader’s office; a model that in government, translated into the prime minister’s office (PMO). Significant effort was invested in recruiting and training the Opposition staff. The focus was politics rather than policy. Training programmes were run out of the Liberal Party secretariat. According to a former party official: We’d get everybody down from up on the Hill and we’d start to introduce politics … We made a big effort to make them feel as though they were part of an honourable profession. Part of the team. [We] would try to show how their work could be enhanced by putting it in a political context and what role they could play. And sometimes it’s not a big role, but to me, they were all these resources that we had on tap. So in 1996 we picked the eyes out of several hundred staff, and it was just unbelievable to bring in those people. They had all developed this sort of esprit de corps; they all had sought out development … They had all been chosen to work at Headquarters – it really turbo-charged the whole performance because we had all these people with experience. No matter what job they were doing, they all had ideas. They were all filtering intelligence.


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Details of the Coalition’s successful 1996 campaign are documented in Pamela Williams’ book The Victory (1997). A respected television and print journalist, Williams was given privileged access to the Liberal Party campaign machine and to its senior politicians, pollsters and advisers. The book develops a picture of a strategic and highly professional leadership group, supported by an effective and motivated campaign staff. Many of these people went on to positions within the Howard government’s first cohort of ministerial staff.

Howard returns John Howard returned to the leadership in January 1995 and immediately began developing the nucleus of a staff that would accompany him into government. As Williams (1997, pp 88–93) reports, chief of staff, Nicole Feely, implemented a major restructure of Howard’s office, establishing clear roles, responsibilities and lines of communication, and developing a strong culture of supporting the leader. Some staff left, some were sacked or moved to other shadow ministerial offices. According to Feely: We only had a set amount of time before the election. We had to surround Howard with people who made him comfortable and who he would listen to. If they weren’t on his wavelength it was a waste of time [cited in Williams 1997, p 90].

Cumming (1996) argues that ‘Howard’s inner circle is designed to ensure he never loses sight of the politics’. She reports his staff believed Hewson failed in 1993 because he ‘did not consult with the community and politics came a poor second to policy’. The pragmatism that has come to define the Howard prime ministership has its origins in the 1996 election campaign. It has been maintained in office with the support of his advisory system which ensures policy directions are balanced with political considerations.


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Transition to power In contrast to the former Labor government, Howard came to office without a discernible transition-to-government strategy (Williams 1997, pp 323–324). He did, however, seek advice on machinery of government arrangements from long-time Liberal staffer, Michael L’Estrange. He also drew on preparations made for previous elections. But while arrangements to support the prime minister were well advanced, there were delays in other areas. Recruitment of staff for ministers was reportedly slow, due to the elaborate vetting process insisted upon by the prime minister (Grattan 1996b). Despite the absence of a transition strategy per se, decisive changes to the system of advice were implemented within the first few weeks. First and most controversially, even before the government was sworn in and despite his claim there would be no ‘hit list’ of senior bureaucrats, Howard terminated the contracts of six departmental secretaries. Second, Howard announced a political appointment to the position of cabinet secretary, a post traditionally held by a career official, usually the secretary of the department of prime minister and cabinet (PM&C). The appointee, Michael L’Estrange, also took responsibility for the CPU, a new unit of political appointees responsible for providing longer-term advice on the government’s strategic directions. Its establishment was the realisation of a long-held ambition. The Valder report (1983, p 108) proposed that ‘the government’s own senior political staff should be integral to the conduct of cabinet under modern conditions’. Howard first canvassed the idea of a political cabinet secretariat in the 1987 election campaign. Later, during an address to a conference on cabinet and budget processes he argued: I do believe there is scope for some kind of formal accommodation within a changed Cabinet Office system for people who have an openly political role to play in relation to the political agenda of the government. I think that can be done in a manner which does not impinge upon the independence


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of those who give the advice. I believe that the reality of modern government is that some people of a non-career variety can be absorbed into the Cabinet Office entirely upon the basis that they are there to be philosophic guardians of the government’s political agenda. Provided that is the basis of the understanding and the role of such advisers is confined to these parameters, I believe this arrangement would make for a more efficient operation of the system [Howard 1990, p 27].

Establishment of the CPU has been a significant innovation that has, in the words of its former head Paul McClintock (2003, p 15), ‘enabled it [the government] to really drive and focus the longterm strategy side-by-side with the daily tactical struggle of the political world’. It has substantially enhanced the prime minister’s capacity to direct and determine the business of government (Wanna & Hanson 2005). Next, Howard announced the appointment of Max MooreWilton as secretary of PM&C. Despite his long public service experience, Moore-Wilton was seen as an ‘outside’ appointment. Prime ministers have long exercised their prerogative to choose their department head, but all previous appointments, save that of John Menadue under Whitlam, had been drawn from the ranks of senior public servants. Moore-Wilton was working in the private sector when his appointment was announced. 2 Finally, Howard announced his intention to continue to live in Sydney, eschewing the tradition that Australian prime ministers live at the Lodge in Canberra. This required significant augmentation of both Kirribilli House and the Phillip Street office of the prime minister. Up to ten PMO staff are based in Sydney. These initial changes sent some clear signals about how the new government’s advisory system would work. In disposing of more than one-third of the departmental secretaries, the government made clear its expectation that the bureaucracy should be responsive and politically attuned. By basing the government in Sydney, Howard symbolically asserted his government’s independence from the Canberra mandarins and his determination to broaden his sources of advice. Distrust of the public service, the ruthlessness of its


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90 Power without responsibility initial and subsequent dealings with senior officials, and significant outsourcing and staff reductions, have fuelled perceptions of an uneasy relationship between the government and its public service advisers. 3 The prime minister rejects claims his actions have politicised the public service, arguing instead that: Any government must, and should, reserve the right to adapt the administrative structures of the public service to best achieve the policy priorities on which it was elected. So also any government must, and should, reserve the right to have in the top leadership positions within the public service, people who it believes can best give administrative effect to the policies which it was elected to implement. Governments of both political persuasions have recognised these realities [Howard 1998, p 8].

The new prime minister’s actions were reinforced by his public statements. In his 1997 Garran oration, Howard outlined his philosophy of advice, emphasising that assertive and policyoriented ministers were determined to drive ‘policy planning, detail and implementation’ within the broad strategic framework agreed by cabinet (Howard 1998, p 8). Focussing cabinet’s attention and energy on long-term strategic directions was intended to overcome difficulties Howard had faced under Fraser: One of the tensions I found as a senior minister in the Fraser government was the balance between the political role and the administrative role. The extent to which too frequent a number of Cabinet meetings and too cumbersome an administrative procedure can paralyse one’s political activity and one’s political effectiveness is a real constraint [Howard 1990, p 27].

Perhaps also reflecting his Fraser government experience, Howard warned of the dangers of relying only on official advice: I think it is very important to get advice on the economy and on business conditions separately from the bureaucratic advice. The bureaucratic advice is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Its timing can be astray, even though the


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general drift is correct. Unless you are constantly checking your official advice with field advice, you can often get it wrong. It’s impossible for bureaucratic advice to pick up every nuance and every drift. I think the experience of the Keating and Hawke governments and the Fraser government before them demonstrate that if you only listen to Treasury and official advice on the state of the economy, you don’t always get the full picture. And that’s not meant critically, it’s just a fact of life [cited in Savva 1996].

In developing policy options, the new ministry would draw on various sources of advice including ‘industry, business – big and small, community and welfare groups, academia and ministers’ personal offices’ (Howard 1998, p 9). This was the inevitable consequence, Howard argued, of an increasingly contestable environment for policy advice. Contestability has been a recurrent theme in Howard’s public comments on his government’s advisory arrangements. In a speech to mark the centenary of the Australian public service (APS) for example, he identified contestability of advice as the most significant challenge facing it in the twenty-first century (Howard 2001, p 6). In this context, the public service is but one of a variety of sources on which ministers might draw. Particularly important among these is the ministers’ personal staff: In my opinion ministers deserve – and need – to have around them staff with whom they can properly discuss political issues and from whom they can receive straight political advice. And I believe strongly that public servants should not be used that way. Their role is different and they are all the more valuable for remaining, not unaware of or insensitive to the day-today political happenings, but separate from the need to give those happenings sole or even top priority. Ministers are best served when they have alert and activist personal staff, a responsive and professional range of public service advisers, and a relationship between their personal


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92 Power without responsibility staff and their department which is based on openness, cooperation and mutual respect [Howard 2001, p 10].

From the outset then, Howard asserted that ministerial staff would play key roles in his government. This was reflected in public commentary as well as in directions and guidelines given to ministers. The prime minister’s Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility noted that: Ministers will obtain advice from a range of sources, but primarily from their private office and from their departments. Ministerial staff provide important links between ministers and departments when the minister is unable to deal with departmental staff personally, and add essential political dimensions to advice coming to ministers. A close and productive relationship between a minister’s staff and the department maximises the minister’s effectiveness. Ultimately, however, ministers cannot delegate to members of their personal staff their constitutional, legal or accountability responsibilities. Ministers therefore need to make careful judgements about the extent to which they authorise staff to act on their behalf in dealings with departments [Howard 1996b, section 6].

The role of public servants then is to give advice that is ‘not only impartial, but also creative, innovative and relevant’. Howard argued they should ‘recognise the directions in which government is moving and be capable of playing a major role in developing policy options and assisting in imaginative and professional implementation’ (Howard 1998, p 9). Ministerial staff would play important roles in directing and monitoring the bureaucracy. Their selection and deployment was therefore an important priority.

Appointment of ministerial staff During the 1996 campaign, the Coalition pledged to abolish the national media liaison service (NMLS) and control the growth in ministerial staff numbers. On taking office, overall numbers of


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ministerial staff were reduced from 364 at the end of the Keating period, to 294 in May 1996 (DoFA 2003). These reductions were contrasted with the ‘staffing excesses’ of the Keating government (House, Debates, 16 September 1996, p 4299). With a ministry of 28, and nine parliamentary secretaries, the Coalition had two fewer ministers than Labor, accounting for some of the staff reduction. But it was achieved mainly by restricting the use of ministerial consultants except in the PMO. Removing ministerial consultants enabled the government to reduce staff numbers, but it proved problematic for some ministers and their staff who felt under ‘enormous pressure’. One former chief of staff noted the decision had a significant effect on the capacity of other ministerial offices: Essentially what those consultancy positions were – they really were just senior adviser positions. So in one decision, he virtually halved the number of senior advisers that were available. It didn’t affect him and his office at all, but it affected all the Ministers and I tell you, one extra Senior Adviser, just one, makes a lot of difference.

Limiting the use of consultants represented a significant break with Labor practice. It signalled the government was less interested in using its ministerial staff to generate policy ideas. Instead policy direction and strategy was the province of the prime minister and his cabinet, supported by the CPU. While staff numbers in ministerial offices were limited initially, prime ministerial staff numbers were retained and by the end of 1996, had increased to 36; five more than Howard’s predecessor (Tingle 1996). This did not escape the notice of some senior ministers, and caused some minor resentment. Since these early reductions ministerial staff numbers have grown steadily. Under guidelines issued by the prime minister, cabinet ministers were entitled to nine staff and two departmental liaison officers (DLOs), while non-cabinet ministers were entitled to five staff plus one DLO (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 16 September 1996, pp 73–74). This was the general rule of thumb, but ministers


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94 Power without responsibility could make representations to the prime minister for additional resources. More senior and powerful ministers could expect a larger staffing entitlement, however this was not automatic. The government staff committee, known colloquially as the ‘star chamber’, was, according to one former senior minister, ‘quite a fierce ceiling to be bumped against’. The committee, considered in detail later in this chapter, has become an important feature of staffing arrangements under Howard.

Initial problems Despite efforts to professionalise the staff, a lack of experience in ministerial offices after 13 years in Opposition created initial difficulties. Even before the election, Henderson (1995, p 135) noted that: the Coalition staff does not have the depth or policy interest of its Labor equivalent. No doubt a John Howard victory would attract job applicants from business and the academy. However well qualified such individuals may be, they tend not to have the political and bureaucratic skills that are required at the top level of government administration.

In late 1996, newspapers reported that PM&C bureaucrats were openly commenting on the ‘amateurism of some of Howard’s advisers’.4 There were complaints the government, which had pursued a ‘small target’ strategy in the campaign, lacked direction and policy energy. These criticisms were echoed by Henderson (1998, p 38) who observed: ‘the Liberal Party’s policy weakness at the grassroots level is reflected all the way to the Cabinet room and the Prime Minister’s Office’. Prasser (1997, p 75) notes that ‘many ministers’ offices had only skeleton staffs, being unable to make appointments with key interest groups, or even to handle media inquiries’. This is confirmed in interview data from a former senior minister who remarked that some ministerial offices ‘were near dysfunctional for the first six months’. This reflected a lack of experience, but also the unwillingness of some ministers to accept assistance from


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the public service, of which some ministers and their staff were highly distrustful. The Howard government has had an uneasy relationship with the Canberra bureaucracy. As his sacking of six departmental secretaries suggests, the prime minister believed that under Labor, the public service had become politicised, and that over time ‘Labor stooges’ had infiltrated key public service positions (Barnett 1997, p 771). The government’s changes were intended to redress this situation. Ministers were also suspicious of the bureaucracy, mostly as a consequence of their own inexperience. According to a former chief of staff: There was a keen appreciation that of course many of the ministers hadn’t been in government before, and many ministers knew what they didn’t know. The paradox was they knew they didn’t know – they were terribly afraid of being snowed by the department; of being conned into something which they didn’t understand. The view was that this could have been a Labor agenda that Labor didn’t put up but it’s going to get rushed through us because we are new and we don’t understand. So it was a position of suspicion and it was then difficult for some of the departments themselves to adjust to that stand-off between the department and the offices when in fact they had been used to working very closely with ministers under the Hawke and Keating governments.

There is of course no preparation for becoming a minister; no training and no induction. Those who were part of previous Liberal shadow ministries could draw on earlier preparations. Some, like Tim Fischer, read the Crossman diaries, or watched episodes of Yes Minister (Rees 2001). Others relied on advice from colleagues and friends. Senior public servants welcomed the passing of the Keating government, but were confused by the new government’s approach. A departmental secretary noted: There was a huge amount of distrust between the government and the bureaucracy – not the reverse. The public service I think at the time the government changed was very keen


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96 Power without responsibility to demonstrate that it could do the right thing – very keen to demonstrate its bona fides , but there was a good deal of suspicion around in 1996 about whether it could – I guess that always happens when there’s a new government.

Some in the public service had difficulties making the adjustment. According to a departmental secretary: I think some public servants still have to come to terms with being responsive to elected governments. They were particularly slow to accommodate this government. It took some a couple of years to become responsive to the Howard government. Probably a bit less than that in most places but it did take some time. It was more a question of not understanding how much thinking has to be put into understanding a new government’s agenda and where they’re coming from.

Ironically, though ministers were concerned about the quality of public service advice, the bureaucracy had views about the quality of ministerial staff who they regarded as generally less effective than their Labor predecessors. A departmental secretary commented: There was a period just after the Howard government came in – in fact for a number of years, where the advisers were weaker – less effective people and therefore weaker institutionally than they are now … I think the general standard of ministerial advisers was lower intellectually and just in terms of strength from 1996, but that is now picking up. Perhaps it’s that they are beginning to attract better people or perhaps those people are just getting better by learning on the job.

Determined not to become captives of their departments, ministers were almost entirely dependent on advice from their private offices. Yet with recruitment delays and many staff unfamiliar with the processes and routines of government, offices were poorly placed to provide the requisite support. According to a senior bureaucrat: Like all governments, the Coalition had difficulty when it came to power because the quality of people in their offices


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in Opposition was really quite mixed. There was concern because a lot of those who had served in Opposition got rolled and didn’t get up into ministerial jobs when the government came to power. They handled it very badly and they lost a lot of loyalty. Staffers struggled when they came to power about how to work with the bureaucracy. They didn’t know how to get government to operate.

Some ministers quickly formed effective working relationships with departments; a few filling staff vacancies with experienced bureaucrats until permanent appointments could be made. Their willingness to do so was significantly influenced by the attitude of their chief of staff. Contrasting attitudes are evident in the comments of two interviewed for this study. An experienced chief of staff commented: The department was very good. [The secretary] was very good and there were a couple of good people under him who said ‘This is how we suggest the briefings come in; this is how we suggest speeches be done; this is how we’ll help you run the minister’s diary and help you work out what things he should and not attend.’ Interviewer: There’d be some ministers who would think that was snowing]. Absolutely. And you have to be relatively confident and know what you would want to do to accept the department’s advice, but if you didn’t know what to do and you’re not willing to take the department’s advice because you think you’re being snowed – you’d have no idea what to do. And many of them don’t.

But another, who had previous state government experience, was more critical: You’re dealing with essentially a relationship with the bureaucracy that is always going to be strained. I think so, inherently. I’m not a fan of the Canberra bureaucracy. I think it is antithetic to government … See [where] I came from … bureaucrats worked with you. They worked really, really well with government because you’re in a small place and you’re all trying to row the same boat. I think Canberra is not like that.


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98 Power without responsibility In the original planning for ministerial staffing arrangements, press secretary positions were intended to be the second most senior in the office. This reflected the Coalition’s understanding of its need for effective political communications support in government. Press secretaries’ status as junior only to the chief of staff was evident in the salaries on offer, and the consideration given to these positions by the government staff committee. On taking office, however, some ministers recruited junior press staff; opting to trade-off more senior press secretary positions for additional policy advisers. A former press secretary to a senior cabinet minister attributed this decision to the constraints on salaries and staff numbers. Wary of their departments, ministers preferred to source policy advice from within their offices; hence their need to bolster their policy advisory capacity. The prime minister’s decision to limit the use of consultants may have provided additional impetus for these decisions. A former press secretary explained that the result was: almost two tiers of press secretaries existed at this time … Those Ministers who chose wisely tended to survive longer than those who opted for more junior operatives.

Experienced journalists confirmed that Howard’s media staff appeared junior and lacked authority. Their weakness and inexperience contrasted with the effectiveness and professionalism of the Hawke–Keating media staff, who were regarded as ‘a formidable tool’. Gallery journalists became frustrated with the government’s obfuscation and a lack of clear signals on key directions. In the early days of the government, media staff were reportedly under instructions from Tony O’Leary to say nothing to the media, and if things got tough ‘to turn off their mobile phones and let the journalists sweat’ (Canberra Times, 2 February 1999). According to a senior journalist, this was a reflection of the government’s ‘inexperience and fear of the media’, which manifested as ‘arrogance’. A key difficulty was that some of the people occupying media positions were not experienced journalists. This reflected the


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Coalition’s difficulties in recruiting and retaining experienced media staff. According to a former chief of staff: There is a problem for the Coalition parties [in] that the bulk of press gallery journalists tend to lean towards the Labor Party. I’m not saying they’re Labor supporters, but they tend to lean that way. Many of them are Labor supporters. But there’s two parts to that. So the pool who is actually interested in working for the Coalition is very small. Secondly, those who are interested are actually concerned about recriminations after they go back to work in the press gallery. Whether that’s legitimate or not, that’s what they’re concerned about. Well, not recriminations maybe, but about getting their job back because of the general thing. And the end result is that quite a number of the press secretaries up there aren’t journalists. [Interviewer: What are they then?] They’re just anything and that’s a genuine problem, yeah. Because you’d rather a journalist, an experienced journalist, right? And the fact is that because of what I said there are not that many – you can’t get them.

In addition to these problems, the Coalition had been in Opposition for 13 years and had no recent experience of government. During this period, the media environment had changed enormously. Although ‘staying close to the politics’ was intended to be a defining feature of the Coalition’s approach, it took some time to be implemented and become effective, even in the PMO. The lack of political skills among Coalition ministers and staff became quickly apparent (Henderson 1998, pp 32–33). Most damaging was the government’s inability to live up to its commitment to higher standards of ministerial propriety. Howard had promised to raise the standards of parliamentary behaviour and of government conduct. In April 1996, he unveiled his Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility, which outlined the ethical and other responsibilities of ministers (Howard 1996b). Within months, failure to comply with requirements in respect of the declaration of pecuniary interests had claimed three ministers. 5 In September


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100 Power without responsibility 1997 three more ministers, and both the PMO’s manager and chief of staff resigned over irregularities in travel expense claims which came to be known as the ‘Travel Rorts’ affair. In the wake of these crises a decision was taken to increase the political skills of the government – both ministers and staff – and reassert the centrality of politics.

Bolstering performance While a ministerial reshuffle enabled the prime minister to address the deficiencies of his frontbench, the mechanism for ensuring ministerial staff effectiveness was the government staff committee. It began as a fairly loose arrangement, but by the end of the government’s first term had become more focused on staff appointments and performance. Facing the One Nation challenge and keen to avoid the mistakes that had cost it so dearly in 1997, attention was given to recruiting staff with demonstrated political skills. By May 1997, journalists were reporting on staff changes within ministers’ offices, noting the government’s efforts to ‘harden up the quality of the political advice for some ministers who are perceived to have struggled in the testing transition from Opposition to government’ (Windsor 1997). This was confirmed by Liberal Party federal director Lynton Crosby, who commented that: There is a deliberate strategy [by the Liberal Party] to build up its personnel ahead of the next election. The Party is committed to ensuring the best possible political and policy advice that’s available … personnel is very important and good personnel provides good government [quoted in Windsor 1997].

Government staff committee The government staff committee plays an important role in the Coalition’s ministerial staffing system. Former PMO office manager, Fiona McKenna, occupies the position of human resource manager within the office of the special minister of


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state (SMOS). In this position, she has secretariat responsibility for the committee, providing additional institutional capacity in coordinating ministerial staff arrangements. The committee, whose chairmen have included Peter Reith and Robert Hill, makes recommendations to the prime minister about overall staff numbers, staff classifications, remuneration and performance issues (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 20 February 2001, p 262). Other members include the prime minister’s chief of staff and principal private secretary. The National Party has two representatives, a minister (initially John Anderson) and the leader’s chief of staff. Members at the time of writing included Arthur Sinodinos, Tony Nutt, senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz and the Nationals Warren Truss (Taylor 2005). According to the government, it acts as an advisory committee to the prime minister who has legislative authority under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (Cth) (MoP(S) Act) to determine the arrangements within which all parliamentarians may engage staff. A former senior minister outlined the rationale for establishment of the government staff committee. To be charitable, the rationale would be to make sure people aren’t promoting friends, aren’t promoting people to senior positions that they are not appropriate to fill. It can also be used to maintain control, to maintain discipline. It’s a quality assurance mechanism (a) for the performance of the political work and (b) for loyalty to the Prime Minister. One of our staff in the transition of the last government had a difficult time – was perceived to have slighted the Prime Minister. So it can get quite personal.

A former chief of staff observed: Well these are political offices, but it wasn’t anything about politics per se , it was actually also to ensure that Ministers weren’t putting political mates as opposed to quality staff … The motivation was principally that there were a certain


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102 Power without responsibility number of positions to fill – it needed to be somebody who knew what they were talking about right? And that’s what the main quality control of the Committee was about.

In keeping with the prime minister’s responsibilities under the MoP(S) Act, the committee focuses on senior appointments: adviser level and above. A former chief of staff reported: There was, as you would expect, a genuine prioritisation of the issues before it [the committee]. So it would deliberate very carefully about chiefs of staff and senior adviser positions. They would be very involved in chief of staff positions – and it was not uncommon for chiefs of staff – people nominated for them not to be accepted because they were regarded as not good enough for the job. Not for any political or factional reasons, but they weren’t considered to have a CV that warranted that position. They’d put most of their effort into being concerned that the chiefs of staff and senior advisers were good. They were less worried about advisers and so on. After chiefs of staff, media advisers were the most important.

Although functionally located within the office of the SMOS, the committee is managed by a former Howard staffer. The presence of his two most senior advisers on the committee allows the prime minister to shape staffing arrangements across government; giving him a decisive say in who is appointed or re-appointed and who is not. Aside from its focus on staff recruitment and selection, the committee also provides advice on promotions and salary increases (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 20 February 2001, pp 261–262). There have been varying degrees of satisfaction with the decisions of the government staff committee. Those who have had appointments delayed or rejected are rather embittered by the experience; while those whose preferred outcomes were achieved are more circumspect. A former minister noted that at a practical level, the committee took too long to make decisions. Prospective recruits were lost when they became frustrated with the delay and accepted alternative offers. ‘So conceptually good, but in practice,


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I’m not sure’. He expressed doubts about the ability of some of the people on the committee to make judgments about others’ political skills. The committee has not resiled from rejecting appointments it assessed as unworthy, even where strong ministers are involved. According to a well placed source: The ones that tended to get knocked back were related directly to experience and youth. Because there’s often, as you can appreciate – a direct correlation between experience and youth. And ministers would have somebody who was good, but they were very young and they wanted to make them chief of staff. Sometimes they got them and there are some people up there who are very young to be chiefs of staff; but some got knocked back – in fact, quite a few got knocked back while I was there. Chief of staff jobs don’t come up all that often. Often there was an involved discussion – it was certainly more than once. The minister would put forward a nominee, the committee might decide to reject them and go and talk to the minister. The minister might then come back with the same person. Or often what would happen is the committee would designate one of the ministers on the committee to do further investigation on that person. So that minister from the committee, usually the chairman, would ring up the minister and get a bit more background on the person. And then it might go through a few committee meetings.

From 1998, the government staff committee was the mechanism used to bolster the political skills of the staff, focusing attention on selection and promotions to senior staff positions, and addressing the misplaced loyalties of ministers. Overall staff numbers grew significantly during this period: from 294 in April 1997 to 325 in April 1998 (DoFA 2003). With earlier restrictions on numbers apparently relaxed, there was opportunity to accommodate people regarded as valuable by ministers. While some of this growth is attributable to ministerial changes in late 1997 – including the


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104 Power without responsibility appointment of two additional ministers and two additional parliamentary secretaries – there was also growth in the PMO as Howard reasserted his leadership by announcing a series of policy reforms.6 By this time too, ministers and staff were more familiar with the environment and their roles. New alliances were forming among the staffing cohort and, as a former chief of staff noted, ‘the government began to appreciate that high calibre people could be attracted to ministerial staff roles’. In some offices for example, people from high paying corporate jobs were prepared to accept substantial pay reductions for the experience and opportunities of working in a minister’s office. The media staff also improved. Greater numbers of experienced journalists were attracted to press secretary and media adviser positions. By 1998 the majority of senior media staff had some journalistic experience. Treasurer Peter Costello’s first press secretary, Tony Smith, was not a journalist,7 but was replaced in the role by Niki Savva, from The Age newspaper. Other experienced journalists were attracted to media adviser positions, though the committee was influential in determining who was appointed to these roles. Some of the Coalition’s difficulties attracting quality staff were attributable to its relatively shallow recruitment pool compared with Labor. A former press secretary commented: Well, the ALP is better at its gene pool. It can spot people earlier and slot them in more places. It’s got the trade union movement to put good people into. They also seem to be better at placing them, which is interesting, in the commercial environment, after politics.

Similarly a former chief of staff commented: Labor has a bigger potential pool to draw from, and they tend to be far better qualified. Liberals can’t compete with the pay rates available to well qualified people by merchant banks etc. Those attracted to the non-left seem to have less commitment


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to service of the political party. Levels of qualification among Labor staffers tend to be higher because many are drawn from academic backgrounds and because there is scope for a greater policy role. There is limited understanding among Liberal staffers of policy.

A departmental secretary who has worked under both Labor and Coalition governments noted: My suspicion is that the Labor machine has more of a career process behind it. The Libs on the whole are very naïve and the vast majority of them were very young. They’re bright, they’re good, but they’re not as worldly perhaps – not the same as the Labor ones anyway.

Employment framework In an effort to overcome its comparative disadvantage in recruiting and retaining quality ministerial staff, the Howard government implemented a series of reforms to the employment framework. Previously classifications for senior ministerial (and non-government) personal staff were broadly equivalent to APS senior executive service (SES) salary ranges. During its first term the Howard government maintained these broad salary setting principles for senior ministerial staff. 8 Since December 1998 senior staff have been employed under Australian workplace agreements (AWAs), in accordance with a framework agreed by the prime minister. Under this framework: Remuneration levels for SES-equivalent personal staff are established with reference to salary bands approved by the Prime Minister for each classification. Either the Prime Minister or the employing non-Government office holder determines the specific salary within the relevant band that will apply to an individual. Under the terms of the MoP(S) Act, the Prime Minister may approve an individual to receive a salary outside of the range relevant to their position [ANAO 2003, p 36].


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106 Power without responsibility The details of AWAs are not publicly available. At the direction of the SMOS, they are kept confidential.9 Information provided to the finance and public administration (F&PA) committee’s recent inquiry into staff employed under the MoP(S) Act suggests that AWAs follow a standard template, including a statement of duties and obligations, terms and conditions of employment and so on. AWAs are supported by guidelines issued by the department of finance and administration (DoFA) and outlined in the Ministers of State Entitlements Handbook (DoFA 2003, p 11). By November 2005, 106 senior government staff were engaged under AWAs. At the time this represented around 98 per cent of the staff at the adviser level and above.10 As Table 5.1 shows, the proportion of staff occupying senior classifications has increased significantly during the Howard government’s tenure. In May 2006, 245 staff were employed at senior levels; an increase of 64 per cent since 1996. Senior staff who decline an AWA are employed on ‘default’ terms and conditions; those specifically determined in 1998 prior to the introduction of AWAs. They also accept salaries at the 1998 rates of salary and ministerial staff allowance (MSA) (DoFA 2003, p 10). The commencing salary of senior ministerial staff is determined by the government staff committee. In his earlier study of ministerial staff, Walter (1986, pp 82–84) suggested the remuneration of senior staff can be seen as a proxy measure of their status. He noted that, under Fraser, significantly increased salaries in the PMO enabled well qualified and experienced people to be attracted to the prime minister’s private staff (Walter 1992, pp 52–54). Maley’s (2002b) study of Keating staff does not address questions of staff remuneration, however, ministerial staff salaries increased significantly from the early 1990s, maintaining broad equivalence with APS salaries and conditions. Under Howard there have been large increases in remuneration for senior ministerial staff, and through the introduction of AWAs, significant improvements in entitlements. Between October 1997 and April 2005 the base salary rate for principal advisers increased from $68 228 (plus MSA of $11 424) to around $124 000 (plus MSA


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of $14 800). The upward salary range for these staff is around $182 000 (plus MSA). Similarly, the base salary rate for senior advisers who filled chief of staff roles in the offices of cabinet ministers increased from $68 228 in October 1997 to $94 000. The upward range for these positions is around $130 000.11 These increases coincided with growth in staff numbers, particularly in senior adviser positions where an additional ten positions were created between October 1997 and July 1998, and the Coalition’s efforts, described earlier, to improve the quality of its staff. From 1999, presumably reflecting terms and conditions negotiated as part of the AWA framework, senior ministerial staff (principal advisers and senior advisers) became eligible for private-plated vehicles or cash in lieu ($13 464).12 In 2000 the government also introduced a ‘performance review framework’ for senior government and non-government staff. According to DoFA (2003, p 11): The framework is designed to provide the leaders of the recognised political parties with the capacity to recognise performance of senior staff through annual salary advancement following annual performance review. The framework also provides flexible salary bands to enable greater scope in attracting and maintaining high quality senior staff.

Performance reviews for senior staff took place in August 2000, August 2001 and April 2002 (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 30 May 2002, p 585). The introduction of a formal performance management framework indicates further institutional development of ministerial staffing arrangements under the Howard government. It also provides an additional role for the government staff committee. According to a former chief of staff: In the last couple of years they also introduced through the government staff committee, recognition of political savvy or direct contribution to the Party, I think. So some people were paid more. Some of those would be paid more because they have been picked out by the government staff committee as really valuable staff because they are good political operators – you know, they have this political savvy.


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108 Power without responsibility The flexibilities inherent to the broad salary bands under the AWA framework enable the granting of generous salary increases to senior ministerial staff on the basis of performance (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 30 May 2002, pp 581–610). However, it is unclear how consistently the performance appraisal process operates across the ministry or by what criteria performance is assessed. For most of this government’s term in office, ministerial staff have worked in the absence of developed systems of performance management. Moreover there has been a lack of induction, training and other opportunities that might have supported staff to do their jobs well (F&PA 2003, pp 84–86). A former chief of staff who worked for the government until 2002 (well into the operation of the new performance management system) reported that training and induction opportunities were: virtually non-existent and even as a chief of staff who would have liked to have done that kind of stuff, I virtually never did it because anybody arrives, they invariably arrive right in the middle of something and so there was no formal … I mean, I would try my best to speak to them [new staff] in person and all of that, and tell them as much as I could, and point them to what to do. But there was no structured – they’ve been trying to do that, to provide little courses and that kind of thing. They do do them. They actually do. In fact, I think it was more now I can think of it, that the problem was getting staff to go to them – to make the time to go.

Lending support to the view that weaknesses remain, another senior staff member who left government recently commented that: Whenever I had the chance, I certainly talked about those issues of staff development and training and irrespective of whether they were personal loyalists or not, we had hundreds of them [staff], and we had an obligation as a good employer. And I in no way felt we had built any sort of staff/HR resource system for people.


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Personal classifications Another means of rewarding ministerial staff is through the use of ‘personal classifications’. The prime minister may recognise an individual’s particular skills and responsibilities by assigning them a personal classification: one that is ‘higher or lower than the substantive position they hold’ (ANAO 2003, p 37). The classification attaches to the particular individual, and enables them to be remunerated accordingly. Howard’s three most senior advisers – his chief of staff, the head of the CPU, and principal private secretary – have been, since mid-2000, paid salaries above the maximum salary for principal advisers (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 20 February 2001, p 259). Currently 11 staff are paid outside established salary bands (Senate, Debates, 13 June 2006, p 184). Personal classifications are not new. The Howard government argues they existed under previous governments, although Labor refutes suggestions they were used to pay senior staff outside the established salary band (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 29 May 2001, pp 271–275). Their use has grown substantially during the Howard government’s term. In February 2001, four ministerial staff were reported as having personal classifications (AAP, 26 February 2001), by May 2001, this number had reached 17 (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 29 May 2001, pp 279–282). Currently 36 staff have personal classifications, only one at a lower classification than their substantive position.13 In March 2003, the use of personal classifications was made available to non-government office holders (ANAO 2003, p 37).

Certified agreements Ministerial staff below the adviser level are employed under certified agreements (CAs). The first agreement was certified by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission on 1 June 1999 (DoFA 1998, p 41). It provided a 3.5 per cent salary increase for MoP(S) staff and indexation of the parliamentary staff allowance (PSA), also at 3.5 per cent. It also formally introduced a professional development programme sponsored by the SMOS and run by DoFA.


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110 Power without responsibility Agreements have been renegotiated periodically since that time. The initial agreement for the first time consolidated the main terms and conditions of staff into one document (DoFA 1998, p 41), replacing the previous system of determinations and awards that had existed from 1983. The CA provided a new eightlevel classification structure for MoP(S) staff, mirroring APS levels. Salary increments provide flexibility to recognise staff skills and experience, and for salary progression within a given classification level. New position titles were introduced for executive assistant/ office manager positions, distinguishing these in both title and salary levels from personal secretaries. These distinctions suggest increasing specialisation and functional differentiation among staff within ministerial offices – a trend that is evident in Table 5.1 – although as noted previously, staff roles can often be fluid. The current agreement covers the period 2003–2006. It delivers salary increases totalling 19 per cent over its life.14 The government has indicated it will offer AWAs to staff currently on CAs who wish to enter one. Over the Howard government’s term in office and particularly since 1998, ministerial staff salaries, terms and conditions have been significantly upgraded. Staff numbers have grown and their seniority and status has been enhanced. AWAs have introduced a range of flexibilities including broad salary bands, a performance management framework for senior ministerial staff, and access to private-plated vehicles. This has enabled the government to attract and retain experienced ministerial staff, particularly at senior levels. Personal classifications have been used to reward staff who have proved their value to the government. As well as enhancing ministerial staff remuneration, the new employment framework has been a catalyst for more complex organisational arrangements; creating structures and routines that will shape the ministerial staffing system into the future. Thus one of the legacies of the Howard government’s employment reforms is a stronger and more institutionalised employment framework that may make it easier for future governments to recruit and retain experienced staff. These changes have not however, introduced


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a comprehensive governance structure for the management and control of ministerial staff. As with the Hawke–Keating governments, the Howard government’s initiatives were motivated by concerns about staff recruitment and retention rather than by recognition of the need to regulate and control their activities. Significant enhancements to the industrial relations framework for ministerial staff have coincided with changes that many perceive have undermined the employment status of departmental secretaries and weakened the public service. Table 5.1 Staff profile under Howard Staff

Sep June Dec Oct Mar 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Feb May 2001 2002

Feb May 2003 2004

May 2005

May 2006

consultant

1

1

2

1

1

1.5

0.5

0.5

0.1

0.1

principal adviser

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

5

14

14

14

0

4

4

snr adviser 1 (cabinet)

32.8

33.8

36.8

snr adviser (chief of staff)/ snr adviser (non-cabinet)

17.6

18

24.6

64.4

69.8

79.4

2 17

2 17

2 17

chief of staff (cabinet) snr adviser 2 (PM/deputy PM, treasurer/CPU)

Senior adviser

40

40

49

52

53

52

59

59

media adviser (deputy PM/treasurer) media adviser (cabinet) media adviser Media adviser adviser assistant adviser clerk to whip

20

16

15

39

35

34

88.5 101.5 78 73 7 7

115.8

127 92.2 7

40.6

6 53 37.6

4 56 39.9

0 58 41.9

99.6

96.6

99.9

99.9

344.9 356.4 365.6 369.6 391.6

407.6

444.6

32

32

34

34

34

35

36

37

80 50 7

82 51 7

87

86 60

87.5

88.5 67 7

89.5 70 7 8 50

8 51

40.6 98.6

63 7

7

61 7

personal secretary EA/office manager secretary/administrative assistant

Personal secretary

79

78

88

96

Total

294

296

335

341

0.1

96.4 100.4

75 7

Howard’s public service The case studies that follow in later chapters provide an opportunity to focus on the dynamics of the relationship between the Howard government and the public service, particularly on the role of ministerial staff in eliciting responsiveness from the APS. At this stage however, and by way of background to the events


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112 Power without responsibility detailed in the cases, this section focuses on three dimensions of the government’s handling of the public service that may help explain changes in the role and status of ministerial staff. First the government’s public service reform agenda and the significant downsizing of the APS that occurred during the early years of the Howard government is explored. There follows a brief review of the changes implemented under the new Public Service Act 1999 (Cth). Secondly, the government’s relationship with departmental secretaries is considered. A third dimension encompasses the government’s expectations about how ministerial offices and public service departments will interact.

Public sector reform agenda The Howard government came to office with a broad set of ideas for improving public sector responsiveness and efficiency. Early details of its agenda followed the release of the report of the national commission of audit in 1996. Given a significant budget deficit, the government flagged its intention to reduce the size of the APS. This was consistent with its plan for ‘a smaller APS more focused on policy advice to government than on managing the provision of key services’ (Moore-Wilton 2000, p 2). During the government’s first four years, total numbers of APS employees fell dramatically.15 The Coalition accelerated a trend that commenced under Labor, in reducing the size of the public service through corporatisation and privatisation. In November 1996, the minister assisting the prime minister for the public service, Peter Reith, released a discussion paper: Towards a Best Practice APS. It outlined reform priorities including the development of a new, more streamlined Public Service Act; the introduction of a flexible employment framework for public service employees, and initiatives to improve its performance and leadership (Reith 1996). The new Public Service Act 1999 (Cth) took effect from 5 December 1999.16

Departmental secretaries The new Act introduced important changes to the tenure of departmental secretaries. Under Labor, they had been brought more clearly under ministerial direction and control, through


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changes to appointment processes, notably the introduction of fixed-term contracts. The Howard reforms went further, giving the prime minister power to appoint and terminate secretaries (Weller 2001, p 34). Under the old Act this power resided with the governor-general, who acted on the advice of the prime minister. While there is a requirement to consult the secretary of PM&C over secretary appointments, the new legislation gives the prime minister unfettered power over terminations. These powers were first tested in 1999, when the government sacked the secretary of the department of defence, Paul Barratt, on the grounds he had lost the confidence of his minister. Recruited by Howard in 1996, Barratt had worked successfully with deputy prime minister, John Anderson, and former defence minister Ian McLachlan. But he was unable to develop an effective working relationship with the new minister, John Moore. Barratt had raised concerns over the conduct of Moore’s chief of staff, long-time Liberal Party adviser, Brian Loughnane, in a meeting with MooreWilton. Barratt believed the ministerial staffer was acting as a de facto minister – taking decisions and giving directions without reference to Moore – and that this could become a problem for the government. Moreover, he considered Loughnane was actively cultivating suspicion and distrust between the minister and the department. After several months of tension the prime minister agreed to Moore’s request that Barratt be replaced. After rejecting the government’s offer of a diplomatic appointment to New Zealand, the secretary’s contract was terminated. Barratt appealed the decision in the Federal Court.17 The court found the prime minister does not require cause to dismiss a secretary. It concluded that while Barratt was entitled to procedural fairness – to be told why his appointment was being terminated – he had no further recourse (Weller 2001). Since the Barratt case, several secretaries have not had their contracts renewed or have resigned because they expected this would be the case. The government’s decision not to renew defence secretary, Dr Allan Hawke’s contract in September 2002 because ‘the Minister [Robert Hill] would prefer to have somebody else who had different


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114 Power without responsibility attributes and suited his personal style better’ (Allan Hawke, quoted in Wright 2002, indicates that the position of secretaries is increasingly tenuous. According to a former secretary: The assumption should be now that you will not be reappointed, not that you will. And the argument that is put is well, we in the parliament are only elected for a three year term, why should you be any different? It’s a false argument of course, but it’s the one they use.

There is concern that a less secure employment framework has diminished the relationship between ministers and departmental secretaries, and undermined their capacity to provide ‘frank and fearless’ advice (F&PA 2003, pp 73–78; Nethercote 2003) and politicised the APS. While rejecting claims of politicisation, former PM&C secretary Michael Keating (2003a, p 95) has argued that the independent position of departmental secretaries may need to be strengthened as a counterweight to the growing power of ministerial staff. While finding no systemic evidence of politicisation among secretary appointments in Australia, Weller (1989b; 2001), and Weller and Rhodes (2001) have identified a trend to greater personalisation; that is, the appointment of individuals on the basis of personal style rather than on the basis of party-political links with a particular administration (Weller 2001, p 13). Like his predecessors, John Howard has pursued a highly personalised approach to the appointment and termination of departmental secretaries. The promotion of Jane Halton as secretary of the department of health and ageing following her role as head of the people smuggling taskforce and her subsequent receipt of an Australian public service medal caused controversy. Critics perceived she was being rewarded for services rendered to the Howard government (Marr & Wilkinson 2003). The appointment of the former head of the Australian chamber of commerce and industry, Mark Paterson, as secretary of the department of industry, tourism and resources is also regarded as a personalised appointment, as is Hawke’s replacement at defence, Ric Smith.


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Personalisation extends beyond department heads into the feeder group of prospective appointees. Two former prime ministerial international advisers, both public servants seconded to the PMO, have been appointed to deputy secretary positions: David Ritchie to deputy of the department of foreign affairs and trade, and Miles Jordana as head of the national security division within PM&C and subsequently to a deputy secretary position in the attorneygeneral’s department. Another, Peter Varghese, is the director of the office of national assessments. There is concern that personalisation will diminish the attractiveness of a public service career. Ministerial staff positions may become more attractive than bureaucratic ones because, although less secure than APS appointments, they may offer greater potential to influence policy outcomes (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 3 September 2003, p 161). Secretary respondents to Patrick Weller’s Australia’s Mandarins study (Weller 2001) reported that many senior public servants no longer aspire to secretary positions, believing them too insecure and stressful. Lending support to these concerns, a former secretary commented that: [Q]uite a number of deputies are declaring they don’t want to be considered; particularly the younger ones. They don’t wish to be considered for a job as a secretary … So some of them are saying ‘Thanks but no thanks’, and I think some of the better and brighter ones are actively looking at alternative career options now.

Max Moore-Wilton is perhaps the best example of personalisation under Howard. His appointment as secretary of PM&C had a decisive impact on both the shape and morale of the APS (Kelly 2006). It is argued that under his stewardship, the public service became ‘more politicised, more compliant and less able to offer “frank and fearless” advice’ (Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 38). Moore-Wilton’s approach was certainly a departure in style and substance from his predecessors.18 Despite his unorthodox style, during his time in the role, he was regarded as a close


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116 Power without responsibility confidant of the prime minister. Moore-Wilton reportedly prided himself on his flamboyance, on his tough, no-nonsense and if necessary, bullying style (Burgess 2002). When he announced his resignation in December 2002, the prime minister praised MooreWilton’s contribution, describing him as a ‘fantastic departmental secretary’ who had ‘served the government very well’. Questioned about where Moore-Wilton had had his greatest influence, Howard replied: I think generally in making certain that whilst maintaining the best traditions of the public service, the public service is responsive to the wishes and the goals of the elected government [Doorstop interview, 17 December 2002].

Moore-Wilton was accused of corrupting standing traditions of public service impartiality through his attendance at Liberal Party functions, notably Howard’s 2001 election celebration (see Harris 2002b). But Nethercote (2003, p 90) argues that what MooreWilton’s critics perceive as his political style is ‘essentially the enthusiastic pursuit of ministerial policy which long marked the old trade department in the days when John McEwen was minister’. He argues that claims about politicisation obscure the substantive problem with the change in the role of PM&C secretary in the new Public Service Act. Moore-Wilton’s replacement, Dr Peter Shergold, has a very different personal style, but he is similarly committed to public service responsiveness. He told the F&PA committee examining staff employed under the MoP(S) Act that: In terms of the values that are set out for the professionalism of the public service under the public service act, it is important to provide frank, honest, robust policy advice which is, at the same time, responsive to the directions that are set by the elected government of the day. I believe there are two key elements of a professional public service – the first is to provide robust policy advice to the government of the day and the second and equally important is that, when the government of the day sets


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its policy directions and takes its policy decisions, the Public Service should implement those faithfully [F&PA, Committee Hansard , 2 September 2003, pp 7–8].

But a former secretary maintains there has been a subtle change in the expectations of responsiveness under the Howard government: I think they are much more sophisticated and deliberate [than Labor] in wanting a greater level of responsiveness and control. A much higher level of control.

It seems this view has broad support. Reflecting on the cumulative impact of three decades of public sector reform, veteran journalist Paul Kelly (2006, p 12), asks whether under the political management pursued by the Howard government, the pendulum towards public service responsiveness may have moved too far. There are questions about whether the APS has become ‘too protective of its political masters and too responsive for good governance’ (Kelly 2006, p 13). The prime minister has consistently rejected claims that his government has undermined the public service (Howard 1998, p 10; 2003, p 11). He has spoken of: [M]y firm belief that an accountable, non-partisan and professional public service which responds creatively to the changing roles and demands of government is a great national asset. Preserving its value and nurturing its innovation is a priority for this government [Howard 1998, p 4].

He has also vehemently rejected claims that contestability and in particular the more influential role of ministerial staff have ‘led to diminution in the role of the public servant or the politicisation of the service’. Instead, he argues: The growth in the importance of ministerial staff has, in my view, been both inevitable and desirable. There is a clear demarcation between the overtly and wholly legitimate political tasks of a ministerial office and those of a purely administrative and policy character. These tasks constantly


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118 Power without responsibility mix and overlap in the daily life of a minister’s office. It is therefore proper that the staff working in a minister’s office both understand the different roles and include people who respect the essentially apolitical character of the professional public service [Howard 2003, p 11].

Howard’s public comments accord with interview data. Colleagues argue that the prime minister holds the public service in great esteem and that he understands and values the role of a professional, impartial public service. According to a former Howard adviser: He comes from a school which really is very cautious about pushing overtly into the role of the public service. He has always worked well with public servants and it’s my observation that he worked very closely with PM&C and certainly [I understand] very closely with business and consumer affairs …

But the prime minister has been unambiguous that in his government, ministers will drive the policy agenda, and that in a contestable environment, the public service is but one of a variety of sources that they will use in making decisions (Howard 1998; 2001; 2003). Moreover he has asserted the government’s ‘right to have in top leadership positions people who it believes can best give administrative effect to the policies which it was elected to implement’ (Howard 1998, p 8). It is difficult to reconcile competing perceptions of the relationship between the Howard government and the APS. It is worth noting however that evidence suggesting Howard’s commitment to a professional and impartial public service have come from his political supporters. Although there is undoubtedly hyperbole in some of the commentary on developments under Howard (see, for example, MacCallum 2004a; 2004b), and a tendency to overlook the extent to which key changes were initiated by Labor (Kelly 2006), there is evidence that the quest for ‘responsiveness’ has continued unabated under the Howard government, and that ministerial staff are a primary means by which it is achieved.


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Relations between ministerial staff and public servants Howard’s ministerial staff are active and interventionist in their dealings with public service agencies; using email and telephone contact to direct the support provided by departments. This is indicative of greater informality in relations between ministerial offices and the public service; something later chapters will show can undermine the quality and integrity of advice to ministers. Research by the Australian public service commission (APSC) found that a high proportion of all APS employees – 26 per cent in 2003–04 and 20 per cent in 2004–05 – had been in direct contact with ministers or their staff in the previous 12 months, by email, telephone or in person. This indicates ‘a far greater pervasiveness of interaction down and through the APS than is likely to have existed 10 or 20 years ago’ (APSC 2004, p 40; 2005, p 37). Shergold (2003b, p 3) argues ministers themselves have initiated changes in their dealings with the APS: Ministers have increasingly been unwilling to channel all their communication through their Secretary, and rightly so. As channels of communication have become diversified, as discussions take place more frequently by telephone and email, so ministers have increasingly shown a preference for dealing directly with the name on the bottom of the written brief. Quite understandably, they want to talk to the person who has the greatest knowledge, expertise and technical skill on the matter under consideration. As they have done so they have learned far more of the bureaucratic organisation that underpins the service they receive and, in many instances, have begun to take a more active interest in its structures, work systems and management.

Coalition ministers expressed a strong preference for dealing directly with the officer who had prepared a particular brief or submission. One indicated he became frustrated with a departmental secretary who he perceived was too controlling: When I started off in Canberra with this business that the department gives you everything, I could not have a meeting


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120 Power without responsibility with anyone in the Department without [the Secretary] being present. Now I don’t work that way. As far as I was concerned, if it was the second year cadet that put the brief together, it was them I wanted to speak to. I’d pick up the phone.

A former chief of staff explained that his minister took a similar approach: Part of [the minister’s] technique was not only to talk to the most senior people, but if he saw a minute and the action officer was down five levels, basically he had their name on the extension, he’d get them on the line and say he wanted to talk to them about such and such. You know, ‘It’s [the minister] here’.

But time pressures on ministers limit their capacity for personal contact. Their staff take responsibility for seeking additional information and liaising with public servants. Coalition staff are reaching deeper into departments than their Labor predecessors. The APSC’s 2003–04 state of the service survey found that 88 per cent of SES employees, 47 per cent of executive level employees (mid-level public servants) and 20 per cent of APS Level 1–6 staff reported having had contact with a ministerial office in the past two years (APSC 2004, p 40). Similar figures were recorded in the 2004–05 survey (APSC 2005, pp 35–37). These findings are significant in the context of other survey data released by the APSC which indicated considerable variance in staff awareness of agency protocols to guide interactions with ministerial offices (APSC 2003b, Chapter 4). While SES officers are likely to have reasonable awareness of agency protocols, lower level employees are less sure whether these are in place. They may lack an adequate depth of understanding of the principles underpinning the need for protocols (APSC 2003b, p 41). In recognition of this potential, the APSC recently published a ‘good practice guide’ to assist public servants in better supporting ministers (APSC 2006). Howard government ministerial staff indicated they expected to have a very ‘hands-on’ role in dealing with departments. According to a former chief of staff:


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The department was taken aback about the extent to which we wanted to get involved with the department. I got the impression that my [Labor] predecessors basically skimmed the surface and weren’t particularly interested. We were hands-on. [Interviewer: Why were you hands-on?] Oh, I think part of it was because you thought that at the end of the day, accountability is about my minister, and I need to know what’s going on in this department.

But another saw potential dangers in dealing directly with more junior public servants, particularly since the advent of email: In the ministerial offices I’ve worked in, what you find is that the emails allow you very direct contact and flow of information from quite junior staff; sometimes very junior staff. Now the pressures of a ministerial office are that an issue comes up and essentially you want to deal with something pretty quick. Often it’s a media request, but it could be a full blown crisis about something that’s come up in parliament; or it could be something that’s been happening in the portfolio that you didn’t know about in the minister’s office, and away she goes. What the email allows is that anywhere up the ranks but often the junior officers, the person who is the local expert, and in the department this may be a very junior officer; ministerial staff have direct access to that person. Of course you’ve always had that in some senses because of telephones but what happens is that you’ve got things in writing. I’ve never ever come across a situation where a faxed document would come across that hadn’t been quality checked. It comes across in emails every day, where your press secretary or whoever might ring the department, an officer, and say ‘What is this about?’ And they email back in half an hour or so saying ‘In my view, this is what it is about’. It’s in writing, and you know it’s in writing so it means something. But it’s not got that quality control, particularly for the minister and the minister’s office. You greatly appreciate the expedition of actually getting the answer but you have this problem that, especially if you know


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122 Power without responsibility the public service at all, it hasn’t been checked by someone in the SES. And your sense is that unless an SES person has checked it, it’s not checked. From an institutional point of view it hasn’t been checked.

Since coming to office in 1996, the Howard government has continued the drive of earlier governments for greater public service responsiveness. Through its public sector reform programme, its handling of departmental secretary appointments and terminations, and through the provisions of the new Public Service Act, the government has sought greater control and direction over the APS. This accords with the approach foreshadowed in the Valder report and with preparations for government made by the Liberal Party during its time in Opposition. Continuing changes in the relationship between ministers and public servants have reinforced the power and influence of ministerial staff. The next chapter profiles the staffing arrangements developed to support the Howard ministry.


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SIX Staffing the Howard ministry John Howard’s system of advice combines a large, disciplined and interventionist prime ministerial advisory infrastructure with a substantial and active ministerial staff supporting the rest of the ministry. His long political experience undoubtedly shaped his views about governments’ advisory needs. Since overcoming the difficulties of his first term, Howard has proved himself a formidable politician, confounding his critics, and seeing off four Labor leaders in his decade at the helm.1 Since his 2004 election victory, he has been at the zenith of his political power. The advisory system he has developed accounts, at least in part, for much of his political success (Tiernan 2006). Perhaps because of Howard’s experiences of treachery and betrayal during his tenacious climb to Australia’s top job, a key concern has been to surround himself with personally loyal


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124 Power without responsibility appointees; people who had proven themselves during his years in the political wilderness. 2 Competence and the ability to gain the trust of a prime minister who does not trust easily are criteria for entry to Howard’s advisory network. His preference for dealing with people with whom he has had long associations and/or familial connections is well documented and clearly evident, especially within his prime minister’s office (PMO). 3 From the beginning of his prime ministership, Howard has asserted his right to work with people he knows and feels comfortable with, and who share his political philosophy.

Support for the prime minister Howard’s advisory system comprises three key formal elements. These are: the PMO, the cabinet policy unit (CPU) and the department of prime minister and cabinet (PM&C). A departmental secretary observed that Howard’s system ‘gives the prime minister access to three sources of advice. There is some rivalry between the CPU and the Office and also with the department. It gives the PM competitive advice within a collegiate framework’. Howard’s system of advice is the largest ever constituted by an Australian prime minister. In May 2006, there were 41 staff in his private office. This compares with an average of around 30 under Paul Keating. In addition, Howard is serviced by the CPU, collocated with the PMO. It currently has six staff; bringing Howard’s personal staff to more than 47.

Prime minister’s office (PMO) Given his stated belief in the value of personal staff, it follows the PMO is an important element of Howard’s advisory infrastructure. Howard’s office is comprised almost entirely of partisan personal loyalists with long associations with the prime minister. Thirteen of the staff from Howard’s office as leader of the Opposition made the transition to government.4 Eleven years on, two remain. 5 Initially the functional divisions that characterised the PMOs of Fraser and Hawke were maintained. Thus Howard’s office was


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divided into an advisory group, an administrative group and a media unit, all under the chief of staff, originally Nicole Feely. Howard’s trusted political adviser Grahame Morris was elevated to the chief of staff position in May 1997, but his tenure in the job was brief. He and office manager, Fiona McKenna were both dismissed during the Travel Rorts affair in September 1997. Notwithstanding his departure from the PMO, Morris remains one of Howard’s closest advisers. Howard appointed Arthur Sinodinos to the chief of staff position. In 1998 the office was reorganised into five functional areas under the leadership of the chief of staff: • a personal staff comprising a principal private secretary and two personal secretaries; • an advisory group comprising between ten and 12 advisers, with senior advisers specialising in a substantive policy area; • a programme coordination and event management group comprising two staff; • an administration group with a staff of ten headed by an office manager; and • a press unit comprising seven staff, headed by the prime minister’s press secretary. Staff numbers in the PMO have increased gradually from 30 in July 1996 to the current complement (at the time of writing) of 41. Areas of growth include the advisory group which has fluctuated between nine and 12; administration where numbers increased from nine to 11; and in the new programme coordination and event management area, which has three dedicated staff. Throughout his prime ministership, Howard has maintained senior advisers in the areas of international, government, economics and social policy. Other senior adviser positions have varied. The advisory group also includes generalist advisers more junior in classification to the specialists. It is periodically supplemented by specialist consultants. Between 1998 and September 2006 for example, Howard retained the services of Sydney-based communications strategist, Geoffrey Cousins. 6 During the 1998 restructure, the job of providing political


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126 Power without responsibility advice to the prime minister moved from the advisory group to the personal staff group. Following the loss of Morris, political fixer Tony Nutt, became principal private secretary. Nutt has a broad brief, mostly as a ‘problem-solver’ and ‘enforcer’ on behalf of the prime minister (Grattan 2003a). He is a machine man focused on the politics rather than policy, and ensuring his boss’ interests are protected. He plays an important role in maintaining discipline across government. According to Tony Wright (2002): Nutt keeps the locked files that contain the ammunition to quell internal problems and get the leader out of political quagmires. As a former director of both the NSW and West Australian branches of the Liberal Party, he knows where the political bodies are buried because he has helped bury more than a few.

The structure of the PMO has remained unchanged since 1998. There has been turnover in some key positions, but mostly the staff has been very stable. Arthur Sinodinos has acknowledged the importance of this longevity: We’ve all been around a long time. It’s a team rather than individuals fighting for access to the emperor’s ear [cited in Grattan 2003a].

It has been speculated that Sinodinos’ resignation will precipitate an organisational restructure of the office during 2007 (Lewis 2006). Several commentators have noted that Howard has sought to distinguish his prime ministership from Keating’s (see, for example, Barns 2003b; Kitney 1996). Ministerial staffing is no exception. In Opposition, Howard was highly critical of Keating’s ‘imperial’ style,7 and of his personal staff who he regarded as too visible and high-profile. They were, Howard said, ‘Irish Labor bang-em-on-the-head types, who were congratulating themselves as they went over the rapids’ (Williams 1997, p 92). 8 Differentiation from Labor extends particularly to the visibility of ministerial staff. Howard staff are encouraged to adopt a low profile so as not to overshadow ministers. This was a recurrent theme in interviews for this study. Although staff are crucial to


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the governing enterprise, the prime minister prefers they remain in the background and not develop an identity of their own. A former chief of staff noted: The Coalition’s approach is in part a reaction to their perception that advisers had a key role under Labor. It’s a reaction to the Russells and Watsons who were seen to be unaccountable and often more powerful than ministers. Ministers want to have the profile in the Coalition government, so advisers have been told to play a much lower key role.

Even the prime minister’s closest advisers ‘know their own power – and are aware of its limits. Howard does not allow his staff to build their own empires’ (Grattan 2003a). According to a former Howard government staffer: I would have thought the Prime Minister’s Office today is less prominent than the PMO under Hawke from say 1987 to the end of the Keating era. Much lower profile. You know, names like Watson, Walsh, Russell were not as well known as Ministers, but they were well known within the broadsheet reading public. Sinodinos, Nutt, L’Estrange in the Cabinet Policy Unit – they just don’t rate. [Interviewer: They don’t rate but does that mean they are less important, or is that a deliberate style thing?] I think that it’s very much a stylistic point of view, but the style is dictated by a slightly less imperial approach. I think it’s very much reflective of the Prime Minister’s personal values.

The lower profile of staff does not mean they are unimportant. However, the prime minister is of the strong personal view that they are functionaries who should be subordinate to elected representatives. A former senior adviser explained: The prime minister has a very strong belief in the notion of the elected representatives and the cabinet … He just has a very strong commitment to the notion of the party room and the elected representatives. So staffers had influence, but with the exception of the chief of staff to the prime minister, on national policy issues, no power.


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128 Power without responsibility But some ministerial staff have developed quite significant public profiles through their involvement in political controversies. Ross Hampton, former media adviser to Peter Reith and later chief of staff to former minister for environment and heritage, senator Ian Campbell, came to public prominence during the Children Overboard affair. His predecessor, Ian Hanke, achieved notoriety when he was accused by Mark Latham in 2004 of ‘peddling rumours’ and ‘digging dirt’ about the Opposition leader’s private life (Wright 2004; Murphy 2004). Howard’s office is as much a reflection of his discipline, experience, political skills and personality as Keating’s was of his erratic and volatile approach. Colleagues and bureaucrats report Howard is immensely disciplined, with a ‘huge’ work ethic and capacity to deal with the prime ministerial paper-load. Unlike Keating who seemed overwhelmed by the demands on his time, Howard is energised by the role. According to Grattan (2003a), ‘Howard’s office runs smoothly, apparently without those existential moments – documented in Don Watson’s book – that gave the Keating office frisson and friction’. A former party official attributes the calm tenor of the office to the prime minister’s demeanour and experience: Howard is not a person of great highs and lows. That’s really taxing. You know the Keating office would have been really taxing. He [Keating] had some good people. Well they were all good people in their own way, but there were lots of personalities. In Howard’s office, he’s the one who gets the publicity. [Interviewer: Is that because he doesn’t like the staff getting it?]. Well, he sort of picks people that don’t want it. You can go through the office and there’s hardly an ego amongst them.

Howard’s PMO is regarded as significantly more effective and professional than Keating’s, although this assessment tends to date from 1998. According to Heather Ridout, chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, whose organisation deals regularly with the Howard office: It’s approachable and professional. From a customer service point of view, it’s very good for the business community. It’s a


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balanced office; it’s not all politics, policy is also given priority [cited in Grattan 2003a].

The professionalism of the Howard PMO is often attributed to the leadership of his chief of staff. Journalists, ministers, staff, parliamentarians, bureaucrats and lobbyists interviewed for this study commented on Sinodinos’ skills, professionalism and candour. According to a former senior adviser, ‘He keeps a very good balance of policy and administration and political nous’. Similar assessments were offered by other respondents: I regularly give Arthur Sinodinos a large amount of credit for the improvement in the Coalition ministers’ discipline. He had many years in the Opposition Leader’s office and other roles pre-Government, and was also well respected in Treasury [former senior adviser]. Sinodinos is outstanding – in the way he responds, his attitude and behaviour. He takes matters seriously and is efficient and professional [senator Andrew Murray]. Sinodinos has become a very respected key figure. He is so experienced and has great political savvy [gallery journalist].

A former treasury official, Sinodinos has had a long association with Howard. He worked as economics adviser to the then Opposition leader from 1987 to 1989, and rejoined the staff when Howard returned to the position in 1995. As Tingle (2003) reports: Sinodinos has risen through the policy rather than the political ranks. This is not unprecedented. For long periods during his time as both Treasurer and Prime Minister, Paul Keating had a Treasury man as chief of staff, or principal private secretary: Dr Don Russell. But perhaps as much because of the nature of the man he works for, and a different policy agenda, Sinodinos has not developed Russell’s Machiavellian demeanour or love of the political game. Nor, it has to be said, the dread, fear or resentment that Russell provoked. Sinodinos is more in the style of some of the mandarins from PM&C who served Bob Hawke as chiefs of staff and


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130 Power without responsibility then made successful transitions back to the public service … During their time as prime ministerial staffers, they remained in the background; impeccable public servants rather than political operatives.

Sinodinos was a highly effective agent of his prime minister, but not a political enforcer in the mould of Grahame Morris or Don Russell. Others in the Howard coterie, notably Tony Nutt, usually play that role. His style was inclusive ‘with the staff in the PMO and with staff across the ministerial wing’ (Tingle 2003). He was courteous and professional in his dealings, not just with ministers, ministerial staff and government members, but it seems, everyone he encountered in the course of his role. In this context, Sinodinos’ handling of Mick Keelty seems somewhat anomalous. He has been described by a Howard minister as a ‘very effective deputy PM’ (quoted in Grattan 2003a), and by Liberal Party federal director, Brian Loughnane, as ‘probably the most influential prime ministerial chief of staff ever’ (Lewis 2006). Institutional reasons may explain why the PMO is seen to be functioning more effectively than under Keating. Senior ministerial staff report Howard’s decision to move responsibility for strategy and long-term directions from the PMO to the CPU ‘has meant that a huge amount of dealing with the bureaucracy is now handled by the CPU’. While there is some overlap, this enables the PMO to focus on day-to-day issues, short-term policy and political considerations. Despite this shift in functional responsibilities, the PMO has grown by 11 staff since Howard came to office; the CPU has another six. This additional capacity may account for its improved performance, although the personality and style of the prime minister and chief of staff are undoubtedly also significant. Howard’s PMO has contributed substantially to his political success (Tiernan 2006). According to a senior bureaucrat who observed both Keating and Howard at close quarters: They [the PMO] are very effective in getting the briefings and getting the prime minister briefed on issues. One thing that


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distinguishes a champion sporting person from their peers is that they seem to be unhurried; calm. They seem to be on top of things. They seem to have a lot more time to do things, and prepare for things than their colleagues. And that’s how it is with Howard. Howard never seems, or very rarely seems harried or rushed. He’s almost always on top of the subject. The questions that might get put to him are anticipated. His position on issues is deliberate and calculated. He rarely gets caught by surprise and he is very effective in bringing to bear I think, rewards and sanctions on people.

Howard has acknowledged the contribution of his staff, singling out Sinodinos for special mention in his address to the centenary of the Australian public service (APS) (Howard 2001, p 7). Although he clearly prefers his staff to be in the background: Howard knows his back room is his engine room, and that much of his political effectiveness comes from having a good one [Grattan 2003a].

The PMO gives Howard wide reach across government on significant or sensitive policy issues. But this carriage of issue does not mean the PMO is all-powerful. A former chief of staff argued that: The idea that the PMO is all-controlling is an exaggeration. The PMO is all-controlling on some things. But in fact, 90 per cent of what ministers’ offices do is not controlled, not audited, unaccountable to the PMO or the PM’s Press Unit. So the broader idea that they control everything is wrong. They control the key things that are important to them and to the PM, but the vast majority of administrative things – launches, school openings, fetes, announcements etc, the PMO have very little control over and they don’t seek any control of. I would argue that it is powerful in those areas in which it wishes to be powerful. It is a mark of Howard’s unassailable authority as leader … I think people conflate the PMO with the prime minister. So I think for various reasons, people like to talk about the power of the prime minister’s office and so on,


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132 Power without responsibility but it cannot be separated from Howard the person; Howard the election winner.

Another chief of staff noted: I’ve got a different slant on that. My involvement in government over twenty years says to me that Howard is the most presidential prime minister we’ve ever had. It has become a more presidential system. It’s still a cabinet government, and cabinet still makes the decisions, but I just think … Well, you’re the researcher and you can show this is right or wrong, but my sense is that is a fact. I actually don’t think the PMO is powerful – only in the sense that it is related to Howard is it powerful.

Unlike Malcolm Fraser whose interventions in the portfolios of his cabinet colleagues provoked anger (Weller 1989a), the involvement of Howard’s PMO and department on key issues does not appear to have undermined his stocks of political capital. There are several explanations for why this might be so. First, the Liberal Party has a tradition of vesting substantial power in the hands of its leaders. Former Howard government minister, Dr David Kemp (1984), has argued the Liberal Party recognises the value of leadership and that, so long as the leader ensures effective government and electoral victory, he or she will be given considerable authority and latitude. With four election victories under his belt, Howard has unrivalled authority. Since 2004 his dominance of the party has been almost complete. A second explanation derives from the style and approach of Howard’s PMO, which is deliberately different from that of its predecessor. Although the office is extremely powerful when it needs or wants to be, its interventions are not constant. Senator Andrew Murray who has had significant dealings with it observed that: Howard’s office is supreme. It is all-powerful, but its exercise of power is not constant. Like the male lion who does not need to be constantly snapping or attacking, it is the potential of the exercise of power that maintains order.


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Even Greg Barns, a staunch critic of the Howard government, commented that ‘as long as ministers were getting on with the job of implementing the government’s agenda, they could expect little interference from the PMO’. The interventions of the prime minister and his staff in portfolio matters are seen as legitimate, even helpful. A former chief of staff noted that: I found the policy people of the PMO – certainly my view based on my dealings with them was that they were very good quality people, but they weren’t going around telling Ministers what to do. They certainly weren’t telling me what to do, but my sense was they weren’t doing it more generally either.

Despite its role in facilitating the prime minister’s dominance, Howard’s office has not developed the same reputation for insularity and aloofness as Keating’s. Howard listens to colleagues, ‘having learnt a decade ago the dangers of failing to do so’ (Grattan 1996b). His advisory system helps Howard navigate the complex and competing demands of contemporary leadership. A particular strength is the manner in which he deals with the Coalition party room. According to a senior colleague: The thing about Howard is that he doesn’t walk into a room and say ‘This is the way it’s going to be’. The backbench still feel that he is interested in their opinions; still alert to what their views are. He mightn’t end up doing what they say, right? He does exercise his prerogative. But I am told that they genuinely feel that he is listening. He might not be agreeing, but he is listening. He sets a tone. And his cabinet feel that (1) he is leading, but (2) they’ve had a chance to influence and be heard.

A third explanation for the lack of rumblings about Howard’s dominance is that after 13 years in Opposition, Coalition members understand the value of unity and discipline. Throughout his leadership, Howard has continually reminded them that the Coalition’s grip on power is tenuous. But institutional factors also support the government’s unity and discipline, and here the role


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134 Power without responsibility of ministerial staff becomes significant. Grattan (2003b) attributes the government’s disciplined performance to the efforts of: ministers and an army of propagandists – many of them journalistic poachers turned gamekeepers. We know hardly anything of what goes on inside the Howard Cabinet Room, where we once knew a lot about the Hawke Cabinet’s entrails. Howard runs a largely leak-free Cabinet – bad for the journalists, but you have to give him full marks.

PMO and control of government appointments Howard’s system of advice is highly personalised. Appointments spanning a spectrum from ministerial staff to government boards and other statutory appointments are closely supervised by the prime minister through his PMO. There are two key mechanisms by which this is achieved, each of which involves senior PMO staff. The first is the government staff committee described earlier. The second is a substantially increased role for the prime minister in approving significant government appointments, formalised through changes to cabinet processes. Personalisation is the hallmark of the Howard prime ministership. It is evident in his staffing decisions, both the sackings and appointments, and across the system of advice more generally, including advisory boards, statutory bodies and other strategic government appointments. Howard’s determination to exercise the government’s powers of political patronage has been well documented (see, for example, Edwards 2004; Henderson 2003). Greater prime ministerial involvement in appointments has been institutionalised through changes to the cabinet process, and formalised through the prime minister’s ‘rules’ for the running of cabinet: the Cabinet Handbook. It states that ‘the making of appointments is a very significant government activity with important long-term implications’ (PM&C 2004, p 26). It lists government appointments that must be brought to the prime minister’s attention. For ‘significant’ government appointments, ministers are required to write to the prime minister seeking


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his, ‘or at his discretion, cabinet’s approval of the appointment’ (PM&C 2004, p 24). These include significant full-time or parttime appointments to boards, commissions or statutory offices, full-time chief executives, appointments to significant tribunals, commissions of inquiry and advisory bodies, and many temporary appointments (PM&C 2004, pp 24–26). At the procedural level these changes have entrenched important roles for ministerial staff in the CPU and the PMO. The Howard cabinet devotes more time to government appointments than any of its predecessors. A former cabinet minister confirmed that the prime minister’s staff are deeply engaged in vetting government appointments. Taken together with control of ministerial staff appointments through the government staff committee, this gives Howard significant authority. The emergence of a staffing apparatus to support this explicitly political activity is a further organisational expression of prime ministerial power.

Prime minister’s media unit With a staff of seven, Howard’s media unit, part of the PMO, is the largest ever assembled by an Australian prime minister. 9 The growth in media staff reflects the prime minister’s commitment to media activities and his focus on the ‘permanent campaign’ (Kelly 2006, p 9). Although he has strong media skills, Howard distrusts the media, and like his predecessors ‘regards the media in general, as a problem to be handled’ (Grattan 1998b, p 2). As Opposition leader, Howard had a troubled relationship with the press gallery, and as a consequence developed a ‘healthy distrust’ of it (Parker 1991). He has cultivated opportunities to by-pass the press gallery, preferring to communicate directly with the Australian public. Howard prefers electronic media to newspapers, carefully structuring his press appearances. He makes frequent use of the doorstop interview, but is less likely to hold formal press conferences, unless making a specific announcement. His press secretary, former tabloid journalist Tony O’Leary, manages


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136 Power without responsibility Howard’s relationship with the media. O’Leary’s brief includes ensuring the prime minister’s message is delivered without interference from journalistic intermediaries whom he regards as hostile and pro-Labor ‘gatekeepers’ (Steketee 2001). O’Leary also has the role of disciplining journalists who present the government unfavourably, either directly through stern phone calls,10 or more subtly by limiting individual journalists or specific programmes from gaining access to the prime minister.11 Throughout his prime ministership, Howard has maintained a regular schedule of appearances on commercial radio, in interview and talkback formats. He appears more selectively, and on more stringently negotiated terms on the ABC. Journalists report the prime minister has recently become less accessible; opting for interviews with selected television journalists and limiting print journalists to transcripts issued by his media unit. O’Leary also coordinates the activities of the 34 media staff currently serving across the Howard government, determining which ministers and issues will be made available for certain media appearances; television current affairs programmes and especially Sunday morning television. This enables him to distribute patronage across the press gallery. When ministers get into difficulty, O’Leary provides advice and assistance on media strategy to help retrieve the situation. In practice there are many more staff involved in media activities than official numbers acknowledge. This includes the network of additional media advisers in the offices of six ministers – one in each state (Senate, Debates, 3 April 2000, pp 13 206–13 209) – whose role is to coordinate media relations in the state. The 12 staff of the government members’ secretariat (GMS) are also deeply immersed in media management and coordination. The government dismisses ALP claims that the GMS performs the same functions as the national media liaison service (NMLS) and the ministerial media group (MMG) (Senate Debates, 13 June 2006, p 184). But critics argue that the group is an extensive ‘listening’ and ‘propaganda’ machine (Barns 2004; Ward 2003). The GMS does not, however, appear to be initiating the government’s media strategy, as was the case with Labor’s MMG


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under the leadership of David Epstein. According to a former government press secretary, ‘there is no David Epstein in the Coalition government. He had more authority than the ministers. There is nobody controlling the message to the same extent Epstein did’. It is widely acknowledged that Howard is the author of his own media strategy. According to Chan (2000): In terms of media strategy, Howard is the best brain in his office. He has an extraordinary talent for sniffing out the genesis of stories and can tell if a journalist is running ‘a line’ from another politician.

O’Leary offered a similar perspective in a rare comment to The Age newspaper: It has always been his [Howard’s] philosophy to get on the front foot and deliver messages. He does a lot of it through radio because it’s very effective. That’s not my strategy – it’s his strategy. We (the media staff) are in the background filtering and balancing, trying to service the various bids, standing at the gate because the demand exceeds the supply [cited in Grattan 2003a].

Experienced journalists note the Howard government has continued the trend of recent governments towards tighter control of the media agenda (Kelly 2006). Grattan (1998a) for example, describes an ‘ever-more elaborate media management system and an increasingly limited amount of direct, regular and in-depth media access to the leader making the decisions’. She notes that in addition to controlling the flow of information from the government itself, the Howard government has limited the media’s access to alternative sources of information. She observes that ‘most public servants are frightened to talk to journalists unless told to. They’re under orders to channel queries to ministers’ offices or departmental PR sections’ (Grattan 2003b). Access to informal contacts have thus been limited, requiring journalists to follow more formal channels. The government’s concern to control the media message, as a senior journalist put it, ‘to chase down every ball’ and ‘score every


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138 Power without responsibility political point’, is motivated by the politicisation of Australian society and culture (Kelly 2006, p 9). It reflects the Coalition’s perception that the media, like other institutions, is hostile to its agenda. Strategic communications management – tightly controlled and carefully coordinated – is achieved through the prime minister’s media unit, the network of press secretaries across the Howard ministry and the GMS; giving staff in these roles a more significant (if potentially circumscribed) role than might have been the case under earlier governments. This has enhanced the power of media advisers in their relationship with the public service such that departmental secretaries now regard the press secretary as one of the most important people in the ministerial office. The case studies that follow show there is now significant interaction between media staff and public servants, even at junior levels. Given that no significant studies of the role and influence of ministerial media staff have been conducted in Australia, it is difficult to draw meaningful comparisons with earlier governments.12 But veteran observer, Paul Kelly (2006, p 12) reports ‘the Howard government has brought control of the public service/media interface to new heights’. In addition to the tasks outlined, Howard’s media unit monitors all of his public comments – speeches, doorstop interviews, formal interviews and talkback radio appearances – issuing transcripts that can be quickly circulated or accessed from his website. Howard seldom uses prepared speeches, preferring to speak from notes that he often makes himself. Recording and transcribing the prime minister’s comments thus assumes particular importance; creating demand for additional staff resources. Howard’s extensive travel and meeting schedule requires the deployment of forward scouts to check out a given venue and ensure the prime minister will be presented in the best possible light. Aside from ensuring the media strategy is achieved, supporting the prime minister’s media activities is an important logistical and administrative task.


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Cabinet policy unit (CPU) The CPU is another key element of Howard’s formal advisory system. Initially intended to be a substantial unit, its size has been limited to between five and seven staff. CPU staff work in cooperation with bureaucrats located within the cabinet secretariat of PM&C. According to the Cabinet Handbook (PM&C 2004, p 2), the CPU’s responsibilities include: (a)

providing advice on matters being considered by Cabinet as well as on strategic policy directions to provide a more detailed medium- to longer-term perspective on the policy agenda and outcomes of Cabinet deliberations as they relate to the implementation of the government’s policies and priorities; and

(b)

working closely with policy advisers in the Prime Minister’s Office and in the offices of other Cabinet ministers to enhance the linkages between departmental and ministerial sources of advice on Cabinet-related business.

Although initially controversial, compared with Australian state governments, establishment of a political cabinet office by the Commonwealth was a rather late development.13 It was one of the new government’s first actions, but it was several months before its role and purpose became clear. With its head as cabinet secretary, the CPU’s purpose was to ‘act as a link between the PMO and PM&C to help ensure proposals fit the governing party’s philosophy and strategic directions’ (Weller 2000, p 66). Another function is ‘to provide the prime minister with a stream of advice on cabinet issues separate to that he receives from other advisers’ (Taylor 1996). But the role of cabinet secretary is the most crucial. As a politicallyappointed adviser to the prime minister, ‘his brief is to ensure that the government’s strategic policy objectives are not subjugated to bureaucratic interests’ (Burton & Dodson 1996). In an illustration of its explicitly political brief, the CPU coordinated development of the government’s election platform and third term policy agenda,


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using teams of ministerial staff to develop policy proposals based on a ‘values framework’ outlined by the prime minister in 2000.14 Establishment of the CPU is an innovation whose impact is perhaps more significant than is widely appreciated (see Kelly 2006, p 10). According to a former departmental secretary: I think the most significant change has been the establishment of the cabinet policy unit and the appointment of a person under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act [MoP(S) Act] to be secretary to cabinet. This was traditionally a job done by the head of the prime minister’s department. Those two roles have been separated quite distinctively now, and of course the reason for employing them under the MoP(S) Act is because the person who owns the secretary to cabinet job and runs the CPU is all about being the keeper of the keys for the ideology or the philosophy underpinning the Coalition government.

The CPU’s focus is strategic and whole-of-government. A former senior staffer explained that its job is ‘not to run anything, but to make sure things are happening’. It works with the cabinet secretariat to ensure the smooth running of cabinet. The cabinet secretariat, formerly the cabinet office, had its name changed in 1996 to distinguish it from the CPU. Staffed by public servants, it provides secretariat support to cabinet and cabinet committees (PM&C 2001, p 7). Although it reports through the secretary of PM&C, the cabinet secretary has a significant say in assessment of the secretariat’s performance. Howard is somewhat of a traditionalist where cabinet is concerned. Since coming to office, cabinet has met regularly. Unlike Keating who delegated attendance at cabinet committees to his staff, and allowed them to be present for cabinet meetings, Howard’s approach is more conventional. But he has strengthened his hand with institutional enhancements that have extended the supervision and reach of the prime minister. These arrangements have facilitated the entry of personal loyalists into his formal system of advice, providing additional patronage appointments for prime ministerial distribution.


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The suggestion that appointment of a political cabinet secretary has strengthened Howard’s grip on cabinet processes, ensuring that what comes before it fits the strategic agenda, is confirmed by interview data. A former chief of staff observed that: There’s a lot more of ‘and the issue will be resolved by discussions between the prime minister and the treasurer’. And if the PM is involved, you know that means the prime minister will ultimately decide. But I certainly had a view and as I say, I can’t quantify that, but having been a public servant and in political offices, my sense is that it is much more common than it used to be. And that contributes to a more presidential style. [Interviewer: So more bilateral negotiations between the PM and ministers?]. Yes, much more that is now not a decision of cabinet. Cabinet has made a decision, but that the PM will decide.

The head of the CPU is pivotal within Howard’s system of advice. The position is classified and remunerated at the same level as his chief of staff, and reports directly to the prime minister.15 A former chief of staff commented: Understand that there is another very senior position, which is the cabinet secretary. He’s a very influential person. I’ve never been completely sure who’s the most important person – the cabinet secretary or the chief of staff. My view is that when L’Estrange was there, that L’Estrange was the man. If I had a real problem on a policy or something in my portfolio, my ultimate solution was to go and convince him.

Respondents to this study report that L’Estrange was strong on policy, and worked hard to coordinate advice between the CPU, the PMO and PM&C. He was appointed high commissioner to London in 2000. His replacement was Paul McClintock, a lawyer and investment banker who was formerly an adviser to Howard in the Fraser government. While he had a very different style to L’Estrange, McClintock was instrumental in streamlining cabinet processes and reinforcing the leadership role of cabinet in the


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142 Power without responsibility development and oversight of the government’s strategic direction (Wanna & Hanson 2005).

Department of prime minister and cabinet (PM&C) The bureaucratic element of Howard’s advisory system is PM&C. While it continues to play important roles in supporting the prime minister, its position has been affected by development of a more extensive and influential PMO. Under Howard, PM&C’s role in managing the cabinet process has been supplanted by the CPU, although the secretary still attends cabinet meetings. While not at the centre of political action, the department remains an important part of the system, mobilising and coordinating the public service to respond to government directions and agendas. A former Howard staffer explained: PM&C have got the skills, they’ve got the resources, they’ve got the bureaucratic authority and the whole system assumes that the relationship between the PM and his office and the department is effective, and works well – is responsive. The department is very influential in implementation and designing systems; bringing the bureaucracy to the table. But of course, the prime minister may not need so much guidance about what to do or where the priorities are from the bureaucracy, and I guess this government is showing signs of having a prime minister who has been there for a while and is in command, and doesn’t need a lot of hand-holding.

Over its recent history, PM&C has shown itself highly adaptable to the demands of the incumbent; reshaping to suit the priorities of its prime minister (Weller 1989a; 2000). It downsized dramatically under Moore-Wilton, but since 2003 staff numbers have grown and there has been increased investment in corporate systems and staff development (Shergold 2003a).16 An organisational restructure in 2003 saw the establishment of the national security division with responsibilities for counter-terrorism, defence, intelligence, security, law enforcement and border protection.


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A cabinet implementation unit was also established, signalling a determination that cabinet decisions are promptly actioned (Wanna 2006b). These and other adaptations, such as the recently established office of water resources, reflect prime ministerial priorities and commitments.

Support for the wider ministry There are now 445 staff serving Coalition ministers and officeholders. A significant proportion – over 68 per cent – hold advisory positions. This is a marked increase over the Keating government where less than 46 per cent of the staff were classified as advisers (Maley 2000b, p 50). Over 70 per cent of Howard ministerial staffers occupy senior positions at adviser level or above.17 Staff classified as playing media advisory roles account for just under 10 per cent of all staff, although as noted, official reports often understate these numbers. Secretarial and administrative staff account for 22 per cent of the government’s staffing establishment. The ministry is also served by 72 departmental liaison officers (DLOs).18 Table 6.1 Number of staff in advisory positions 1996

’97

’98

’99

2000

’01

’02

’03

’04

Numbers of advisory staff

175

178

178

204

207

213

224

226

249

As proportion of total staff

60

60

53

60

60

60

61

61

64

’05

’06

266 304 65

68

As in earlier governments, ministers determine how their offices are organised to suit their particular style. A former senior adviser explained: [The minister] is very much a political and policy ideas person – interested in the pursuit of policy and political ideas. He didn’t want to run his office. He wanted the chief to manage the office and he wanted me to manage the political issues. You’ve got half a dozen staffers who are policy people in an office like that. But managing the relationship with the department


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144 Power without responsibility and managing the office was the chief of staff. Managing the policy and political agenda and breakout political issues was the senior adviser, which was my role. I mean, we carved this out from Opposition. We worked out what it would be. We worked out what his needs were; and then we worked out what I wanted to do.

For ministers, staff are there to ‘buffer the department’; to provide essential support to cope with the demands on the minister’s time. Supervising the department and ensuring it is delivering on their priorities is seen by ministers as another key role. A former minister noted the staff in his office were not there to micro-manage, but to ‘question public service advice’; to make sure it was ‘not skewiff, politically wrong or impractical’. He argued: So it was really about ensuring that the output from the departments of the public sector was in line with the government’s programme – serving the government through me. At the same time obviously, that I and my office were on top of it.

Staff tend to specialise along functional lines determined by themselves and the chief of staff. Thus within offices particular advisers will have carriage of specific areas of policy responsibility, sometimes with the assistance of a more junior adviser. Where ministers have additional responsibilities – say as manager of government business in the house or senate – they usually have a staffer dedicated to that function. A former chief of staff with previous experience working for a state minister noted the differences in a Commonwealth minister’s office: What became apparent quite rapidly which we didn’t quite expect, were the demands on the minister other than policy. The parliamentary demands of organising for question time, organising for attendance in the house. Organising for – we had some legislation to get through – getting a bill through the house is a complicated process. Keeping track of committees and other parliamentary business relevant to the minister. So what we then did was that we carved out a


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role out of one of those ministerial advisers and said ‘You are doing the parliamentary business as well’. And the DLO role was very important. We had some good DLOs and they were very important for managing the parliamentary business and the parliamentary side.

Then there are media staff and a variety of support staff. Of the support staff, the office manager and personal secretary – if they are responsible for running the minister’s diary – are the most significant. Office managers are responsible for administrative issues devolved to ministerial offices, including ministerial and ministerial staff travel and entitlements. This is a sensitive area of administration that has proved problematic in the past, and now receives particular attention. A former chief of staff explained that within the ministerial office: except for the minister, they [press secretaries] are probably the person who works under the highest day-to-day pressure in terms of stress I would think. You’ve got people ringing you all day every day and you can never be sure that something is off the record. And invariably when they initially ring, you don’t actually have a clue what the answer is, so you are always sort of groping around in the dark. If you’re the press secretary and somebody rings you’ve got to say ‘Yep’ but you don’t really understand it, so you’ve got to go and find it. It’s a very stressful job and it can be … Actually another position that is very stressful is the diary secretary because a minister is just overloaded with requests and of course you’re dealing often with very stroppy people because you’re knocking everybody back because of the pressures on time.

Within the office usually one staff member will be a ‘political fixer’ or a ‘political hatchet person’ as one senior bureaucrat described them. Sometimes the chief of staff or a senior adviser, they play a ‘huge political role’ for which a former senior adviser had coined the term ‘issues management’. According to a senior bureaucrat, these staff are potentially the most difficult for public servants because they see their role as:


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146 Power without responsibility Tough-nosed, political – ‘whatever the merits of this thing, we’ve got to have these answers’; ‘this is what we have to do in the parliament today’, or in terms of the media. Just protecting the minister from the pitfalls, but not necessarily bringing to bear a particular area of subject matter expertise.

A former chief of staff agreed these staff could be problematic: because political fixers who don’t have an understanding of the policy will usually get it wrong and complicate things. The closest thing we had to a political fixer was the media adviser who played a very important role – who would run a political eye over things after we did the policy. [Interviewer: Did you ever change policy as a consequence?] Sometimes yes. The process was – the policies and ideas were determined, then as often as possible we would try to explain major things as early as possible to the media adviser so the first thing they knew was not when they were tapping out the media release with five minutes to go. They would cast a broad political eye over it, the tests being: How would the media react? What might the electorate think? What might the party think? What might the leadership think? So there was a political ruler put over policy, but we deliberately put it at the end of the policy and we would make changes, but we thought it was more important to get our policy ideas right first and then we would take it to the fixer. [Interviewer: But you think your minister might have been unusual in that regard?] Yes! Yes.

Howard’s chiefs of staff The chief of staff position has emerged as an especially important one under the Howard government, representing an evolution from arrangements under Keating. There has been a shift in nomenclature from ‘principal adviser’ or ‘senior adviser’ as heads of office were known under Labor, to the rather more Washingtoninspired ‘chief of staff’. These descriptors are now embedded in the salary structure for senior ministerial staff, and also reflected


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across the Opposition staff and staff of other office holders.19 While the policy role was the primary focus of senior Labor staff, Howard chiefs of staff have a managerial and political role. Some combine specific policy responsibility with these tasks, but many leave policy advising to others in the office. This gives the chief of staff space to focus on, as a former party official noted, ‘shadowing the minister’; ‘trying to think like the minister’ and ‘protecting his or her backside’. It can be a difficult job, and one that is personally and professionally demanding (see Barns 2003a). According to a former senior chief of staff: A minister has a brutal paper load. It depends, but I think chiefs of staff have a worse paper load because they are filtering. So everything that the minister gets, you’ve read – that’s your job. You’d better have read or if not in absolute detail, enough to be aware of exactly what it is that is being put in front of the minister and secondly, you’ve got a lot of extraneous other stuff that you believe you need to be across for the Minister, but that he doesn’t need to read. I haven’t talked about the hours but the hours are brutal for the most part. I would say that most people work pretty huge hours; the pace can be pretty bad.

Chiefs of staff exercise substantial delegated authority on behalf of their ministers. They are responsible for running of the ministerial office and in the selection and the day-to-day coordination of the minister’s staff. They manage the minister’s relationship with the department, with the party, lobbyists, interest groups and so on. They are deeply engaged in brokering agreement on policy and legislation; roles that became especially significant because of the government’s lack of a senate majority during its first three terms. Maley (2002b) notes that the staff of central agency ministers in the Keating government – the ‘troika’ of the prime minister, the treasurer and the minister for finance – played important coordinating roles across the ministry. Under Howard, these roles are played by the PMO, the staff of the deputy prime minister and treasurer. A former Howard staffer noted that:


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148 Power without responsibility The truth is that the very senior ministers significantly run the policy agenda and most of the big strategic issues – if there was any oversight structure, we tried to make sure that none of those three ministers ever got out of the loop. And that really meant their offices [Howard, Anderson and Costello] were roped in pretty strongly even if they weren’t.

During parliamentary sitting weeks, the prime minister’s chief of staff would often hold meetings with his counterparts, although the demands on time meant these tended to be more ad hoc than regular. These tended to be information sessions rather than fora for discussion, debate or collective problem-solving. Chiefs of staff experiencing difficulties are likely to liaise directly with the PMO. On policy issues, with the relevant prime ministerial policy adviser or, if serious or sensitive, with the chief of staff. On media matters they will consult the press secretary. But if an office is having political problems, they may receive a visit from Tony Nutt. According to one chief of staff: If you had a political problem you went to Tony. You knew you had a problem if Tony was looking for you. Political problems happen all the time and usually you just handle them in your portfolio with your minister, but then every now and again you’ve got a problem and then Tony would get involved and he would say ‘Okay, I’m coming in to help you guys’. And you never really want him to. I mean you appreciated the help, but it just meant that this is really bad.

As this suggests, the leadership role of PMO staff in political and policy coordination identified by Maley (2002b, pp 257–262) is clearly continuing under the Howard government. Their increasing remuneration and status indicates that Howard government chiefs of staff are highly valued. As would be expected in a government approaching the end of its fourth term, there has been significant turnover in chief of staff positions (see, for example, Lewis 2004). However there is also evidence of a developing career path for ministerial staff, with the majority of current occupants of these positions being long-term Howard government staffers.


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Table 6.2 shows the length of service of chiefs of staff in personal staff positions within the Howard government. The data is based on the current cohort of government chiefs of staff – a total of 30 – who head the offices of Howard government ministers. It was calculated from listings in the June 2006 Parliament House communications directory and by comparing the names of staff in chief of staff positions with ministerial directories dating back to 1995.20 Ministerial staff directories have been used previously by researchers to calculate ministerial staff numbers (see, for example, Dunn 1997; Maley 2000b), and to draw conclusions about functional arrangements within ministerial offices (Walter 1986). There are obvious limits in this methodology, however given the lack of alternative data, this approach provides one way of quantitatively evidencing changes in the tenure of ministerial staff. Table 6.2 Howard government chiefs of staff: length of tenure in ministerial staff positions within the government 1-3 years

4 years

5 years

6 years

7 or more years

23.30%

16.70%

6.70%

13.30%

40%

Almost 77 per cent of Howard chiefs of staff have worked in personal staff roles within the government for a period of four or more years. Of these, 60 per cent have been with the government for five or more years. This compares with long-term advisers in Maley’s study, who accounted for 37 per cent of her sample (Maley 2002b, p 299). Although constraints noted above limit the conclusions that can be drawn, the data indicates the emergence of a significant group of long-term advisers, many of whom have moved through an emerging career path; progressing from more junior roles to chief of staff positions. Two-thirds of the long-term advisers in Maley’s study were public servants. Anecdotal evidence suggests the proportion of public servants among the Howard staff is very much smaller (Walter 2006b). This could only be confirmed through survey research which to date the government has been loath to support. Further research would also be required


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150 Power without responsibility to support analysis of the government staff committee’s role in fostering a career path for Howard ministerial staff. A significant number of the staff now occupying chief of staff positions are former personal staff of the prime minister. Several former staffers speculated that the promotion of former Howard employees to key staff roles in other ministers’ offices gives the prime minister additional surveillance and ability to influence outcomes across the ministry. Others reject this conclusion, arguing the promotion of PMO staff to more senior roles in other offices is attributable to ministers’ understanding the benefits of the experience and networks brought by these staff. The emergence of a discernible career path for ministerial staff lends support to Maley’s (2002b) suggestion that the ministerial staffing system is becoming both more professional and more entrenched.

Conclusion Australia’s ministerial staffing system is large, active, interventionist and deeply engaged in achieving responsiveness from the public service. Staff play crucial roles in supporting overburdened ministers, but they do so in a framework within which the scope of their responsibilities is poorly defined, their relationship with the bureaucracy is often fraught, and the capacity of ministers to manage staff conduct and performance is questionable. While the Howard government has improved the employment conditions for ministerial staff, and enhanced their seniority and status, it has done little to reform the governance structure that regulates the staff. Indeed, as the case studies that follow suggest, during the Howard decade, the problems inherent in the ministerial staffing system from its inception, and that have accumulated over its history, have exacerbated. Through its actions in handling two serious political crises – the Travel Rorts and Children Overboard controversies – the Howard government has contributed substantially to the staffing system breaking out of its constitutional and managerial framework.


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SEVEN Travel Rorts affair The early months of 1997 were dominated by controversy over the alleged misuse of parliamentary entitlements by Commonwealth politicians. Between April and July 1997, three Coalition members were charged by the Australian federal police (AFP) with defrauding the Commonwealth in their use of parliamentary entitlements.1 Against this backdrop of scandal and growing community cynicism, a series of allegations was raised by a former staff member against senate deputy president, Mal Colston, over his use of travel allowance and other entitlements (Senate, Debates, 24 March 1997, pp 2235–2241). Colston, a Queensland Labor senator, controversially left the Australian Labor Party in August 1996 to sit as an Independent, following the Labor Party’s refusal to support his bid for the senate deputy presidency. 2 The Coalition backed Colston for the role, securing his support for the partial


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152 Power without responsibility privatisation of Telstra. Colston’s defection enraged his Labor colleagues, who, aware of his reputation for enjoying the perks of office, commenced investigations into his use of parliamentary entitlements. 3 Several inquiries investigated the allegations against Colston. In early March the senate president ordered cross-checking of senate records of travelling allowance payments made to Colston with records held by the department of administrative services (DAS). The senate report, which revealed large numbers of overpayments, was tabled on 24 March 1997. Colston claimed these discrepancies were ‘caused by an inadequate book-keeping system’ and attributable to errors made by his staff (Senate, Debates, 24 March 1997, p 2238). He tabled a statement signed by a staff member, Christine Smith, accepting full responsibility for the errors (Senate, Debates, 24 March 1997, pp 2236–2240). Smith later refuted her confession, claiming Colston had always completed travel allowance claims personally. The government immediately withdrew support for Colston as deputy president. He was formally charged with defrauding the Commonwealth in July 1997, but later judged too ill to stand trial.4 Colston successfully moved that payments received by all senators should be tabled (Senate, Debates, 4 March 1997, p 1198). Details of travel allowance claims by senators who were ministers or office holders during the period 1 January 1992 to 3 March 1997 were tabled on behalf of the minister for administrative services on 24 March 1997. Other senators’ details were tabled by the president. During the ensuing debate, the senate requested that ‘details in respect of all members of the house of representatives be tabled in that house at the earliest opportunity’ (Senate, Debates, 24 March 1997, p 2230).

House of representatives’ travel allowances report In response to the senate’s request, the minister for administrative services, David Jull, wrote to his department requesting travel allowance details for members of the house of representatives


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who were or had been ministers, parliamentary secretaries or office holders during the period 1 January 1992 to 3 March 1997 (ANAO 1997, Part 2). He requested this information mirror the senate report, and that it be available for tabling during the May sittings. The details requested by Jull were summarised in the form of a draft schedule (‘the schedule’), provided by the ministerial and parliamentary services (M&PS) division on 6 May 1997 (ANAO 1997, Part 2). M&PS identified three areas of potential concern or criticism in the schedule data. These were first, travel not within entitlement; second, excessive travel; and third, travel during election periods. It was this latter issue – travel during election periods – that became the government’s focus. By long-standing convention observed by both major parties, ministers do not claim travelling allowance during election campaigns unless required to travel for cabinet meetings or in connection with their ministerial duties. Attachment A to the schedule listed details of ministers or office holders who had travelled during the ‘election period’ in 1993 and 1996. 5 It identified 23 former ALP ministers and parliamentary secretaries who had potentially broken the convention by claiming travelling allowance during the ‘convention period’. Jull wrote to the individuals concerned on 15 May 1997, enclosing details of the claims under question: In light of this, I thought you might like the opportunity to check the above details with your own records prior to tabling in the House, and would welcome your comments on whether the travel in question was within the intent of the convention. If, in your judgment, any of the above instances were outside the convention, you may wish to consider reimbursing the amounts involved. As I expect the records to be tabled in the House of Representatives as early as the next sitting week, any action you might wish to take to clarify or amend any of the claims listed above would need to be completed by 21 May 1997 [cited in Kennedy 1998].


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154 Power without responsibility On 16 May 1997, Jull’s senior adviser, John Sutherland, advised M&PS that a response had been received from a former parliamentary secretary. Sutherland suggested that in instances where former ministers or parliamentary secretaries had offered explanations for their travel during the election period, or indicated an intention to repay monies, this should be annotated on the schedule to be tabled by the minister; an instruction he subsequently confirmed by facsimile (Kennedy 1998, p 58). During the following week, the text of the various annotations to be incorporated into the schedule was negotiated between M&PS and Jull’s office. Annotations were recorded against the records of nine former Labor ministers. In preparation for the tabling of the report, and at the request of Jull’s office, all Howard government ministers, parliamentary secretaries and other office holders were asked to review the details of their travel allowance claims, and to notify M&PS immediately if any corrections were required (ANAO 1997, Part 2). The office of John Sharp, National Party minister for transport and regional development, contacted M&PS on 27 May 1997, identifying certain inaccuracies in the minister’s travel claims. Sharp had initially claimed travel allowance for 144 nights between 11 March and 18 December 1996, for which he was paid a total of $29 205. In his revised claim submitted on 27 May 1997, he claimed a total of 97 nights, for which his amended entitlement was $20 465. As such, Sharp was required to repay an amount of $8740, which he indicated through his senior adviser he would do immediately (ANAO 1997, Part 2–2).6 The auditor-general would later find that Sharp had ‘incorrectly certified’ his entitlement to travel allowance for these 47 nights, a finding Wanna and Gash (2001, p 151) describe as ‘damning’, though it ‘stopped short of accusing the minister of fraud’. The report Travelling Allowance Paid to Various Office Holders in the House of Representatives – 1 January 1992 to 3 March 1997 was tabled by the minister for administrative services on 29 May 1997. In tabling the document, Jull drew attention to the convention issue. However despite Jull’s knowledge that his colleague had


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been overpaid, the amount reflected in the schedule was the amount of Sharp’s travel allowance entitlement ($20 465) rather than the actual payment he had received ($29 205). In contrast to the records of former Labor ministers, there was no annotation showing Sharp had over-claimed, and was required to reimburse accordingly. This was justified by Jull’s office on the grounds that Sharp had volunteered the information about errors in his claim and agreed to repay monies accordingly (ANAO 1997, Part 2–2). Sutherland had sought guidance on the approach from the prime minister’s chief of staff. According to Sutherland: [Grahame] Morris said, that as the corrections [by Sharp] were voluntary, there was nothing to lead one to the conclusion that Sharp had acted improperly and that the situation was different to the ex-Labor ministers, he considered that the proposed method of tabling was right [Letter to Jull, 25 September 1997].

Prior to tabling, Jull’s office was also aware of errors in the travelling allowance claims of veterans’ affairs minister, Bruce Scott, but these were also not identified in the report.7 DAS officials were concerned about annotating the schedule as proposed by the minister’s office (Kennedy 1998, pp 66–68). Throughout subsequent investigations into the matter, senior M&PS officials maintained they had advised the minister’s staff about the potential for criticism over inconsistencies in the way travel during the convention period was indicated. According to a key M&PS bureaucrat: The matter of annotations and the implications for amendments to Ministers’ travelling allowance schedules was raised by me [and others] on 26 May … They had advice from Minister Sharp’s office that he had some amendments involving repayment. I then raised with John Sutherland whether these amendments and any received from other Ministers would be handled by footnote, ie consistent with the advice he had previously


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156 Power without responsibility given in relation to former Ministers who had repaid travelling allowance claimed during the last two election campaigns. John Sutherland advised (I cannot recall whether it was then or a subsequent call) that the amendments would be incorporated and not annotated. I strongly counselled that this course would raise the criticism of inconsistency from the Opposition and that the Minister would need a defence for this eventuality. John Sutherland was politely testy about my caution. I reiterated the risk involved in this course, but he confirmed that the annotations were to stay [cited in Kennedy 1998, pp 67–68].

Official advice discouraging selective annotation of the schedule thus went unheeded, although it is unclear who within Jull’s office – the adviser or the minister – determined this. However the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) report (1997, Part 2–4) noted that a statement by Jull’s senior adviser (Sutherland) advised that the M&PS officer had ‘thought the approach to be right. No contrary view was expressed by him’. Sutherland made similar claims in a letter to his minister. In response, the M&PS officer stated ‘I believe that I added that it would constitute a voluntary repayment, etc but not that the amended schedule should be used. That was his advice’ (quoted in ANAO 1997, Part 2–4). While ultimately unable to reconcile the conflicting claims of bureaucrats and ministerial staffers over this matter, the ANAO was highly critical of DAS for failing to maintain adequate records of important advice provided to the minister’s office (ANAO 1997, Part 2–4). Similar criticisms were offered in the Pay Television and Sports Rorts controversies. The issue of record-keeping was also contentious in the Children Overboard affair (see Chapter 8), suggesting this is an important systemic weakness in the advisory arrangements supporting Australian ministers; a consequence of ambiguity in relationships between ministerial staff and public servants. In his report into the matter, and specifically whether DAS officials should face disciplinary action over their conduct in the


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case, deputy public service commissioner, Peter Kennedy (1998, p 49), noted comments by the prime minister may have left DAS bureaucrats uncertain of how strongly to advocate that Jull should accept their advice. Howard (1996b, p 11) had stated: There is clearly no obligation on Ministers to accept advice put to them by public servants, but it is important that advice be considered carefully and fairly. It is not for public servants to continue to press their advice beyond the point where their ministers have indicated that the advice, having been fully considered, is not the favoured approach.

There were notable differences between the report tabled in the senate and that tabled in the house on 29 May 1997. No tabling statement accompanied the senate report (ANAO 1997, Part 2–3), while Jull’s tabling statement drew attention to annotations on the records of former Labor ministers. Kennedy (1998, p 63) found this reference was not in the original draft provided by DAS. It was added only after discussions with the minister’s office, and presumably at its direction. Other differences were noted by the auditor-general: M&PS had not prepared an analysis for their Minister of claims made during the ‘convention period’ that were contained in the report tabled in the Senate on 24 March 1997. None of the ministers or office holders in the Senate mentioned in that report had been contacted prior to tabling to confirm that their schedules were correct. No follow up had been undertaken with those who had claimed travel allowance during the two ‘convention periods’ covered by the report to confirm whether their travel had related primarily to their ministerial or office holder responsibilities … The annotation in the report also contrasts with a lack of annotation and footnotes in the earlier report which was tabled in the Senate on 24 March 1997. The report to the Senate does not identify or distinguish any payments claimed for the ‘convention period’ [ANAO 1997, Part 2–2.10].


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158 Power without responsibility Labor senator, Robert Ray, criticised Jull for his handling of the travel reporting issue: The Minister for Administrative Services does have a slightly higher ethical responsibility to parliament because he is given a whole range of confidential material to do with all of us, and therefore he should try to be a little more impartial than he has been. But constantly what we have had out of the minister’s office are these sorts of smarmy attempts to smear the Opposition while covering up for any inadvertence in the Government ranks [Senate, Debates, 23 September 1997, pp 6782–6783].

Ray later went on to say that: for Liberal Ministers who made repayments, of course, Mr Morris [the prime minister’s chief of staff] and Mr Sutherland and others conspired to make sure they were not highlighted in any way [Senate, Debates, 17 November 1997, p 8939].

Ray told the senate: When he [Jull] published ministerial and office holder travel allowance and other expenses in the House of Representatives, he had his office draw up a one-page anonymous document and send it round the Gallery trying to highlight what he saw was any [sic] embarrassment to the Opposition. He did that. He started the war on this. He did it, but he did it anonymously through his office [Senate, Debates, 23 September 1997, p 6782].8

Political considerations appear to have been a decisive influence on the reporting of travel allowance payments. Both the Coalition and Labor sought to distance themselves from perceptions of unethical conduct associated with the Colston affair. According to Labor, as part of these manoeuvres, the Howard government took the opportunity to ‘payback’ the Opposition through the process of travel allowance reporting in the house of representatives (Senate, Debates, 23 September 1997, pp 6782, 6779). Use of the report for


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partisan advantage was a calculated political decision taken within the office of the minister, either by Jull and/or his political staff, with the real or perceived imprimatur of the prime minister’s office (PMO), and against the advice of the public service. DAS officials did not press their advice, arguably because they were discomforted by the ‘polite testiness’ of Jull’s senior adviser. In this position, Sutherland enjoyed a close relationship with Jull, and was trusted by him. This contrasts with the status of M&PS bureaucrats who presumably were aware the minister harboured reservations about their professionalism and competence. 9 Amid the pressure and controversy surrounding the Colston case, and efforts of both the government and Opposition to find evidence of misconduct by their political opponents (see, for example, F&PA, Committee Hansard, 8 May 1997, pp 83–86), public servants opted for the path of least resistance; deferring to the political judgment of the minister, his office and the PMO, reflecting the messages being sent by the prime minister about not pressing unwelcome advice.

Sharp’s repayment and the alleged cover-up Although both Jull’s office and M&PS believed Sharp’s repayment would be received before the tabling, it subsequently emerged his cheque was in fact not received until 13 June 1997 (Kennedy 1998, p 74). According to a former minister, this was the result of an oversight by a Sharp staffer, but it meant Jull had technically misled parliament by tabling a document containing incorrect information. At the time, the tabling of the report attracted modest media coverage. Controversy arose only when on 17 September 1997, journalist Laurie Oakes, acting on a leak from DAS, contacted Jull’s office raising questions about the accuracy of the May report, particularly the details of certain Coalition ministers. Oakes’ story was broadcast at 6 pm on 23 September 1997. In it Oakes revealed the minister for transport and regional development had ‘secretly’ repaid $8740 in wrongly claimed travel expenses. He suggested the minister for administrative services had ‘covered


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160 Power without responsibility up’ his colleague’s repayment by failing to reveal it either in the May report or subsequently. Immediately following the story, Jull made the following statement to the house of representatives: On 29 May 1997 I tabled details of travelling allowance payments made to Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and Opposition Office Holders in the House of Representatives for the period January 1992 to 3 March 1997. I wish to advise the House that the statement in respect of two Ministers included corrections made by them to ensure the record accurately reflected travel undertaken. A number of the corrections involved repayments to the Department of Administrative Services, not all of which had been received at the time of tabling. I wish to advise the House that all repayments have now been made in full, and accurately reflect the claim details provided to the House [Ministerial Statement, 23 September 1997].

Howard’s seven days of horror Sensing a crisis for the government, especially considering the prime minister’s claims of higher parliamentary standards, Labor was scathing in its response. Opposition senate leader, John Faulkner, accused Jull of a ‘most blatant and underhand cover-up of Mr Sharp’s travel claims’ (Senate, Debates, 23 September 1997, p 6779). By 24 September, desperate to maintain the credibility of his ministerial code of conduct, Howard demanded the resignations of both Sharp and Jull (House, Debates, 26 September 1997, p 8318). In their resignation speeches, both denied any wrongdoing, arguing their departures were intended to ‘avoid the government experiencing any embarrassment or any distraction from the good work that it has been doing’ (House, Debates, 24 September 1997, p 8320). Jull told the house, ‘I believe I acted on the advice I was given in relation to this matter’ (House, Debates, 24 September 1997, p 8321). Having already collected two ministerial scalps, the Opposition continued to attack the government over the ‘Travel Rorts’ affair,


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turning its attention to the second source of potential criticism identified by DAS: excessive travel. Its target was minister for science and technology, Peter McGauran, who the schedule tabled in May showed was amongst the government’s highest travel allowance claimants. Uneasy about appearing to have made excessive claims, McGauran made a lump sum repayment of $9200.10 He maintained that all of his claims were accurate and verifiable, but appeared to have misled the house when Labor revealed incorrect claims totalling $1400 (Barton 1997). McGauran was forced to admit his mistakes in parliament and on 26 September 1997, became the third minister to resign over the Travel Rorts affair. Given the information about Sharp’s repayment and allegations circulating about McGauran could only have come from DAS, attention turned to finding the source of the leak to Laurie Oakes. On 25 September, secretary, John Mellors, called in the AFP to investigate, noting the culprit(s) would face action under the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth). Later, in a move widely interpreted as Jull taking revenge on the prime minister for his forced resignation, Jull handed Howard a letter from John Sutherland.11 In it Sutherland claimed he had advised the PMO about Sharp’s repayment in May. In a dramatic statement to parliament, Howard noted as incongruous that this had not been discussed with him previously in the many meetings between himself and the former minister (House, Debates, 25 September 1997, p 8553). He strenuously denied prior knowledge of the Sharp repayment, noting ‘the staff members in question have affirmed to me that they had no discussions about these matters with me in May or, indeed, until the past few days’ (House, Debates, 25 September 1997, p 8553). Anxious to retain the services of two loyal staff, Howard sought to refer inconsistencies in the accounts provided by Sutherland and Morris to the auditor-general (House, Debates, 25 September 1997, p 8554). The auditor-general responded the following day, refusing to investigate the allegations involving the prime minister’s personal staff, pointing out that: my statutory functions do not extend to examining the operations of a Minister or a Minister’s Office other than


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162 Power without responsibility as they relate to conduct of an audit [Pat Barrett, quoted in Shanahan 1997].

Labor blasted Howard’s attempt to involve the auditor-general, noting he would have been aware that neither the former ministers, their staff, nor his own former staff could be called to give evidence (House, Debates, 30 September 1997, pp 8756, 8759). Even the normally sympathetic gallery journalist, Dennis Shanahan (1997), noted that Howard’s efforts had been ‘exposed as a political sham and an empty gesture designed to buy 24 hours in a political crisis’. Sutherland’s claim that he informed the PMO about the Sharp repayment received support from documents tabled in parliament by the prime minister.12 On 26 September 1997, a middle-ranking department of prime minister and cabinet (PM&C) bureaucrat recalled a conversation with an M&PS officer prior to the May tabling which suggested the decision to suppress the Sharp repayment had been made by the minister for administrative services with the support of the PMO. The PM&C officer later resigned over her ‘complete lapse of memory’ in failing to advise her superiors that Jull may have misled parliament. McKenna subsequently advised Howard she had vague recollections of a discussion with Sutherland, which she indicated was of a brief and general nature. Morris continued to deny any memory of the discussion (House, Debates, 30 September 1997, p 8754), but nonetheless offered his resignation. In his letter to the prime minister he claimed: I have been made aware of a note from John Sutherland from Mr Jull’s office that suggests he has a ‘sketchy memory’ of having sought my advice the day prior to the tabling in Parliament in May of matters relating to Mr Sharp. I have absolutely no recollection of anything remotely resembling such a discussion. Any information to me about a Minister amending a third of his travel claims would obviously have attracted my immediate attention [Morris resignation letter, tabled by John Howard, 29 September 1997].


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Howard opted to sack Morris and McKenna; allowing them to receive termination payments totalling between $10 000 and $30 000 (Dore 1997b; Taylor 1997). A visibly emotional prime minister told a press conference: I am afraid that there is sufficient doubt now raised in my mind that, despite the long association between us, I may perhaps not have been as well served as I might have been … Of course I would have wanted it otherwise but politics has some good weeks and some bad weeks and this has been, I think, septem dies horribilis [quoted in Farr 1997].

Morris rejected conjecture that his demise resulted from an act of revenge by Sutherland, saying ‘John Sutherland is not like that, he’s a good operator’. But ABC television political editor, Russell Barton (1997) noted, ‘the prime minister’s press secretary rang around the press gallery last night in a furious bid to let it be known that Jull’s senior private secretary (Sutherland) had an axe to grind about how his boss had been chopped’. Despite speculation that Morris’ termination was hastily arranged to ensure the prime minister could not be implicated in the cover-up of Sharp’s repayment,13 Howard survived a censure motion, and successfully resisted Opposition calls for a judicial inquiry into the PMO’s role in the affair. The Travel Rorts controversy came to a sudden halt when, following a withering counter-attack led by treasurer Peter Costello into irregularities in his travel claims (House, Debates, 3 October 1997, pp 9083–9084), Labor front-bencher, Nick Sherry, attempted suicide. Sherry later attributed this action to depression and late nights rather than specifically to the pressure he had faced, however the seriousness of the situation seemed to shock all protagonists into agreement it was time to let the matter rest.

Aftermath While media interest in the Travel Rorts affair then waned, the government was steadfast in its determination to ‘totally ringbark the affair, no matter what the cost’. According to Oakes (1997a, p 27):


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164 Power without responsibility Howard saw Travelgate as another distraction that had to be disposed of quickly and coldly to give the government clear air. He also saw it as another opportunity for his critics to brand him as weak if he hesitated even slightly. Hence the dance at the slaughterhouse.

In the days after his sacking, Morris spoke of the ‘skunks’ and ‘mongrels’ in the public service whose leaks sparked and sustained the Travel Rorts crisis (quoted in Oakes 1997a, p 27). Walsh (1997, pp 25–26) reported that: Underlining Howard’s and his government’s tenuous grip on survival is a clear indication that the Coalition is being severely hampered and undermined by significant sections of the powerful federal bureaucracy, which is turning on its political masters following savage cuts to its own ranks. The particularly ominous but less obvious danger for the stability of the government is a defiant climate of leaking by federal bureaucrats … the Coalition has been bedevilled by ‘unauthorised disclosures of material’, as the boffins prefer to describe the sieving of sensitive documents, since it claimed the government. But the breathtaking audacity of the leak to The Bulletin’s Laurie Oakes – who broke the Sharp story last week – and to the Opposition since suggests a climate of ruthlessness in bureaucratic ranks which could hamper the effectiveness of policy development and implementation. It is not only the merciless slashing of public sector jobs over the past year – up to 20 per cent in some departments – that has incensed the bureaucrats. There is also considerable animosity towards the practice of sidelining those perceived to have even remote links to the Labor cause, no matter what their worth as professional officers. Public service sources say there is also alarm in sections of several departments at the ineptitude of some frontbenchers, ministerial refusal to listen to advice, and the scapegoating of bureaucrats for a range of blunders.

Three investigations were launched into events surrounding the tabling of the travel allowances report. These included the


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auditor-general’s report announced by the prime minister; an AFP investigation into the ‘unauthorised disclosure of information’ from DAS; and an internal DAS inquiry by Peter Kennedy. Before any of these could report however, DAS was abolished; its functions amalgamated into the new department of finance and administration (DoFA). Because of its timing, Howard’s decision was widely interpreted as ‘payback’ for the leaks from DAS and the ensuing damage to his government. The abolition, announced on 5 October 1997, left the secretary, most DAS senior executives and several hundred staff without jobs, effectively sacked. Howard was reportedly ‘hysterical’ when he had met senior DAS officials in the PMO on the morning of 24 September, telling them the department ‘was a disgrace and had let the government down badly’ (Senate, Debates, 19 November 1997, p 9080). Moore-Wilton advised Mellors he would receive no alternative offer of employment (Oakes 1997b), making him the seventh departmental head in 18 months to be sacked by the Howard government. An angry Mellors claimed: The manner in which a number of my former DAS colleagues are being dealt with by the government in the aftermath of the Travelgate affair is a disgrace to the traditional values of public administration in this country … There are lessons to be learned from the treatment meted out to politicians and bureaucrats respectively in this matter which bode ill for the future of public administration [quoted in Oakes 1997b, p 28].

Others shared the view that DAS was scapegoated and punished over the Travel Rorts affair.14 Robert Ray told the senate Mellors had been an apolitical public servant who ‘served the Government loyally, and was butchered and made a scapegoat for the mistakes of politicians, not his own’ (Senate, Debates, 19 November 1997, p 9077). While he maintained he had acted on the advice of his department, and continued to believe DAS let him down, Jull later conceded the department was badly treated, describing Mellors’ sacking as ‘grossly unfair’. The plight of bureaucrats contrasts rather unfavourably with the payouts and employment opportunities given to Morris and McKenna, both of whom


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166 Power without responsibility secured well-paid positions within months of the Travel Rorts scandal (Harris 2002a; Seccombe 2000).

Travel Rorts affair and ministerial staff Ministerial staff played key roles in the Travel Rorts affair. Jull’s senior adviser, Sutherland, was actively involved in the reporting of travel expenses in parliament. In consultation with Morris, he was deeply engaged in matters of administrative detail traditionally the province of public servants, with the objective of using the travel allowance report politically. While we will never know whose idea it was, ministerial staff were influential in developing and executing this strategy. Against the warnings of the public service, the minister and his staff treated the report as an opportunity to achieve political leverage over Labor. Political partisans focused on the immediate, failed to weigh the benefits of short-term political gain against potential risks. Perhaps reflecting a lack of experience and expertise, or judgment on the run, the staff failed to appreciate the implications of the decision to selectively annotate the records of former ALP ministers. Clearly they misjudged the strength of Labor’s resolve to pursue the Colston case, and to make a mockery of the prime minister’s code of conduct. The Travel Rorts case confirms that Howard ministerial staff are reaching deep into the operations of the public service in search of responsiveness. Here a minister relied upon his personal staff to provide administrative as well as political advice, blurring conventional demarcations between staffers and public servants. His motivation might have been, as noted, concern about the quality of advice from M&PS, but political opportunity seems a more compelling rationale. In disregarding public service cautions, and instead relying on personal staff whose primary concerns were political, Jull was exposed to risks that cost him his portfolio. The Travel Rorts case exposes the same problems of accountability, conduct, management and fit that were evident in the Pay Television and Sports Rorts controversies. There were no mechanisms for making ministerial staff accountable for their


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actions in this case. Although staff cooperated with his inquiry, the auditor-general argued his statutory powers did not extend to examining the operations of a minister or a minister’s office (ANAO 1997, p xiv). Labor was unsuccessful in forcing the prime minister into a judicial inquiry, and did not pursue efforts to call former Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (Cth) (MoP(S) Act) employees to give evidence to senate estimates or other committee hearings. All the staff involved in the controversy, and most of the public servants, were sacked. There was no way to resolve Sutherland’s and Morris’ competing claims, or of finding out what the prime minister knew and when. The Travel Rorts case reveals important systemic weaknesses in ministerial staffing arrangements. According to political scientist and former PM&C officer Alan Griffith (1997): The underlying reality is that the ‘rorts’ crisis disclosed a government temptation to misconstrue and hence underrate the role of the Public Service. On the way to the Prime Minister, the management of the John Sharp issue placed too much reliance on the communication system between the political staff. The elevation of the Private Office system in the form taken by the Howard government was inevitable since Day One. The Howard Ministry allowed itself to be seized of the idea that the Labor government had cultured a public administration to serve Labor Party loyalties. This led him [Howard] to bestow an excess of confidence on the professional political advisory staff. Career staffers play an essential role in establishing the reputation of the leader they serve. The incentive for such a career derives not so much from the insubstantial rewards in Opposition but from the political and social opportunities that come with the winning of Government. This contrasts with career public servants, who set a career in the mastery of a chosen area of public administration. The current crisis highlights the fragility of a system in which respective skills


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168 Power without responsibility have to be combined. The sacking of David Jull and the consequential dismissal of Grahame Morris and others point to systemic flaws in the administrative arrangements under Howard.

As this suggests, an important conclusion from the case is that problems arise when there is uncertainty about the respective roles and responsibilities of ministerial staff and public servants. The potential for role confusion is a key weakness of contemporary advisory arrangements. The Travel Rorts case also demonstrates the potential of ministerial staff to disrupt relationships between ministers and senior officials. Ultimately public servants, who tried to provide early warning to the minister, wore the consequences of his unwillingness to accept their advice and/or his staffer’s unwillingness to convey their concerns. Other problems derive from the nature of the working environment for ministerial staff which, as noted, is often frantic and chaotic. Work intensity is especially acute in the PMO. Working with competing demands and under time pressures, ministers and the staff may be tempted to make hasty decisions without due consideration. Overloaded with multiple demands, staff might ‘forget’ to convey a crucial piece of information to their minister. Ministers may, for reasons associated with the close and co-dependent employment relationship with staff, find in their offices people only too willing to affirm their views. A minister may be more circumspect about what he/she asks when soliciting a public service view. The time it takes to receive bureaucratic advice may provide additional opportunity for reflection and more considered judgment. Moreover, as Weller (2001, p 200) notes, the public service is well placed to counsel ministers about how desired outcomes can be discretely achieved. Departmental secretaries are accomplished at managing sensitive issues expertly and confidentially. In the Travel Rorts case this role was usurped by political operators, and the minister’s most senior public service adviser, DAS secretary, John Mellors, was left out of the loop until it was too late. The immediacy and proximity of staffers, often cited as a key benefit of the ministerial staffing system, is a potential risk for ministers, particularly when, as in this case, the


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staff fail to ensure ministers and the prime minister are properly briefed, or do so deliberately to shield them from political heat. Arguably the most significant and long-term implications of the Travel Rorts case flowed from the prime minister’s handling of the crisis. In insisting he had no knowledge of Sharp’s erroneous claims and repayment, and that his staff had not discussed the matter with him, Howard undermined the convention observed by previous governments that telling a ministerial staffer is the same as telling the minister (Weller 2002, pp 70–73). Moreover in sacking Morris and McKenna for failing to ensure he was properly advised, he fatally undermined a more fundamental convention; that ministers are responsible for the actions of their staff. What the prime minister failed to recognise, or perhaps was unwilling to acknowledge, was that at the point where ministerial staff cease to operate as extensions of their minister, they have moved beyond traditional accountability frameworks. His approach fuelled a perception that gained significant currency in the wake of the Travel Rorts affair, that ministerial staff can be used to provide ‘plausible deniability’ for the minister; ministers can claim they don’t know and staff cannot be called to account publicly for their actions. These concerns would intensify during the Children Overboard controversy. The Travel Rorts case continued a pattern established by the Pay Television and Sports Rorts controversies. Motivated by distrust of the public service, and the partisan objective of damaging Labor over the use of travel expenses, unmanaged ministerial staff created confusion and uncertainty about their roles and responsibilities viz a viz M&PS. Predictably, failures were again interpreted as individual rather than systemic. Though it exposed the same problems as antecedent scandals, the Howard government’s handling of the Travel Rorts crisis – using PMO staff to deflect responsibility away from the prime minister – represented a tipping point. The lack of accountability of staff recurred as a significant theme, substantially exacerbated by the actions of the prime minister. The potential for staff to become a management problem also became clearly evident, as tensions in relationships


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170 Power without responsibility between Howard government ministers, their staff and the public service were exposed. These issues would be thrown into much starker relief, and become the focus of national debate four years later, in what became known as the Children Overboard affair.


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EIGHT Children Overboard affair The Children Overboard affair is one of the more controversial episodes in Australian political history. No case has generated such heated or sustained public debate about the conduct of ministers and public officials, or the state of Australia’s political institutions. None has brought into such stark relief the role and influence of ministerial staff, or their impact on career officials in the Australian public service (APS) and the military. Certainly none has provided such clear evidence that the staffing system has outgrown the frameworks on which its development was premised. The case exemplifies the dilemmas of a large, active and politicallyfocused ministerial staffing system operating in the absence of adequate accountability and governance structures. The events surrounding the Children Overboard affair are well known. Two authoritative books – Patrick Weller’s Don’t Tell


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172 Power without responsibility the Prime Minister (2002) and David Marr and Marian Wilkinson’s Dark Victory (2003) – have been written on the subject. The senate select committee on a certain maritime incident (SSCCMI) released an exhaustive report into the affair in October 2002, and there is an extensive documentary record, including two internal inquiries commissioned after the 2001 federal election. The affair itself and the subsequent inquiry also generated a substantial popular literature; media reports, commentary and opinion pieces. Several scholarly articles on aspects of the case have also appeared (Keating 2003a; Smith 2002; Ward 2002). New controversy arose in August 2004, when a letter from former ministerial staffer, Mike Scrafton, was published in The Australian newspaper. In it, Scrafton claimed that just prior to polling day, he had advised the prime minister of serious doubts about the veracity of the Children Overboard claims (Scrafton 2004). His revelations prompted a media frenzy and led to the establishment of the senate select committee on the Scrafton evidence (SSCSE) which held a one-day hearing on 1 September 2004.1 Scrafton’s evidence yielded new insights into the circumstances surrounding the Children Overboard affair and the significant role ministerial staff played in it. Here we focus on five aspects of their involvement. First, demands from staff motivated by political opportunism led to a naval commander in the midst of a complex operation being interrupted to provide information for use by a minister in a media interview. This was the genesis of the claim that asylum seekers aboard suspected illegal entry vessel (SIEV) IV had thrown children into the water. Second, at several critical points in the controversy ministerial staff efforts to exact responsiveness from the APS and military created confusion, contributed to information distortion and undermined the integrity of advice to ministers. Third, when doubts were raised about the accuracy of the initial advice, ministerial staff impeded the correction of the public record; either by actively inhibiting the provision of written advice from defence and/or by failing to abide by the convention that telling the staffer is the same as telling the minister. This enabled ministers and the prime minister to claim they had not


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been ‘formally advised’ there was no evidence to support claims that children had been thrown overboard from SIEV IV. 2 Fourth, the conduct and behaviour of ministerial staff involved in the case created problems. As was made clear in the Scrafton report, Peter Reith’s media adviser, Ross Hampton, displayed both a lack of respect for public servants and military officers, and a lack of understanding about the parameters of his role. The apparent lack of mechanisms to rein in Hampton, or require him to moderate his conduct in dealing with defence officials, indicates a serious deficiency in the management of ministerial staff. His retention by the government in the wake of the controversy sent ominous signals to the public service about how the government regards ill treatment of career officials by ministerial staff (SSCCMI 2002, p xxxiv). Key conventions that have underpinned the staffing system became casualties of the Children Overboard affair. As we have seen in previous chapters, these had become progressively weakened as the staffing system became larger and more active. Conventions were severely undermined by prime minister Howard’s actions in the Travel Rorts affair. By 2001, these conventions had become almost irrelevant. This points to a fifth problem highlighted by the Children Overboard case: the lack of accountability of ministerial staff and the extent to which they have broken out of the frameworks purported to support and control them.

Children overboard? On 7 October 2001, the minister for immigration, Philip Ruddock, told a press conference that a number of children had been thrown overboard from a SIEV which had been intercepted four hours earlier by navy frigate, HMAS Adelaide, in Australian territorial waters. Ruddock described the throwing overboard of children as one of the most disturbing practices he had come across in his 28 years in politics. ‘Whatever is the outcome of this matter’, Ruddock said, ‘let me make it very clear that there is no way that this group of people will be brought to the Australian mainland or reach the Australian mainland through these efforts’ (quoted in Douez & Forbes 2001).


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174 Power without responsibility The impact of Ruddock’s comments was predictable and immediate. Newspaper headlines the following day reflected community disgust at the asylum seekers’ behaviour. 3 John Howard condemned the incident, declaring he would not be bullied into changing his refugee policy. Echoing public sentiment, he declared, ‘Quite frankly, I don’t want people in this country who are prepared, if those reports are true, to throw their own children overboard’ (quoted in Lawson 2001). Opposition leader, Kim Beazley, also condemned the asylum seekers’ actions, describing the situation as ‘utterly unacceptable’ (quoted in Lawson 2001).

Political context Ruddock’s claims were the opening salvo in an election campaign dominated by the spectre of international terrorism and domestic security concerns. Threats to Australia’s borders from boatloads of asylum seekers, seeking to enter ‘illegally’ with the aid of people smugglers based mainly in Indonesia, had been a controversial issue since the Tampa incident of August 2001.4 After the Tampa crisis, the government unveiled a new border protection regime (SSCCMI 2002, pp 1–12). Coordinated across government by the people smuggling taskforce (PST), 5 it included the ‘pacific solution’, by which unauthorised boat arrivals intercepted by the military’s ‘Operation Relex’, 6 would be conveyed to Nauru and Papua New Guinea for processing. Twelve SIEVs were intercepted by Operation Relex between September and December 2001. The arrival of SIEV IV on 7 October 2001 was politically significant; just two days earlier Howard had called a federal election for 10 November. The context for the Children Overboard claims was a bitter federal election fought by a government for which border protection was a key electoral strength. The Coalition’s tough stance on asylum seekers brought a decisive boost in its public support. Labor’s inability to respond effectively to the government’s border protection strategy decimated its prospects, alienating significant sections of its constituency. But just days before the election,


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media organisations raised doubts about the veracity of Ruddock’s assertion that children had been thrown overboard. Amid a storm of controversy, Howard and Reith defended the claims, noting they were based on advice from defence, the PST and the office of national assessments (ONA). On 10 November, the Howard government was re-elected, with an increased majority.7 Subsequent investigations revealed that no children had in fact been thrown into the water from SIEV IV. Within days of the original incident, defence officials knew there was no evidence to support the claims. Senior military officers and departmental officials were also aware that photographs, released by Reith to prove the government’s claims, were taken a day after the alleged incident, and related to the sinking of SIEV IV on 8 October and not its interception. The SSCCMI (2002, p 80) identified three occasions between 10 October and 8 November 2001, on which defence personnel gave advice to the minister and his office about the photographs. Yet the record was not corrected. No retraction was issued, and the public was not told the claims were false until after the federal election (Weller 2002, p 4).

Controlling the message The use of the military to intercept illegal entry vessels was a highly political policy, driven by an inter-departmental taskforce under the direction of ‘ultra-responsive’ bureaucrats within the department of prime minister and cabinet (PM&C) (Nethercote 2002). This approach had the potential to disrupt the military chain of command, but must be understood in the broader context of distrust of the department of defence, 8 and a determination to bring the military under government control and direction. 9 Ministers intended to exploit Operation Relex for political purposes.10 With this objective, new minister, Peter Reith, instituted unprecedented control over communications within defence, centralising information management and control within his ministerial office (SSCCMI 2002, pp 22–25). Instructions issued just prior to the Tampa incident required all personnel to secure


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176 Power without responsibility written approval before making public statements, oral or written, about Australian Defence Force (ADF) activities, and to report all contacts with members of the media (Smith 2002, p 40). The public affairs plan for Operation Relex provided that any information would be released by the minister’s office and not by defence public affairs and corporate communications (PACC) (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 17 April 2002, p 1112). From this point on, media adviser, Ross Hampton, became the sole official conduit for information. Centralised control over the release of information in the hands of ministerial staff became an important factor in the Children Overboard controversy. Following the Howard government’s election victory, two inquiries were established into the events surrounding the ‘Children Overboard’ claims. The first saw the appointment of senior PM&C officer, Jennifer Bryant, to undertake a full examination of the advice tendered to the government regarding SIEV IV.11 The second was commissioned by the chief of the defence force (CDF) who appointed major general RA Powell to conduct a ‘Routine inquiry into the proximate causes, events, circumstances and imperatives surrounding the rescue at sea by HMAS Adelaide of the children and other passengers and crew on board the fourth suspected illegal entry vessel (SIEV IV) in the period 6–8 October 2001’ (Powell 2001, p 1).12 Both inquiries found there was no evidence children had been thrown overboard from SIEV IV. Moreover, defence officers and officials had known this since 10 October (Bryant 2002, p 4; Powell 2001, p viii). Both concluded the office of the minister for defence had been advised the photographs released on 9 October did not provide proof of the Children Overboard claims of 7 October, and that there were doubts the incident had ever occurred. Both noted the intervention of ministerial staff in the defence chain of command was a significant factor in the communication of the initial report to ministers and the subsequent failure to correct the record. But Bryant (2002, p ix) found that ‘no formal written briefing was provided to Reith advising him that no children had been thrown overboard’, concluding this was a ‘significant failing of the system’.


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Senate select committee on a certain maritime incident (SSCCMI) The Children Overboard affair became the basis for robust questioning when the new parliament opened in February 2002.13 The ALP succeeded in having the matter investigated by a senate select committee. The SSCCMI, chaired by Labor senator Peter Cook, became the third inquiry into the Children Overboard controversy. It commenced its public hearings on 25 February 2002. Howard ministers immediately branded the inquiry a ‘political stunt’. The government resisted committee requests that former minister Reith, should appear to give evidence (House, Debates, 12 March 2002, p 997).14 On 11 March 2002, cabinet determined that ministerial staff would not be allowed to appear (SSCSE, Committee Hansard, 1 September 2004, p 48). It also prevented the attendance of former ministerial staff, including those like Mike Scrafton and former prime minister’s office (PMO) international adviser, Miles Jordana, who had returned to APS positions (SSCCMI 2002, p xv). The prime minister claimed that in adopting this stance he was invoking the ‘McMullan principle’: 15 the government’s approach to this matter is based upon what I regard as a fairly succinct statement of principle that reads as follows: In my view, ministerial staff are accountable to the minister and the minister is accountable to the parliament and ultimately, the electors. What we are doing in relation to this issue is following the convention that ministerial staff do not appear [House, Debates, 12 March 2002, p 995].

The committee process was a bitter partisan struggle between Labor and the Democrats on one hand, and a determined, unapologetic government on the other. Notwithstanding its highly politicised nature, and the government’s lack of cooperation, it provided a powerful vehicle by which the details of the affair could be exposed (Weller 2002, pp 45–50). Nethercote (2003b, p 89) argues the inquiry established ‘as nearly as possible in the absence of key witnesses such as former defence minister, Peter Reith, and various ministerial staff, the actual facts of the matter and the


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178 Power without responsibility course of events’. Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett noted the government’s refusal to allow key witnesses to appear, and Labor’s unwillingness to challenge this, meant that key questions remained unanswered (SSCCMI 2002, p 451). Labor was widely criticised for not testing the senate’s powers in subpoenaing ministerial staff as witnesses (see, for example, Murray 2002b; SSCCMI 2002, p 452). Senator John Faulkner defended the decision, arguing both parties had followed ‘a general practice of not making ministerial staff available for questioning by senate committees’. But he noted ‘this practice has rested in part on the doctrine that staffers act only at the direction of ministers and with their explicit knowledge and consent and that they are therefore accountable through ministers’ accountability to parliament’ (Senate, Debates, 25 September 2002, pp 4835–4836). Faulkner argued it would be unreasonable to penalise individuals who refused to respond to a subpoena on the instructions of their minister. Despite concerns about the ‘accountability vacuum’ created by ministers’ unwillingness to abide by the conventions of ministerial staff accountability, Labor was unwilling to create a situation where staffers could be held in contempt of the senate – the consequence of which could be jail or a fine – because they were prohibited from appearing by a decision of cabinet (Senate, Debates, 25 September 2002, pp 4835–4836). It claimed its primary concern was that such action would be challenged in the courts, but the prospect of having its own staff called in government must have also weighed on its considerations. Arguably controversy over the Scrafton evidence might have been avoided if the senate had been willing to test its powers by subpoenaing ministerial staff to appear before the SSCCMI inquiry.

Origins of Children Overboard claim While many features of this case are confusing, it is clear the source of the allegation that children had been thrown into the water from SIEV IV was a telephone conversation between the commander of the Adelaide, Norman Banks, and the commander of northern command, brigadier Michael Silverstone (SSCCMI


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2002, p iii). Early on the morning of 7 October 2001, at the height of the interception operation, Banks received a telephone call from Silverstone. Under a ‘special arrangement’ agreed the previous evening, and not repeated for any subsequent SIEV incident (SSCCMI 2002, p 53), Silverstone had been instructed to report to air vice marshall Alan Titheridge, on the status of the SIEV IV operation, in advance of a television appearance by minister Reith. The request for a status report had come from the minister’s office. Titheridge relayed the details of Silverstone’s report by telephone to Jane Halton, chair of the PST; in a separate call to Reith’s chief of staff, Peter Hendy, and to the CDF admiral Chris Barrie (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 12 April 2002, p 686). Halton conveyed the report verbally to those members of the PST who were present.16 During the meeting, secretary of the department of immigration, multicultural and indigenous affairs (DIMIA), Bill Farmer, took an unscheduled call from his minister. He passed on to Philip Ruddock the report of children being thrown overboard (Bryant 2002, p 6). Ruddock was addressing a public meeting on the government’s proposed ‘border protection’ legislation. An unusually large media contingent had assembled because of reports that a SIEV vessel had been detected (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 16 April 2002, p 886). Since the office of the defence minister was the sole source of information for Operation Relex, we can speculate these reports were based on leaks from his media adviser or the PMO. The demand for timely information on SIEV IV came from the minister’s office, keen to exploit its arrival in the media. It was noted in Chapter 6 that the prime minister’s media unit exercises strong central control over Sunday morning television appearances. The SSCCMI inquiry heard conflicting evidence over whether the briefing from HMAS Adelaide was required for Reith’s Meet the Press appearance on Network Ten, or Peter Costello, who was due to appear on Nine’s Sunday programme (SSCCMI 2002, pp 54–55). The appearance of the Howard government’s two most senior ministers on television on the first Sunday of


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180 Power without responsibility the election campaign would have inevitably involved the prime minister’s media unit. Given its responsibility for coordinating the government’s campaign strategy, it seems likely the office of the defence minister was acting in collaboration with the PMO; if not at its behest. In less than four hours then, a verbal report from a naval operation was relayed to a minister and made public. The story was seized on as justification for the new border protection regime, a key element of the Howard government’s re-election strategy. A reference to reports that children had been thrown into the water from SIEV IV was included in a PST paper provided to the prime minister and copied to Reith on the evening of 7 October 2001 (Bryant 2002, p iv). This report, based on the verbal advice from Titheridge, became the basis for written advice of the Children Overboard claims. Powell (2001, p 4) concluded that the communication of unconfirmed reports to ministers was the result of: a combination of haste, over-enthusiasm, errors of judgment, misunderstanding and misinterpretation. But ultimately, it was a direct result of the conflicting balance between the provision of timely information versus accurate information.

In his statement to the Bryant inquiry, brigadier Silverstone attributed this situation to: a new culture in Defence which seeks to be more responsive to the government/Minister, and that this may have ‘anaesthetised’ people to some sensitivities especially with regard to the uncertainty usually associated with reports of emerging tactical situations. [Silverstone] said that he considered the desire to feed the media has sometimes been allowed to drive operational practices and that this should not occur [Silverstone statement to Bryant inquiry, p 5].

Silverstone told the committee the information would never have been passed on but for the ‘special arrangement’ to respond to the request from the minister’s office. The interception of SIEV IV would have been documented through formal operational


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reporting signal traffic (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 4 April 2002, pp 347–348).

Role confusion: the search for evidence The strategic leaking of information about SIEV IV fuelled media interest in the interception operation, but it also ‘created pressures for further detailed information to be made public’ (SSCCMI 2002, p 55). This led to demands from Reith’s office for information to support the government’s claims. Hampton was busily briefing journalists on the SIEV IV interception, and ‘hounding strategic command for more details on the children in the water’ (Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 189). He made numerous calls to defence officers and officials, seeking further information. So frequent were Hampton’s calls, particularly to defence media liaison (DML), his primary point of contact, that a dedicated phone line was set up to ensure his inquiries – often numbering between ten and 15 calls a day – received priority (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 17 April 2002, pp 1176–1177). Witnesses painted a picture of Hampton as a demanding and persistent caller, who became frustrated and angry if defence was unable to provide information he was seeking immediately. If unable to secure the information he wanted, Hampton would bypass DML and pursue the matter directly with other areas of defence. At one stage, for example, he tried to contact the captain of the Adelaide, but was prevented from doing so by rear admiral Ritchie. When no evidence supporting the claims was immediately forthcoming, Hampton began ringing around. He contacted a relatively junior officer at defence strategic command, who advised there was no information that children had been thrown into the water. Hampton demanded regular advice about the situation reports from HMAS Adelaide. The officer told the Bryant inquiry that: Mr Hampton had seemed agitated and quite angry at times, saying he was under pressure from media outlets to meet their publication deadlines. He was concerned about the lack of


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182 Power without responsibility precise information, for example, about the exact location of SIEV IV [Interview with flight lieutenant Jason Briggs, Bryant inquiry].

Hampton’s apparent lack of respect for defence’s chain of command emerged as a recurrent theme in investigations into the Children Overboard controversy. It was considered to be a key causal factor in the inception and spread of the inaccurate report. The Bryant inquiry heard: Evidence from a number of witnesses indicates that Mr Hampton’s practice of directly contacting multiple areas and individuals within Defence to obtain information, and his apparent insistence on immediate action, contributed to the undermining of normal clearance and checking processes for the release of public information into the public domain [Bryant 2002, p 23].

This echoed major general Powell’s concern that: the multiple communication entry points used by the Media Adviser to the Minister for Defence, to contact any area or individual within the ADO who he believed held, or had access to, information desired by the Office of the Minister for Defence. From the perspective of managing Defence Public Affairs, this approach directly and significantly contributed to the degradation in Defence’s ability to use its established operational chain of communication for the delivery of accurate information to the Government during the period 6–11 October 2001 [Powell 2001, p 5].

The Children Overboard case provides further evidence of the more interventionist tendency of Howard government ministerial staff. It also illustrates its potential dangers. Pressure to respond to media deadlines to maximise political advantage has created demands for immediate responses to information requests from ministers’ offices. It has also led to greater informality in relationships between government and the bureaucracy (Waterford 2002). New communication technologies have facilitated


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quick responses from departments, but they have undermined the quality-checking processes that characterised traditional bureaucratic advice; the review of information and briefing by senior officers and ultimately the departmental secretary. These technologies can also be unreliable.17 The Children Overboard case clearly highlights their double-edged potential.

Role confusion: the photographs Despite official restrictions on contact with the media, on 9 October, Banks accepted a telephone call from a television news reporter (Bryant 2002, p 15). During the course of this unauthorised interview, Banks mentioned photographs of his sailors’ heroic rescue of asylum seekers from SIEV IV. Two showing Adelaide crew members rescuing asylum seekers from the water following the sinking of the vessel on 8 October, were emailed to naval headquarters. Attached to the two digital photographs were titles and captions. As Weller (2002, p 22) notes, the titles were brief, the captions consisted of a longer explanatory text, describing in detail what the photographs depicted.18 The journalist contacted DML seeking copies of the photographs. Its director, Tim Bloomfield, immediately contacted the media adviser to advise him of the interview and the fact that journalists were now seeking copies of the photographs. Bloomfield obtained copies of the photographs from naval command. The defence email system has two levels: secret and restricted. Bloomfield received copies of the photographs, titles and captions via the secret system. His initial advice to Hampton was that although they showed asylum seekers in the water, they were ‘not very good shots’ (SSCCMI 2002, p 69), and that ‘in his view nothing much could be done with them’ (Interview with Tim Bloomfield, Bryant inquiry). Now the press was aware of the existence of the photographs, there was pressure for their release. The prime minister, campaigning in Ballarat on 10 October, was asked for evidence to support the government’s claims. He had spent the previous two days on television and radio reiterating his determination that


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184 Power without responsibility the asylum seekers aboard SIEV IV would not be allowed to enter Australia. Facing persistent questioning, Howard told reporters he would ‘make some inquiries and see what evidence can be made available’ (Howard, quoted in Marr & Wilkinson 2003, pp 189–201). The same day Hampton requested that copies of the photographs be sent to the minister’s office, but when Bloomfield tried to forward his copy of the files, he was unable to do so from the secret system. Anxious to respond to Hampton’s ‘insistent and urgent demands for the photographs’, Bloomfield asked another officer, Andrew Stackpool, to send across copies he [Stackpool] had received via the restricted system. According to Stackpool’s statement to the Bryant inquiry, Bloomfield had told him to send the photographs quickly as Hampton was ‘screaming for them’. In this process, the captions explaining the events depicted in the photographs became detached from the other files. Hampton, who was in the minister’s Melbourne office, had his own difficulties downloading the photographs, and asked that they be forwarded to the Parliament House office. Thus the minister’s office received the photographs without explanatory text, and believed they depicted the ‘Children Overboard’ incident of 7 October, rather than the sinking of the SIEV IV vessel the following day. Although he had been fielding media requests for copies of the photographs throughout 9 and 10 October, Hampton told Bryant ‘[he] was not keen to release the vision until [he] had a phone call from Mr [Tony] O’Leary in the Prime Minister’s Office’. This lends support to suggestions the media strategy on SIEV IV was being coordinated at the highest levels. Hampton printed the photographs and showed them to the minister who telephoned the CDF to check whether any operational or security reasons might inhibit their release. The photographs had been received in his office on 9 October, but had not been seen by admiral Barrie prior to the telephone call from Reith. Barrie asked Titheridge ‘to screen the photographs for operational sensitivities and advise the minister’s office’ (SSCCMI 2002, p 71). Titheridge, who also had not seen the photographs, contacted the minister’s office five minutes later, indicating there was no problem as long as the


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sailors’ identities were protected.19 On this basis, and presumably in consultation with Howard’s press secretary, Reith authorised release of the photographs. At about 2.40 pm Hampton advised DML the minister intended to release the photographs, and that journalists were going to his Parliament House office to see them (Interview with Tim Bloomfield, Bryant inquiry). He asked Bloomfield to send the photographs again. Bloomfield, who assumed the request for the photographs related to Banks’ unauthorised interview, asked whether he wanted the photographs with or without captions. 20 Hampton indicated he just wanted the photographs. 21 Hampton instructed DML to be ready to release them to any media outlet that requested them (SSCCMI 2002, pp 70–72). The decision to release the photographs was made without reference to conventional defence clearance processes. These would have required the approval of the head of PACC, Jenny McKenry, and/or the senior military officer attached to PACC, brigadier Gary Bornholt. In this case ministerial staff approached DML officers directly, seeking copies of the photographs, and provided these to the minister as evidence to support the claims of children in the water rather than, as would have been clear from the explanatory text, the rescue of asylum seekers from SIEV IV. While staff cannot be blamed for technical problems in conveying the explanatory text, it seems the media adviser’s frequent and often brusque interventions created confusion and prevented the photographs from being subject to quality checking through the defence hierarchy (SSCCMI 2002, p 72). Instead, anxious to meet media deadlines, approval for release of the photographs was sought from the CDF and the head of strategic command, neither of whom had seen them. Neither of these senior officers was apparently aware of concerns within defence about the lack of evidence to support the ‘Children Overboard’ claims. A desire to respond quickly to media demands overrode the need to check and verify, and led to the photographs being misrepresented as evidence of the Children Overboard claims.


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Defence doubts Bornholt became aware of the minister’s intention to release the photographs on the afternoon of 10 October 2001. One of his staff, Belinda Byrne, took a call from Hampton at around 1 pm seeking a breakdown of the group that had gone overboard from SIEV IV; specifically how many were children. The officer contacted strategic command, which again indicated there was no reference to children in situation reports from the Adelaide. She told Bryant that ‘Hampton became agitated when she informed him that she had not found information to confirm that children had been thrown overboard’. Hampton told Byrne there were photographs to support that the incident had occurred. This alerted PACC that there was confusion about the events depicted in the photographs. Bornholt telephoned Hampton on his mobile phone at around 3.45 pm and told him he did not believe the photographs were from 7 October. Although he had not seen the photographs, he had advice from strategic command that there were no women or children among the ‘man overboards’ from that date (Bryant 2002, p 23). But there was confusion between the two men; Bornholt spoke of four photographs, not two. 22 Hampton, busily preparing for the minister’s doorstop interview at 4.30 pm, was reportedly ‘irate at the news’, telling Bornholt the photographs had been provided by the CDF including confirmation that they were of the 7 October incident (Bryant 2002, p 18). He indicated they would be released by the minister as planned. Bornholt subsequently obtained copies of the photographs, including their explanatory text, noting it was clear they depicted events from 8 October. After checking with the CDF’s office and again with strategic command, he telephoned Hampton at 4.45 pm to confirm his previous advice (Interview with Gary Bornholt, Bryant inquiry). Hampton’s mobile phone was turned off, so Bornholt left a message on his voicemail. Hampton subsequently denied receiving this message, noting he received a large number of messages and may have missed the message from Bornholt due to a full mailbox (Interview with Ross Hampton,


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Bryant inquiry). 23 He told Bryant that if Bornholt had wanted to contact him urgently, there were other avenues he could have pursued to do so. When Hampton did not return his call, Bornholt emailed McKenry, suggesting they meet on the morning of 11 October. The Bryant report concluded that Hampton believed Bornholt’s advice was incorrect, citing the CDF’s clearance of the photographs as indication of their veracity (Bryant 2002, p 24). The SSCCMI found that defence had alerted the minister’s office to doubts about the photographs, but that: pressure to produce evidence to corroborate the report of children overboard seems to have propelled the Minister and Mr Hampton into releasing material over which at least some doubts had been cast. It is arguable that, prior to the release, the doubts expressed were not terribly strong and were themselves liable to doubt and amenable to rationalisation. However, had the focus been on the need to be certain about the evidence, rather than on the need simply to produce evidence, then it seems that it should have been possible to wait for full corroboration [SSCCMI 2002, p 73].

Reith’s office was not inclined, nor did they have incentive to brook doubts about the photographs’ veracity. His staff were convinced the incident had taken place; it fitted with the ‘pattern of behaviour’ they had come to expect from increasingly frantic asylum seekers (SSCCMI 2002, pp 535–546). Moreover, it was a political gift for a government building a campaign around the theme of border protection. Hampton conceded that his focus was on ‘finding a way to back up Mr Ruddock’s comments given questioning in the media (Interview with Ross Hampton, Bryant inquiry). Thus, as Weller (2002, p 65) has argued, ‘a false story became a fact and then had to be disproved, not merely checked’. The mindset of ministerial staff, senior defence and public service officials seems to have been to find evidence to corroborate the story, not to identify problems that could be embarrassing for the government (Weller 2002, pp 63–69). Scrafton confirmed this in evidence to the SSCSE, claiming that:


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188 Power without responsibility In the [Reith] office, there was no clear understanding or really serious questioning about whether the event had taken place – but it became clear in the office – that the photos did not represent the ‘Children Overboard’ event [SSCSE, Committee Hansard , 1 September 2004, p 31].

During an interview on ABC radio in Melbourne, Reith produced the photographs as alleged evidence of the behaviour of asylum seekers aboard SIEV IV. Under questioning from journalist Virginia Trioli, he mentioned there was also film of the incident. According to the minister: I have subsequently been told that they have also got film. The file is apparently on HMAS Adelaide. I have not seen it myself and apparently the quality of it is not very good, it’s infra-red or something but I am told that someone has looked at it and it is an absolute fact, children were thrown into the water. So do you still question it? [quoted in Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 203].

The three inquiries heard evidence that the minister believed the video from HMAS Adelaide would prove that children had been thrown overboard from SIEV IV. Weller (2002, pp 37–38) notes this was odd since no one in defence had told him this was the case. The video, which Reith told journalists may never be released for operational security reasons, became the next contentious issue in the Children Overboard affair.

Failure to correct the record Elsewhere within the defence chain of command, senior officers concerned about the lack of written confirmation of children overboard in signal traffic from HMAS Adelaide, had commenced a process of internal inquiry. 24 By the evening of 10 October 2001, the CDF had been told there was no evidence to support the report that children had been thrown overboard from SIEV IV. He advised the minister of the misrepresentation of the photographs in a telephone call on 11 October (SSCCMI 2002, pp 80–83). 25 Barrie told the committee:


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I told him that I had been advised that the photographs he put out did not describe the events as he portrayed on the 7.30 Report. I cannot remember his precise response, save that we had a discussion about there being a great deal of confusion about the photographs. But I do recall that our conversation was testy [SSCCMI, Committee Hansard , 12 April 2002, p 742].

Secretary of defence, Dr Allan Hawke, was similarly told photos released the previous evening had been misrepresented as evidence of the incident (SSCCMI 2002, p 77). 26 He instructed McKenry to immediately advise the minister’s office in writing of the confusion over the photographs (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 25 March 2002, p 4). However McKenry did not prepare written advice as directed by her secretary. Instead she complied with a request from the defence liaison officer in Reith’s office, Mike Scrafton, to send by email the photographs and a chronology of events relating to their provision to the minister’s office. McKenry told the committee she was confident that Scrafton understood that the photographs had been misrepresented (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 12 April 2002, p 1102), a fact subsequently confirmed by Scrafton himself (SSCSE, Committee Hansard, 1 September 2004, pp 26–27). However the lack of written advice enabled the minister’s office to claim it had not been ‘formally advised’ about the misrepresentation of the photographs. The minister and his staff consistently maintained the office had received ‘no formal written briefing’ about ‘the doubtful nature of the allegations about children being thrown in the water’ (Bryant 2002, p 36). Hawke received a copy of McKenry’s email, but did not follow up by insisting she provide a formal minute (Weller 2002, p 76). Hawke told the committee that he had asked himself whether he ‘could or should have taken a more active involvement’ in the provision of advice, and concluded that: I certainly could have. Whether I should have remains an open question in my mind, with one clear exception. The clear exception where I might well have done more is my involvement in the matter of the photographs. In retrospect, I


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190 Power without responsibility should have discussed that issue directly and provided clear written advice to Minister Reith. As I said to you, I feel that I could have done more on that issue by talking directly to the Minister and by providing him with clear, written advice to that effect. Relying on the staffers in this case simply was not good enough, so I have learned a very hard lesson from that [SSCCMI, Committee Hansard , 25 March 2002, pp 4, 12].

The Bryant inquiry heard evidence from Scrafton that the minister considered a retraction on 11 October, but he noted these were political discussions between Hampton and Peter Hendy, and that Scrafton was not involved in any decision-making. He told Bryant he believed the political decision was ‘not to raise the issue’. He was unsure whether Reith had been party to these discussions (Interview with Mike Scrafton, Bryant inquiry). 27 Interestingly, Hampton gave a rather different account of events, recalling the discussion had been between ‘the minister, Mr Hendy and Mr Scrafton and that he couldn’t comment on what consideration if any had been given to a retraction’ (Interview with Ross Hampton, Bryant inquiry). Scrafton has since claimed that despite his suggestion that a retraction should be considered, Hendy informed him that wasn’t going to happen (SSCSE, Committee Hansard, 1 September 2004, p 31). The SSCCMI’s unwillingness to test its powers to call ministerial staff to give evidence meant these competing claims were not resolved. Hendy noted that [Reith’s] office ‘never got a clear answer on whether or not the photographs were of the sinking’. In response to questions about McKenry’s email advice to Scrafton, he claimed that ‘people were not as clear cut in their oral advice’. He told Bryant that: When the question of the accuracy of the attribution of the photos came up, the Minister made the decision within 24 hours that he would not change the public record until he had conclusive advice about what actually happened with the original reports and the photos [Interview with Peter Hendy, Bryant inquiry].


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Hendy argued McKenry’s email ‘did not provide conclusive advice’ because in view of the mistakes made by defence in providing information an ‘independent inquiry would be necessary to get to the facts’ and PACC would be among the people under investigation (quoted in SSCCMI 2002, p 116). Hendy noted in his statement to the Bryant inquiry that: A lot of commentary in Defence had to be verified because Defence was an organisation that lived on gossip and rumour. There was a systemic problem with the checking of facts, and the organisation lacked discipline in dealing with facts, confidentiality and public commentary. In this case, faced with a range of stories (particularly in relation to the photographs) the minister’s staff had to take everything they heard with a pinch of salt [Interview with Peter Hendy, Bryant inquiry].

Both the Bryant and SSCCMI inquiries noted a number of instances in which ministerial staff discounted advice from defence on the grounds they thought it was erroneous (see, for example, SSCCMI 2002, pp 113–115), or as critics might argue, inconvenient (Evans 2003). A perverse consequence of often aggressive ministerial staff demands for responsiveness and of the multiple channels of communication pursued by Reith’s office was that partial and inconsistent advice was received. By not allowing the defence chain of command time to follow conventional quality-control processes, ministerial staff undermined the integrity of advice to ministers, fuelling further distrust of the department’s capacity to provide accurate information. In their filtering and selective use of defence advice, Reith’s staff created confusion and ambiguity, leading to a situation in which the onus was put on defence to prove that the Children Overboard incident had never occurred. Weller (2002, p 36) notes that after zealously pursuing the Children Overboard claims, the government stopped talking about the issue after 11 October. The incident then faded from the media agenda, although on 14 October 2001, three full days after receiving advice about the photographs, Reith intimated in a television interview that the photographs provided proof of the Children Overboard claims (SSCCMI 2002, p 116).


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192 Power without responsibility In an effort to ensure the story received no further oxygen, Reith’s office’s control over media contacts was further strengthened. Journalists were barred from having contact with the navy; sailors were banned from sending emails during SIEV interception operations (Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 209). Dobell (2002, p 40) argues that ‘secrecy was not used for operational reasons but to control information for maximum political effect’. Defence officers were instructed that all inquiries about the incident be referred to the minister’s media adviser. But journalists complained that Hampton refused to answer questions, and that he alternated between politeness and verbal aggression in his dealings with them. In a submission to the SSCCMI, press gallery representatives claimed that: Former Defence Minister Peter Reith and members of his staff, not least former Media Adviser Ross Hampton, Chief of Staff Peter Hendy and Military Adviser Mike Scrafton, were clearly at the centre of efforts to prevent the truth coming out regarding false claims that asylum seekers threw children into the sea in October of last year [Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery 2002].

Journalists knew Peter Reith too well to let the Children Overboard issue lie. The combative minister had ‘form’ over his involvement in the 1998 waterfront dispute, 28 and the 2000 telecard scandal. 29 He was more inclined to obfuscate and ‘tough it out’ than to concede any political ground (Trinca & Davies 2000). The Australian newspaper continued to pursue the story. On 7 November it ran a front-page report which claimed that reports asylum seekers had thrown their children overboard from SIEV IV were untrue. The article criticised Reith for refusing to release the videotape, and his media adviser for continuing to stand by the claims (Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 253). Just three days out from election day, a media storm ensued. The CDF was overseas and not due back until 10 November. Acting in his position was chief of the air force, air marshall Angus Houston. After gathering information from within defence, Houston


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telephoned the minister, telling him there was no evidence to suggest that women or children had been thrown into the water on 7 October. 30 Houston also told the minister that photographs released as proof of the incident actually related to the sinking of the vessel on 8 October. Finally, Houston reported the video was inconclusive because of its poor quality (SSCCMI 2002, pp 87–89). Houston told the committee the minister had seemed ‘stunned and surprised’ by this information and had then said ‘Well, I think we’ll have to look at releasing the video’ (SSCCMI 2002, p 88). Reith’s reaction to Houston’s advice is perplexing, as brigadier Silverstone had discussed the inconclusive nature of the video with Reith on 31 October. According to Silverstone, Reith had then said ‘Well, we’d better not see the video then’ (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 4 April 2002, pp 346, 361). A copy of the video was then provided to Mike Scrafton who reported that: he considered that the tape didn’t show that the incident had happened. However neither did it provide conclusive evidence that the incident didn’t happen [Interview with Mike Scrafton, Bryant inquiry].

Scrafton spoke several times by mobile phone to the prime minister about the video during the evening of 7 November. In his letter to The Australian newspaper, Scrafton (2004) claimed: In the course of those calls, I recounted to him [Howard] that (a) the tape was at best inconclusive as to whether there were any children in the water but certainly didn’t support the proposition that the event had occurred; (b) that the photographs that had been released in early October were definitely of the sinking of the refugee boat on October 8 and not of any children being thrown into the water; and (c) no one in Defence that I dealt with on the matter still believed any children were thrown overboard.31

But again Reith determined not to issue a retraction. Scrafton claims the minister told him defence had a habit of ‘stuffing up’


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194 Power without responsibility (quoted in Walters 2004b). Reith rationalised he should wait to discuss the matter with admiral Barrie on his return (Interview with Peter Reith, Bryant inquiry). The political convenience of this decision, particularly since the minister was retiring from parliament on election day, was not lost on commentators, or on the majority of senators on the senate select committee. 32 Their report concluded that: Through a combination of denial, obfuscation and misleading statements, the media, senior officials and the public were deliberately and systematically deceived about the evidence for and the veracity of the claim [SSCCMI 2002, p 119].

Scrafton’s intervention in 2004 lends weight to this conclusion: My impression of what happened was that … the evidence they had before them was used in a way that was designed to mislead [quoted in Walters 2004a].

While acknowledging that Scrafton advised him of the inconclusive nature of the video, Howard and his staff have consistently denied being told about the photographs or defence doubts over whether the incident had occurred. The government was confronted by more controversy when, during a media interview on 8 October, vice admiral David Shackleton, chief of the navy, commented that ‘Our advice was that there were people being threatened to be thrown in the water, and I don’t know what happened to the message after that’ (quoted in Peake 2001). Shackleton’s remarks were seized on by the media, and reported as a military officer contradicting the government. Shackleton received a telephone call from Hendy who indicated the navy chief had erred in creating the impression that the minister had not been informed of the Children Overboard incident by defence. Hendy said he clearly recalled Reith being advised by the navy that children had been thrown overboard, and that Shackleton should therefore issue ‘a clarifying statement to remove the apparent contradiction’ (Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 90). Shackleton’s clarifying statement, developed with


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the assistance of defence PACC, was issued later that afternoon (SSCCMI 2002, p 125).

Role of prime minister’s office On the same day as the Shackleton controversy, Howard was due to address the national press club. Throughout 7 November his international adviser, Miles Jordana, looked for evidence to support the government’s original Children Overboard claims (SSCCMI 2002, pp 122–125). None of the material reviewed in the course of his search mentioned children in the water from SIEV IV. Jordana phoned then director-general of ONA, Kim Jones, asking whether ONA had published any reports containing references to the incident. Jones advised Jordana of a report published on 9 October, noting it could have been based on media reports from ministers, but that ONA was continuing to search defence reporting to find the relevant source (SSCCMI 2002, p 123). Jordana had previously been advised of doubts relating to the photographs by Scrafton (SSCSE, Committee Hansard, 1 September 2004, p 36), and by PST chair, Jane Halton, but had dismissed this information as ‘tea room gossip’ (SSCCMI 2002, p 124). He told Halton the matter was being handled and that he was in contact with Reith’s office. During his address to the national press club, Howard cited the ONA report as proof of the Children Overboard claims. On 12 November ONA confirmed its report had in fact been based on media statements by Ruddock, Reith and Howard. As Weller (2002, p 42) notes, ‘the prime minister was quoting the ONA which was quoting the prime minister’ (also see Marr & Wilkinson 2003, pp 256–258). After the election, and throughout subsequent inquiries into the affair, Howard insisted he had not been advised of doubts about the Children Overboard incident or the veracity of the photographic or video ‘evidence’ (see, for example, Transcript of press conference, 19 February 2002). He strongly disputed Scrafton’s claims that doubts were raised during their telephone


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196 Power without responsibility conversations on 7 November 2001; taking the unusual step of releasing statements from staffers who were with him that evening. Howard argued that he quoted the ONA report in his press club address ‘in complete ignorance of the reference that Kim Jones made when he spoke of the source of the information’. He claimed the ONA report was in any case ‘academic’, since he based his original claims on the PST paper which ‘unambiguously speaks of children being thrown overboard’ (Transcript of press conference, 19 February 2002). He went on to tell reporters: it remains the case that at no stage was I informed by my Department or by anybody on my staff including Mr Jordana that it or they had received a contradiction of the original advice that children had been thrown overboard.

Labor and many commentators were sceptical of the suggestion that PMO staff would not have passed on such crucial information to the prime minister, particularly given the significance of the Children Overboard incident in the government’s re-election campaign (Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 257). These suspicions were exacerbated when it was revealed Bryant had spoken with Howard, Moore-Wilton, Jordana and other senior PMO staff during a break in her evidence to a senate estimates committee (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 18 April 2002, pp 1264–1276). Bryant discussed what she intended to say in evidence with senior PMO staff. Her statement to the committee was written in the PMO, and reviewed by Sinodinos. Bryant also revealed she had been contacted by Nutt about evidence from Scrafton that ‘he had been involved in or was aware of discussions between Mr Reith’s office, the PMO and the Prime Minister that he could not discuss’ (Interview with Mike Scrafton, Bryant inquiry). Nutt suggested Bryant should contact Scrafton to confirm that statement, but she considered the request imprudent and did not contact the former departmental liaison officer (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 18 April 2002, p 1266). According to Scrafton: the consternation and reaction from the Prime Minister’s staff, who I recall chased Ms Bryant to clarify what it meant, is some


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indication that the little I revealed was not welcome [SSCSE, Committee Hansard , 1 September 2004, p 4].

Bryant emerged from her discussion in the PMO with the impression that she should be ‘the flatter the better’ in her evidence to the estimates committee (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 18 April 2002, p 1271), leading Labor senator Jacinta Collins to conclude Bryant had been ‘pressured’ not to be forthcoming in her recollections of events (SSCCMI 2002, p 475). Though there was little direct criticism of Jordana’s role in the Children Overboard controversy, the involvement of senior PMO staff in discussions with Bryant about her evidence to a senate estimates committee raises questions about public service independence, and the role of ministerial staff in exacting responsiveness.

Minister’s media adviser Weller may have had Hampton in mind when he contended that some advisers have become the ‘junkyard attack dogs’ of the political system: ‘the hard men and the hit men’ (Weller 2002, p 72). The media adviser’s demeanour with defence personnel was described as ‘demanding’ and ‘arrogant’, and he seems to have had a questionable grasp on his place in the political system, especially in relation to public servants. An example from the SSCCMI report illustrates this point. On 11 October 2001, Hampton telephoned a DML officer and demanded an original copy of the email from HMAS Adelaide ‘to clarify the additional text that the Minister’s office had not seen’. 33 The DML officer initially refused to send it, telling Hampton he had been ordered not to send it to him by PACC. Hampton demanded it be sent to him, telling the officer he ‘was staying on the phone until he pushed send’ (Interview with Ross Hampton, Bryant inquiry). The officer told the Powell inquiry: I received an agitated phone call from Minister Reith’s Media Adviser, Ross Hampton … He advised me in an aggressive tone that he was HPACC’s boss and my boss as well and that I’d better send them to him immediately [quoted in Bryant 2002, p 38].


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198 Power without responsibility As a ministerial staffer, Hampton was not anyone’s boss in the defence organisation. But he seems to have been either unaware of or unconstrained by this fact. As senior public servants would later reiterate (see, for example, Podger 2002), ministerial staff have no power to direct public servants (also see SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 18 April 2002, p 1192). They are extensions of their minister and as such have no personal authority. By the time of the Children Overboard controversy however, the continuing validity of their dependent status was coming into question. In June 2001, Max Moore-Wilton, had sounded a warning to ministerial staff about overstepping the boundaries of their role: As public servants we must ensure the broad apolitical nature of our advice while accepting that decisions on policy ultimately rest with the minister. For their part, ministerial advisers must bear in mind that their role is to advise and influence and not to assume an executive decision-making role for which, in our current parliamentary structures, they cannot be held accountable [Moore-Wilton 2001, p 4].

Hampton’s conduct lent support to concerns that Howard government staff were acting outside conventional understandings about the limits of their role. The majority report of the SSCCMI stated: There now exists a group of people on the public payroll – ministerial advisers – who seem willing and able, at their own initiative, to intervene in public administration, and to take decisions affecting the performance of agencies, without being publicly accountable for those interventions, decisions and actions [SSCCMI 2002, p xxxiv].

Hampton’s behaviour caused difficulties for defence officials and military officers. It is suggestive of a broader systemic issue neatly summarised by Uhr (2002): Many people within government do not know what their roles are. Worse, many of those that are certain cannot convince others. Many of the conflicting stories before the Senate Inquiry can be traced back to conflicting expectations of role …


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This widespread role muddle indicates a larger problem: too many people have too little to guide them on what constitutes use and abuse of office.

Earlier chapters have argued that the employment framework, administrative and management arrangements in which ministerial staff work are inherently problematic. Staff receive limited induction or professional development to assist them in navigating their roles; they work under high pressure and tight deadlines in the partisan hot-house of the ministerial wing. Facing the prospect of losing their positions if the government loses office, or if their minister leaves – as Hampton was, given Reith’s impending retirement – the atmosphere is partisan, perhaps even more intensely so during an election campaign. While it is tempting to stereotype Hampton, and damn his conduct, it is important to examine organisational factors that might account for his behaviour in the circumstances of this case. It is worth noting, for example, that Hampton was new to his position. 34 He took over the role of media adviser from long-serving Liberal Party ‘spear-carrier’, the colourful Ian Hanke, in February 2001. 35 In the media adviser’s role Hanke had built a reputation for toughness and for pursuing his minister’s goals with ‘almost religious fervour’ (Kissane 2002). Hanke was described by former shadow minister for industrial relations, Arch Bevis, as: A man with a hard nose and a rhinocerous-thick skin who seeks out trouble to feed a fight to pursue extreme ideological goals [quoted in Kissane 2002].

The aggressive pursuit of the Children Overboard claims by ministerial staff is arguably a function of their minister’s personal style. Reith had built a loyal and well-organised staff that could endure his penchant for ‘high risk, confrontational strategies’ (Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 46). The staff, most of whom had accompanied Reith through his various portfolios, had supported their minister through two major political crises (the 1998 waterfront dispute and the 2000 telecard affair) and through the often bitter republican referendum. 36 Weller (2002, p 72) argues


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200 Power without responsibility the behaviour of ministerial staff is a mark of their minister. Perhaps reflecting this, Norington (1999) described Reith’s office as: a nest of zealots … all believe [in weakening unions] with a passion. With partisan blinkers, they never lose an opportunity to spear the other side.

This was the environment that Hampton came to work in. Knowing that if the government lost office after the 2001 election he would have to find another job, and considering the shoes he stepped into in Reith’s office, it is arguable Hampton was not discouraged from acting as he did. This behaviour may also reflect the intense partisanship of contemporary Australian politics which was likened by one respondent in this study to America’s ‘culture wars’. Waterford (2004) argues ministerial staff play important roles in this strategy: They are there for their minister and for the Government. They are bursting to seek and use to political advantage any information which they can get. ‘They are, must be, risk takers by nature’, an experienced political hand commented recently. ‘And as such, they are accident-prone. Probably never more so than during election campaigns’.

When Hampton joined Reith’s office in February 2001, the Howard government was facing the prospect of electoral defeat. Reith had only recently assumed the complex and demanding defence portfolio. At a time when the government put defence at the centre of its re-election strategy, Hampton became the sole point of contact for media organisations. It was noted the media adviser works under the highest day-to-day pressure of any ministerial staffer. In these abnormal circumstances, the demands on Hampton must have been substantial. According to the head of DML: He [Hampton] was exceptionally busy in the minister’s office. He was coming to grips with a new organisation that he was relatively new in. Defence is not a small organisation; it is huge. He had to come to grips with a lot of that. We did our utmost


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to assist him come to grips with that [SSCCMI, Committee Hansard , 17 April 2002, p 1176].

But lest a focus on organisational factors absolve Hampton of responsibility for his behaviour, it is important to note he was the architect of the new media regime. Defence PACC had developed a proposed public affairs plan for Operation Relex, but this was rejected by Reith’s office in favour of a plan proposed by Hampton (SSCCMI 2002, pp 22–23).37 The new instructions were ‘extraordinarily restrictive’ (Dobell 2002, p 43). They meant defence was unable to put out even factual material without transgressing the public affairs plan. Whether because of inexperience, arrogance, or simply partisan fixation, Reith’s office ignored warnings from PACC about the new media arrangements, which many in the military regarded as a form of censorship (Dobell 2002; Smith 2002). The unwillingness of Howard government ministers to accept responsibility for the actions of their staff has fuelled perceptions the government condones and perhaps encourages conduct such as that displayed by Hampton. Weller (2002, p 72) argues that ministerial staff have become ‘politically dispensable, convenient scapegoats who will take the bullet for their ministers and protect them from political fallout’. In not disciplining or sanctioning ministerial staffers, the Howard government may have set a dangerous precedent. Unlike the Travel Rorts case, no adviser lost his or her position; most in fact seem to have been advantaged by the controversy (see Harris 2002a). Hampton was appointed to a comparable position in the office of education minister Brendan Nelson after the 2001 election. In 2004 he became chief of staff to the then minister for environment and heritage, senator Ian Campbell, a position he occupied until January 2007. Hendy became chief of staff to Nelson, before leaving in 2002 to become chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Jordana, a senior executive service officer seconded to Howard’s office from PM&C, returned to his home department to head the new national security division. He subsequently became deputy secretary in the attorney-general’s department.


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202 Power without responsibility In contrast, the secretary of defence and senior military officers involved in the affair retired or did not have their contracts renewed (see Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 291). Ministerial staff who failed to properly advise their ministers lost their positions in the Travel Rorts case. Since the bloodletting of 1997, Howard has been far less willing to sack ministers or their staff, or to let them resign. 38 Former chief of staff Greg Barns explained: Well Howard started off with his Ministerial code and all these rigorous new standards were supposed to apply to the staff too. But after he’d lost five ministers in the first 18 months of his government, he decided the code wasn’t such a good idea. Then in true Howard form, he goes to the other extreme, because like all ideologues, you go from black to white. And he has now tolerated excesses, including Hampton, which wouldn’t have been tolerated in the past.

Conventions overboard The Children Overboard affair marks an important shift in the operations of the Australian ministerial staffing system. Determined to secure an election victory and to defend its legitimacy, the Howard government undermined and ultimately defied the conventions that had underpinned its operations for almost 30 years. These were firstly, that staff operate as extensions of their minister, and secondly, that telling a staffer is the same as telling the minister (see Keating 2003a; Weller 2002, p 71). In so doing it exposed a ‘black hole’ of accountability within the Australian core executive (SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 18 April 2002, p 1218). Rather than acting as extensions of their minister, Howard government ministerial staff are seen to be exercising executive authority: making decisions and giving directions without reference to their minister. The majority report of the SSCCMI (2002, p 173) was concerned that staff: appear to enjoy a level of autonomous executive authority separable from that to which they have been customarily entitled as the immediate agents of the minister.


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In the past it has been generally accepted that advisers’ accountabilities are rendered via ministers, it being understood that advisers act at the direction of ministers and/or with their knowledge and consent. This seems to be no longer a legitimate assumption.

Definitive evidence of staff exercising executive authority is hard to find, however respondents to this study were of a strong view that the scope of staff’s authority – particularly chiefs of staff and other senior staff – has grown substantially since 1998. Murray (2002a, pp 2–3) has argued: The numbers of staff employed as ministerial advisers has exploded. As has their power. The function of some ministerial staff and advisers has changed so much over the last quarter century that they no longer just advise. They act, and they exercise power [emphasis original]. On their own judgment, and without reference to others, they may control who has access to Ministers; determine what information reaches them and in what form; regulate inter-ministerial, inter-departmental and inter-parliamentary contacts; make decisions on behalf of ministers ; and give directions to departments and agencies [emphasis original]. In doing these things they are indistinguishable from an Assistant Minister or a Parliamentary Secretary.

Respondents to this study reported a tendency for ministerial staff to see themselves as ‘de facto assistant ministers’ (Harry Evans, correspondence to CMI committee, 22 March 2002, p 4). A senior parliamentarian with extensive experience of dealing with ministers on legislation reported that: Because of their workloads, and the volume of legislation, Ministers can’t get across the detail. As a result, you are dealing with staffers – mostly the political ones whose own opinions and views on issues determine how the issues are handled. Staff clearly are exercising executive authority. They are making decisions and deals and don’t seem to be referring back to their Ministers … They’re negotiating an outcome


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204 Power without responsibility – trading off something they want with what the people who hold the balance of power want. But some Ministers are pretty inaccessible, and most are seldom across all the detail, so advisers are always worth dealing with. Sometimes you can just agree something and then it’s ticked off without having to go to the Minister. It is quite seldom that a Minister will be without an adviser, but advisers are usually without their Minister. Staffers usually give an opinion straight away and either they exercise great power or they really know their Minister’s mind well.

The senate inquiry into MOP(S) Act staff heard similar evidence that the roles of staff were continuing to evolve. Clerk of the senate, Harry Evans, argued ‘there is enormous disparity in roles and the way people see their roles among those staff’ (FP&A, Committee Hansard, 3 September 2003, p 200). In his submission to the inquiry, Evans (2003, p 2) argued: Their role has long gone beyond advice and personal assistance. As active participants in the political process, they, •

control access to ministers;

•

determine the information which reaches ministers, particularly from departments and agencies;

•

control contact between ministers and other ministers, other members of the Parliament and departments and agencies;

•

make decisions on behalf of ministers;

•

give directions about government activities, including directions to departments and agencies; and

•

manage media perceptions and reporting.

The minister assisting the prime minister for the public service, Tony Abbott, was quick to downplay suggestions that Howard government staff were acting inappropriately or in the absence of proper accountability arrangements. In May 2002 he told the Institute of Public Administration Australia that:


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Like public servants, ministerial staff are accountable through ministers to the parliament and to the people. In practice, although ministers can’t be held responsible for every act of their staff, they are routinely held responsible for the overall quality of action and interaction by their staff and the general conduct of the administration of their portfolios. Working well, staff are an extension of busy ministers enabling them to cover a much wider range of policy issues and to scrutinise a wider range of programme administration [Abbott 2002].

The Children Overboard affair sparked a wide-ranging public debate about the role of ministerial staff, about their relationship with and impact on the public service, and about how they are used by ministers. The dominant theme of this debate was their accountability.

Accountability of ministerial staff A foundation principle of the Australian ministerial staffing system is that staff are accountable to their minister and through their minister to parliament. Howard re-affirmed this during the Children Overboard controversy when he refused to allow ministerial staff to appear before the SSCCMI (House, Debates, 12 March 2002, p 995). It is premised on ministers taking responsibility for the actions of their staff, as they had (with the exception of Howard in the Travel Rorts case), in other controversies documented in this book. The issue of ministerial staff accountability became controversial in the Children Overboard case precisely because ministers did not accept responsibility for their staff’s actions. Instead former minister, Peter Reith, and prime minister, John Howard, insisted they had not been ‘formally advised’ of defence doubts about the veracity of claims that children had been thrown overboard from SIEV IV. Both maintained their staff had not passed on to them the concerns of defence officials. Reith left parliament at the 2001 election and could not be called to give evidence before the SSCCMI (Holland 2004). He was however interviewed by Bryant in the context of her inquiry. With no


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206 Power without responsibility Howard government minister prepared to answer for the actions of Reith’s staff, the staff prevented from giving evidence, and with none of them apparently sanctioned for their conduct in the case, an ‘accountability vacuum’ resulted. Little wonder that Weller (2002, p 71) described the convention that staff are indistinguishable from the minister as a ‘constitutional myth’ that ‘has long been overtaken by a different reality’ (also see F&PA, Committee Hansard, 2 September 2003, p 81). Concern about the ‘accountability gap’ of ministerial staff dominated media coverage of the Children Overboard controversy. Similar concerns permeated submissions and evidence to the senate finance and public administration (F&PA) inquiry into staff employed under the MOP(S) Act. Although as Faulkner (2002) has argued, the problem of ministerial staff accountability ‘is one that has been many years in the making’, it is regarded as especially serious in the Children Overboard case. Harris (2002a) notes Howard ‘changed the rules’ of accountability for the actions of staff when in 1997 his staff bore responsibility for failing to ensure he was properly advised about travel rorts. This approach was reinforced when staff of the deputy prime minister were sacked, thus shielding John Anderson from blame in the roads funding controversy. According to Harris (2002a), ‘Howard diminished the chain of accountability even more when he decided that neither ministers nor their staff had a responsibility for their roles in misleading the public in the Children Overboard affair’. By distancing themselves from the actions of the staff, the Howard government has: opened up a new level of discretion and a new power for ministers. That has come about because we have broken the link between staff and ministers, and ministers and prime ministers have found that this frees them up in quite a major way. They can use their staff as a firewall. In other words, they can blame their staff if things go wrong and say: ‘I wasn’t at fault. It was the staff at fault. If you have a system where the staff are an extension of the ministers, ministers cannot do that because you cannot say, ‘It was the staff’s fault’, if the staff,


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in fact, are an extension of themselves. Once you break that relationship, the minister has a whole new level of discretion [Don Russell, F&PA, Committee Hansard , 3 September 2003, p 162].

Arguably the most serious implication of this development is the potential for staff to provide ‘plausible deniability’ for their ministers. Ministerial staff in the offices of Peter Reith and the prime minister were accused of setting up a ‘firewall’ between ministers and public servants so that unpalatable information did not get through. Staff may do this by preventing people ‘who would tell ministers what they don’t want to know, from gaining access’, by providing ‘deniability so ministers can profess ignorance of information which becomes politically inconvenient to know’ and by providing ‘deniability for decisions which ministers may claim not to have made themselves’ (Evans 2003, p 2). In this context, and given their employers’ expectation of political loyalty: sometimes ministerial officers will lie to protect their minister, or take the fall, and the undeserved blame, when it is the minister who is guilty [Waterford 2004].

Don Russell (2002) is one of several commentators to see the problematic potential of this situation, arguing that: Under current arrangements, ministerial staff can do things that ministers would find hard to justify, and this will inevitably lead to abuses. As ministers explore the full limits of their new discretion, we can be sure that these abuses will be major. It is not fanciful to believe that we are taking the first steps down a path that leads to Haldeman and Ehrlichman, plausible deniability and the Nixon White House.

The potential for the system to follow a Watergate-style trajectory was also noted by other analysts (see for example, Evans 2002). The consensus amongst post-Children Overboard commentators was that mechanisms to ensure the accountability of ministerial staff need to be strengthened to accommodate new realities. 39 To this end, the SSCCMI (2002, p xxxix) recommended that:


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208 Power without responsibility an appropriate parliamentary committee develop recommendations concerning suitable frameworks, mechanisms and procedures by which ministerial advisers could be rendered directly accountable to parliament in ways commensurate with those which currently apply to public servants.

Conclusion The Children Overboard case illustrates the problematic nature of the contemporary ministerial staffing system. As staff numbers have grown, the capacity of ministers to know what their staff are doing has diminished, rendering untenable conventional notions that staff are mere agents of their minister. The unwillingness of Howard ministers to take responsibility for the actions of their staff has brought the issue of staff accountability to public prominence. The overwhelming emphasis of the post-Children Overboard debate about ministerial staff was their lack of accountability. This suggests that analysts and commentators continue to conceptualise the problems of political staffing from a Westminster perspective. But the focus on accountability does not address the other problems exposed by the Travel Rorts and Children Overboard cases; many of which relate to the conduct and behaviour of ministerial staff. An alternative framework is needed: one that focuses attention on the issue of managing the staff and of developing a set of arrangements to regulate and control their conduct. The US presidential staff experience offers potentially useful insights into how such a framework might be developed (see Chapter 9).


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NINE Power without responsibility? Concern about the lack of accountability of ministerial staff dominated the public debate that followed the Children Overboard affair. But as we have seen, their lack of accountability, while important, is only one of the problems associated with development of a larger, more active ministerial staffing system. Also at the heart of controversies involving the staff are problems of conduct and behaviour, management, and fit within a Westminsterstyle political system. Current debates, premised on Westminster preoccupations with individual ministerial responsibility and accountability therefore reflect only a partial understanding of the dilemmas of ministerial staffing arrangements as they have evolved. They are an inadequate basis for a constructive debate about how ministerial staff might be better accommodated within the Australian core executive.


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210 Power without responsibility Presidential studies scholars have long understood the potential for personal staff to become a management problem.1 The problems of staff documented in this book, and those also becoming evident in other Westminster systems – notably the United Kingdom and Canada (briefly reviewed later in this chapter) – are comparable to the United States’ experience. While there are crucial differences between our systems of government, the forces impelling the development of the ministerial staffing system and the problems associated with its growing size, power, complexity and inadequate governance structures bear important similarities to the experience of the White House staff. Unlike Australia where these matters have received comparatively little attention, the US has been debating the implications of the development of a large and active political staff for many decades. Its experience is instructive in both highlighting the endemic problems of personal staffing systems, and contemplating the trajectories along which the Australian system might develop if its problems are not addressed.

White House staff As in Australia, there is a long history of personal staff support to US presidents. Systematic efforts to address the problem of presidential overload began with Franklin D Roosevelt’s appointment, in 1936, of the committee on administrative management in the government of the United States. As Hart (1987, p 1) notes, the Brownlow committee, as it became known: laid the foundation for a much-needed reform of American government, namely the provision of adequate staff support to assist the president in carrying out his duties at a time when the nature and function of his office was undergoing profound change. Indeed staffing was to be a significant factor in this change, and today it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine how modern presidents could have responded to the pressures and demands put upon them without such staff assistance.


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The Brownlow committee’s report provided the framework for development of a more formal and institutionalised presidential staffing system.2 It recommended there should be a functional distinction between an institutional staff capacity and a personal staff capacity. Managerial functions including budgeting, planning and personnel would be dealt with by an institutional staff located within the executive office of the president (Dickinson 1997, p 106). In addition, the president would have a personal staff consisting of ‘a small number of executive assistants’ selected by the president himself, to assist with activities that were essential to his own work day-to-day (Neustadt 1969a, p 13). Perhaps anticipating the potential dangers these staff could pose, the committee prescribed strict limits on their role, placing special emphasis on the desirability of their staying in the background (Hart 1995, pp 29–30). Ideally, it argued, White House staff ‘should be possessed of high competence, greater physical vigor and a passion for anonymity’ (Committee on administrative management, quoted in Hart 1995, p 29). In practice the distinction and power relationships between the president’s institutional and personal staff have deviated significantly from the model proposed by the Brownlow committee (Hart 1995). Over the course of subsequent administrations, the White House staff has emerged as a powerful institution within the US political executive.

Problem of staff For the early part of the presidential staffing system’s history, there was acceptance the problem of overload would be solved by the provision of personal staff resources (Pika 1991). It was thought presidents would make better decisions if proposals and options brought before them for consideration had been scrutinised and debated among various experts. The duplication and overlap of this approach was expected to ‘safeguard policymakers against rushed decisions and the false consensus produced by “groupthink”’ (Preston & ’t Hart 1999, p 51; Walter 2005). By the 1970s however,


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212 Power without responsibility this consensus was displaced by an emphasis on their potentially negative impacts, including the ability of staff to filter out unwanted or unwelcome advice. The Watergate scandal, which exposed criminal conduct on the part of senior staff of president Richard Nixon, 3 was a catalyst for a comprehensive critique of the White House staff.4 According to Hart (1995, p 195): Among scholars, politicians, journalists and former presidential aides who contributed to this post-Watergate publication boom, there was widespread agreement that the president’s staff was a significant institutional and structural problem, not just a problem of the particular individuals who worked for Richard Nixon.

The perception that there were systemic problems with presidential staffing arrangements was confirmed by the Iran-Contra scandal, and various other controversies involving the White House staffs of subsequent presidents. 5 A selective review of the vast US presidential staffing literature reveals substantial consensus about the problems of the White House staff as it has grown in size, influence and power (see Hart 1995, pp 195–233). Four major themes resonate strongly with the recent Australian experience of ministerial staff documented in this book. These are first, the problem of staff conduct and behaviour; and second, the potential for personal staff to disrupt relationships between the president and other governmental actors. A third problem derives from increasing staff numbers. Finally there is the problem of how to govern the staff and particularly, how to make them accountable (Hart 1995).

Staff behaviour Behaviour has been a persistent concern in debates about presidential staffing arrangements. Staff have been accused of arrogance and aggressiveness in their dealings with cabinet members and executive agencies (see Hart 1995, pp 145–146; Pfiffner 1996). This behaviour, which has parallels amongst the congressional staff (Rundquist, Schneider & Pauls 1992), is frequently attributed to the pressures of the working environment,


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to the ambition, energy and zeal of White House recruits, and to their youth and inexperience. Staff may use their proximity to the president to assert power over other actors. Their sense of importance at being called to serve the president can lead them to forget their power is contingent and derivative. 6 Concerns have been raised about presidents’ tendency to staff the White House with personal loyalists drawn from their campaign team, who may lack requisite skills and experience to make a successful transition to government.7 Presidents may value personal and ideological loyalty over expertise or credentials when recruiting staff. The White House experiences enormous disruption when an administration changes. Presidents have limited institutional staff support on which to draw when they take office. They need aides with ‘substantive policy knowledge who are sensitive to the needs of other “Washingtonians”’ (Dickinson & Tenpas 2002, p 437), but they may find it difficult to recruit and retain experienced people to White House staff roles because of the personal and physical costs of working in such high pressure positions. Newcomers, many of whom are young and have limited career experience are left to ‘fend for themselves, learning the intricacies of the job through an often painful trial-and-error process at the precise moment at which their opportunity to exercise influence is likely to be greatest’ (Dickinson 1998, p 768). There are high rates of turnover among presidential staff; positions can be a passport to lucrative alternative careers. 8 As a consequence: White House aides do not view their positions as anything more than a way-station to another career. Turnover, consequently, is rapid – to such an extent that by the end of a four-year term, the membership has largely been reconstituted. Within such an organisation, members may be expected to have a greater stake in the outcomes of an organisation’s decisions than in the integrity of its procedures [Kernell 1991, p 346].

Another concern is about the potential for staff to show excessive loyalty to the president, ‘sometimes bordering on sycophancy’


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214 Power without responsibility (Hart 1995, p 145). As Biggart (1985) observes, presidential staff are selected on the basis of their relationship with and loyalty to the president, rather for their qualifications or other objective measures. Their dependence on the executive they serve assures loyalty, but can result in the recruitment of people who lack the competence or experience to fulfil staff roles. Their dependent status and uncertain tenure orients the staff towards constantly trying to please the boss, including by telling him only what he wants to hear and avoiding telling him bad news (Dexter 1977, p 277; Hart 1995, p 145). This may also lead them towards actions that are illegal or ethically questionable (Hess 1988; Kernell 1989). Presidential staff may take the blame for presidential failure, and sometimes do politically distasteful chores. The staff’s preparedness to accept responsibility and blame derives from their ‘deep personal and political attachment to the president’. Moreover, ‘only the staff are sufficiently expendable and willing to perform the president’s disagreeable tasks’ (Biggart 1984, p 38).

Staff impacts on key relationships A second important theme of the critique concerns the impact of a larger and more active staff on relationships between the president and other actors. Often described as the ‘politicisation of the presidential staff’ (Hart 1995, p 211), critics of the tendency of modern presidents to favour ‘responsive’ over ‘neutral’ competence, are concerned the development of the White House staff has ‘cost presidents the benefits of expertise, professionalism, objectivity and continuity’ (Hart 1995, p 212).9 Centralisation of policy and decision-making control within the White House is a response to the pressures on the contemporary presidency and to the bargaining uncertainty of a more hostile and competitive political environment.10 But there is concern this may limit a president’s access to the benefits of contestable advice. Development and expansion of the White House staff may have occurred at the expense of other executive branch institutions. Much criticism has focused on the diminution of the cabinet, and


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the exclusion of the career bureaucracy from policy-making.11 Political appointees may distort information flows, and lengthen and interrupt established chains of command. They may lack appropriate skills to manage and mobilise the bureaucracy. This ‘thickening’ of executive government through the appointment of additional layers of political loyalists has had another important impact. Light (1995, p 64) argues there has been a diffusion of accountability through involvement of multiple actors at many more points in the decision chain, making it virtually impossible for anyone to be held accountable for anything that happens in government. Larger numbers of political appointees were intended to enhance bureaucratic responsiveness. But Dunn (1997) argues the greater distance between the president and career bureaucrats may have diminished bureaucratic effectiveness. Moreover, the concentration of presidential loyalists within the White House, and the lack of governmental experience of many political appointees, can reinforce recent presidents’ distrust of the career bureaucracy (Pfiffner 1991, p 168; 1996). This segregation can, according to Biggart (1985, p 120), ‘lead to a “siege” mentality, distrust of other sources of information and refusal to consider other valid interpretations of issues’. Pfiffner (1991, p 10) notes for example, that the ‘Iran-Contra scandal grew out of a profound distrust of and contempt for the governmental policy-making apparatus in the departments of state and defense’.

Staff size A third problem derives from continued growth in White House staff numbers. Since numbers grew substantially under the Nixon administration, it has become common for the pathologies of his White House to be attributed to staff size. Critics argue that greater numbers of staff reduce direct contact between the president and his staff, making it harder for a president to ensure the staff are acting in his interests. With less access to the president, staff receive instructions through a chain of command. In this process,


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216 Power without responsibility his instructions may lose definition and ultimately bear little resemblance to what he might really have wanted. Lack of contact with the president can lead to disputes between staff about what he might think on a particular issue, leading to internal rivalries between the staff, who compete for the attention of the leader.12 Inadequately supervised, and able to claim the imprimatur of the president, staff can pursue their own agendas, attracting new issues and problems to an already overburdened White House. A larger, more functionally differentiated staff requires governance structures to coordinate and manage its activities. Walcott and Hult (2004, p 18) argue that by the 1960s, with the White House ‘bulging with over 300 staffers’, the problems of governing the staff through informal and ad hoc arrangements had become clear. Presidents thus face internal management problems that they have little time or inclination to address. Because presidents no longer have time to cope personally with staff management, they are forced to delegate staff supervision and management tasks to subordinates, who may lack judgment or propriety (Neustadt 1974; Walcott & Hult 2004, p 18). Critics argue that just as large staffs can overwhelm presidents with problems and information, they can, through their gatekeeping activities, isolate presidents; preventing them from receiving essential information or countervailing views. The filtering of information to an overburdened president is an essential staff function, but zealous gatekeeping may have more sinister motives, such as shoring up their own power and screening out people they do not want the president to see (Hess 1988; Wildavsky 1969). Different types of staff structures can affect the flow of information and advice to presidents. Particular organisational arrangements can, either by accident or design, prevent a president from receiving the advice he needs as well as advice he wants (Rudalevige 2005, p 334). Hart (1995, p 200) rejects suggestions that White House staff size is inherently problematic. He notes many of the dysfunctions of the presidential staff pre-date the staff’s expansion (Hart 1995, p 147). What matters ‘is not the total number of presidential


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staff, but the extent to which senior staff have policy-making and decision-taking authority. The problem then is how to control and make them accountable’ (Hart 1995, p 204).

Controlling staff Like ministerial staff in Australia, the White House staff is subject to very few statutory controls. Though there are organisational and environmental constraints on the shape of staffing arrangements, development of the White House staff has proceeded under subsequent presidents with the cooperation of congress, following presidential prerogative.13 It is generally assumed the president is responsible for managing the staff, since their performance reflects on and has implications for presidential performance. Presidents are urged to manage their staffs since, as Arnold (quoted in Pfiffner 1991, p 4) notes: The greatest threats to the reputation and political interests of recent presidents have come from overenthusiastic loyalists rather than from political ‘enemies’.

For many observers of the presidency, the Watergate scandal came to symbolise the dangers of unchecked staff power. Cronin (1975, p 138) argues the presidential staff is ‘isolated from traditional constitutional checks and balances’. In fact, congress has a variety of powers of oversight including: standing and select committees, confirmation processes, hearings and investigations, and the appropriations process (Hart 1995, pp 151–165). Despite widespread calls for reform of the presidential staffing institution in the wake of the Watergate crisis, congress did not invoke its oversight powers (Hart 1995, pp 148, 187). Notwithstanding evidence that White House staff exercise substantial executive authority in policy and decision-making, congress has not challenged the doctrine of ‘executive privilege’ that excludes such staff from being required to testify before congress (Hart 1995, pp 159–162).14 Hart attributes congress’ tendency to treat the presidential staff as a ‘special case’ to the principle of ‘comity’ between the executive and legislative branches of American government (Hart 1995, pp 186–187).15


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Australian parallels As this brief review of the US experience indicates, many of the management problems of the White House staff derive from the organisational and structural arrangements within which the staff work. There is evidence that problems tend to recur over time and under different administrations, suggesting they are systemic rather than individual problems. Discernible parallels are evident in the issues identified in the US presidential staffing literature and the problems of ministerial staffing documented in this book.

Staff behaviour Each of the criticisms of White House staff behaviour outlined above may apply in recent Australian cases. Ministerial staff arrogance and imperiousness were evident in the Travel Rorts and Children Overboard cases, perhaps nowhere more clearly than in Ross Hampton’s assertion to defence public affairs staff that he was their boss. Through his actions in the Children Overboard controversy, Hampton became almost a caricature of the problems of ministerial staff behaviour (see Chapter 8). The majority report of the senate select committee on a certain maritime incident (SSCCMI) (2002) identified a number of concerns about the conduct of ministerial staff, about their performance, and the manner of their dealings with public service and defence officials. In his foreword to the report, the committee chair noted that then defence minister Robert Hill’s chief of staff, was ‘discourteous and unprofessional’ in his dealings with committee staff (SSCCMI 2002, p xiv).16 The potential for staff to become ‘testy’, ‘demanding’ or ‘angry’ in their exchanges with public servants and to berate journalists via abusive phone calls was also evident in recent cases and examples. The Children Overboard case raised issues of ministerial staff bullying and brow-beating of public servants. There were also questions about the behaviour of individual staff: whether they lied and covered up to protect ministers. It is difficult to gauge whether there have been significant


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changes in the behaviour of staff under recent Australian governments. Some senior bureaucrats argue that the conduct of staff under the Keating and Howard governments is broadly similar. One reported: There are important differences between Coalition and Labor staffers. Coalition staff seem to be less worldly, but they are not necessarily younger. But Labor also had some bright young people. The Labor ones were smarter but they were no less arrogant. Both Labor and Liberal have their share of young arrogant people. Liberal staffers get there through attitudes and connections. There are some quality people but there are more of the ones you wouldn’t feed. That is, they don’t have any of the attributes that you would look for in staff – they aren’t smart, who don’t have the excellent interpersonal skills needed in this job; who are arrogant and have questionable judgment. But you don’t see that in the PMO.

The persistence of behavioural concerns over time and across the different Australian governments surveyed in this study suggests an organisational cause. As in the US, part of the explanation for certain types of behaviour may be rooted in the operating framework within which ministerial staff work. As noted, ministerial staff work long hours, face intense workload pressures, are in precarious and dependent employment relationships and may have limited experience for the positions they occupy. Like their US counterparts, ministerial staff are selected for their loyalty to ministers. The same conditions that US analysts are concerned breed sycophancy, zealotry and a willingness to ‘take the bullet’ for the boss, are apparent in the Australian context.

Impact on key relationships As in the US, the proliferation of personal advisers may have an adverse effect on the bureaucracy. The Sports Rorts and Travel Rorts cases in particular demonstrated the dangers of blurring the boundaries between politics and administration, and of ministerial staff straying into areas where they lack substantive expertise.


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220 Power without responsibility These cases have also shown the potential for uncertainty over respective roles and responsibilities of ministerial staff and public servants to disrupt existing chains of command, create confusion and undermine trust between ministers and their departments (F&PA 2003, pp 13–15). Through greater informality and the multiplication of communication channels into departments, ministerial staff can circumvent bureaucratic quality control and checking processes. The presence of staff has introduced ‘ambiguity about what constitutes communication and advice between agencies and ministers’ (F&PA 2003, p 78). Whether deliberately or because of poor judgment, the staff can disrupt the flow of information to ministers, leaving them poorly advised. Yet as we have seen, ministerial staff rarely carry responsibility or incur the wrath of ministers as a consequence. In Australia, concern about the impact of ministerial staff on relationships has focused on the growing distance between ministers and departmental secretaries (see, for example, Barratt 2003; F&PA 2003). In the cases reviewed here, departmental secretaries were either not involved in decision-making – as in the Travel Rorts and Children Overboard cases – or were actively bypassed, as in the Sports Rorts controversy. Much analysis and commentary that followed the Children Overboard affair argued that the loss of secure tenure explained the reticence of senior public servants to press unwelcome advice with ministers and their offices.17 Sacked defence secretary, Paul Barratt, has been particularly critical of the potential for ministerial staff to ‘sow the seeds of suspicion and distrust’ between ministers and their departmental officials. In a recent article for the online journal New Matilda, he recalls an occasion on which the minister’s chief of staff interfered in the provision of joint advice from the secretary and chief of the defence force to the defence minister (Barratt 2006). The hostile and distrustful demeanour of ministerial staff towards defence in Barratt’s experience, and later the Children Overboard case, echoes the posture of David Jull’s staff towards department of administrative services (DAS) officials in the Travel Rorts controversy. It correlates strongly to the distrust


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that Pfiffner (1991, p 10) argues led to the Iran-Contra affair. In these two Australian cases, staff selectively filtered advice from the bureaucracy, discarding any piece of information that did not accord with their preferred political strategy. In both cases the role of staff seems to have been to protect ministers from untrusted departments; lending support to Maley’s (2002b) conclusion that, far from providing complementary advice and support to ministers, ministerial staff and public servants are in competition. But the playing field is not competitively neutral, indeed it is asymmetrical (Walter 2006b): staff work from a position of trust; public servants must disprove the pre-conception that they are untrustworthy. A former secretary commented: If you talk to people in the UK, they will tell you that their fear [about the growth of special advisers] is precisely this issue of undermining trust. That while they accept you need these people [staff] because of all the pressures, the risk is that really that’s not why they’re there. They’re there because the Minister doesn’t trust the public service. He needs to trust them and that’s a problem because it becomes an excuse for never trusting them.

Secretary of the department of prime minister and cabinet (PM&C), Dr Peter Shergold, has argued that the geographical separation of ministers and their staff from the public service ensures clear distinctions between partisan and non-partisan advice (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 2 September 2003, p 43). However, another secretary cited the segregation of ministers and their staff within the ministerial wing as contributing to less cooperative relationships between ministerial staff and departmental officers: See most ministers’ offices in my experience – they get into Parliament House and it’s a hot-house. They talk to each other about ‘those bloody public servants! Don’t they understand what time critical means’ – and all this sort of stuff. They sort of rev each other up until it becomes accepted wisdom in Parliament House for both parties, that public servants are


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222 Power without responsibility slow and don’t see the big picture … But, when you think about it, back in the department, people are saying ‘Those idiots up there, they have no idea. And they’re so superficial and rude’ and all that sort of thing. So it’s a similar conversation that’s going on. But the fact that there are two conversations going on that are critical of each other is not good. … in the hot-house of Parliament House there isn’t I think, the appropriate respect for the public service. You get these jumped up, inadequate people who convince each other at eleven o’clock at night when they’ve been working 15 hour days that them over there are trying to frustrate us.

Despite evident strains, ministers and public service leaders continue to insist the relationship between ministerial staff and public servants is complementary (Shergold 2003b; 2004). Public service agencies have been called upon to lift the level of professionalism of their officers in dealing with ministerial offices (see APSC 2003b; Podger 2002; 2003). In contrast, calls from the former public service commissioner for initiatives to improve the professionalism of ministerial staff (Podger 2004; F&PA, Committee Hansard, 2 September 2003, p 60), have been met with stony silence. The Howard government has consistently refused to engage with criticisms of ministerial staff.18

Staff size In Australia, debate about the number of ministerial staff takes place mainly between the government and Opposition in senate estimates hearings. Oppositions seek to foster a public perception that governments are self-serving when they expand their personal staff resources at public expense (Tiernan & Weller 2003, p 9). It is generally appreciated the growth in staff numbers indicates the greater significance of their role in national government. The drivers of ministerial staff growth are much the same as in the US. This study has shown that an important driver of ministerial staff growth has been the need to respond to demands created by new information and communications technologies and the pressures of modern leadership. Respondents to this study


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spoke consistently of the relentless time demands on ministers and of the difficulties they and their staff face in trying to cope with what they perceive as huge increases in their workloads. However unlike the US where the problem of presidential overload has been extensively traversed, there has not been a serious debate about these issues in Australia since Weller and Grattan’s (1981) book, Can Ministers Cope? 25 years ago. US presidents’ need for help derives from their essentially weak position in a system of separated powers (Dickinson 2003). Power dependence also characterises relationships within the contemporary Westminster core executive (see Rhodes 1997; Smith 2000). The structure of dependency requires actors to bargain and exchange resources in order to achieve policy goals. This exacerbates complexity and increases demands on time, creating the need for additional staff support. Because of the political nature of the bargaining process, it is necessarily a role that must be filled by ministerial staff rather than public servants. Uncertainty and power dependence are thus significant environmental factors that have driven ministerial staff growth and influence. In addition to the problem of political control and coherence, which earlier studies have identified as explaining the development of ministerial staffing arrangements (Dunn 1997; Maley 2002b), contemporary ministers face multiple and often competing demands from an increasingly volatile and uncertain external operating environment. It would be impossible for ministers to respond to the demands and expectations of external actors without ministerial staff support (Uhr 2003). The growth in staff numbers, the increasing proportion of staff devoted to media and communication activities, and the expanded ambit of ministerial staff under the Keating and Howard governments can be seen as a strategic response to a dynamic political environment.

Controlling staff The case studies documented in this book have demonstrated the impracticality of ministers and prime ministers being personally responsible for the supervision and management of their


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224 Power without responsibility ministerial staff. These cases also suggest they are increasingly unwilling to accept responsibility for their staff’s actions. The sheer numbers of people acting in the minister’s name, speaking to or being spoken to as agents of the minister, has rendered the conventional notion that ministers are responsible for the actions of their staff increasingly untenable (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 2 September 2003, pp 78–79). Don Russell notes that this has: Opened up a new level of discretion and a new power and a new role of influence for ministers. That has come about because we have broken the link between staff and ministers, and ministers and prime ministers have found that this frees them up in quite a major way. They can use their staff as a firewall. In other words, they can blame their staff if things go wrong and say: ‘I wasn’t at fault. It was the staff at fault’ [F&PA, Committee Hansard , 3 September 2003, p 162].

It is clearly impossible for an individual Australian prime minister to manage and control over 41 staff in his private office and six in the cabinet policy unit. Just as presidents have had to delegate authority to their chief of staff and other subordinates, so too must ministers and prime ministers. Under the Howard government much responsibility has defaulted to chiefs of staff, many of whom have long personal associations with Coalition ministers, and are highly valued by the government. While there are obvious benefits in time-poor ministers delegating authority to their chiefs of staff, who are often people of experience, these staff operate outside existing accountability frameworks. If ministers can no longer be held responsible for the actions of their staff, new governance and accountability structures are needed. Current arrangements underpinned by the convention of ministerial responsibility therefore need to be replaced to accommodate these new realities. The presidential staffing literature emphasises that, as the White House staff became larger and more organisationally complex, governance structures developed to manage and coordinate their activities (Walcott & Hult 1995; 2004). The emergence of ministerial staff advisory panel (MSAP) under Labor


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and its continuation through the government staff committee under the Howard government is one example of the emergence of formal structures to address issues of staff coordination. The regular chiefs of staff meetings instituted by Arthur Sinodinos, are another example of a coordinating routine to give guidance and direction to the staff. Recent experience indicates that the informal and ad hoc arrangements that comprise the current governance framework for ministerial staff are inadequate for an organisation of its size, complexity and importance. Just as the White House staff need governance structures to regulate and control their conduct, so too do ministerial staff in Australia.

An endemic problem? Australia is not the only Westminster-style political system experiencing difficulties with accommodating the personal staff of government ministers. In the United Kingdom and Canada, staff have become embroiled in a series of political controversies. These cases have exposed concerns similar to those being expressed in Australia about ministerial staff accountability, conduct and behaviour, management and fit. This suggests that despite differences between different types of political systems, there may be endemic problems with political staffing arrangements.

United Kingdom special advisers In the UK, the doubling in the number of special advisers under the Blair government and their developing role has provoked controversy.19 Beyond the issue of cost and numbers, which we have seen, are significantly smaller than in Australia, debate has focused on their role, influence and conduct. A problematic aspect of the UK system is that special advisers are appointed as temporary civil servants exempt from certain provisions of the Civil Service Code. There has been extensive debate about the appropriateness of engaging explicitly political operators under the same framework as a professional and impartial career civil service (Gay & Fawcett 2005; Wicks 2003, pp 44–48). There are also


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226 Power without responsibility issues of accountability since, under the code, special advisers are (theoretically) accountable to the permanent secretary of the cabinet office. In practice of course, they are accountable to the ministers for whom they work (Wicks 2003, p 48). The ministerial code was recently amended to make explicit that ministers are responsible to the prime minister and parliament for the management and conduct of special advisers including matters of discipline.20 Other criticisms relate to the performance of special advisers including their quality and experience to hold their positions (Neill 2000, p 72). Another theme is whether special advisers are engaged in overtly partisan activity at public expense (Blick 2004; Neill 2000; Wicks 2003). A related concern derives from New Labour’s purported obsession with presentation and media management. As key advisers to Blair, attention focused on former director of communications and strategy, Alistair Campbell, and chief of staff, Jonathan Powell (Blick 2004, pp 251–296). Both were accused of excessive partisanship, of having disproportionate influence but limited accountability and of attempting to discipline cabinet ministers through unsourced negative briefings to the media. 21 This latter issue, and the extent to which it has the prime minister’s imprimatur, has raised questions about whether the principle of cabinet solidarity has been damaged by the interventions of individuals whose career futures are invested in the success of their own minister rather than the government as a whole (Hennessy 2000). As noted, it has been special advisers involved in media-related functions that have attracted the most controversy (Committee on standards in public life, Public hearings, 27 June 2002). Aside from partisanship, they have been criticised for behaving like ministers (and occasionally enjoying commensurate influence and power), for aggression and abrasiveness in their personal dealings with journalists, public servants and MPs, as well as for allegedly engaging in deception and deniability to manipulate the media for the government’s benefit (Seymour-Ure 2003, pp 142–150). It is indicative of the level of disquiet about the issue that the committee on standards in public life (the Neill committee)


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devoted an entire chapter of its sixth report to the ambiguous and potentially problematic role of special advisers. Noting concern about their lack of accountability, especially given their influence and that they are funded from public sources, the committee recommended development of a separate code of conduct for special advisers (Neill 2000, p 82). This was adopted in 2001 and incorporated into the ‘model contract’ for their employment (Blick 2004). In its ninth report, the committee, then under the chairmanship of Sir Nigel Wicks, recommended a separate Act to cover the activities of special advisers, and clearer specification of their roles and responsibilities, and other measures to clarify their status and accountability (King 2003). It also recommended that total numbers of special advisers should be legislated, with increases to be subject to approval by both houses of parliament (Wicks 2003, p 51). The Blair government rejected this recommendation but since July 2002 has provided regular reports to the house of commons detailing the names, expertise, pay range, number and cost of special advisers (Gay & Fawcett 2005, pp 7–8). As in Australia, growth in numbers and influence of special advisers has led to confusion about appropriate boundaries between them and civil servants. Tony Blair’s 1997 decision to empower three special advisers in the prime minister’s office with executive powers to direct civil servants raised concerns about whether the traditional demarcation between partisan and non-partisan advice had been irrevocably blurred. Former cabinet secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, who left the position in 2002, reportedly believed granting extraordinary powers to special advisers, particularly those dealing primarily with the media, was a mistake (Seymour-Ure 2003, p 149). Debate about the appropriateness of political staff having executive powers is ongoing. Blair’s July 2005 decision to amend the wording of the Civil Service Order in Council 1995 (which governs the role of special advisers) and the Model Contract for Special Advisers from ‘giving advice only’ to ‘providing assistance to the Minister’ became controversial when it was revealed this had been given effect through the privy council and without consultation or debate in parliament (Gay & Fawcett 2005, pp 9–11).


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228 Power without responsibility Unlike Australia, growth of special advisers under the Blair government has been accompanied by wide-ranging debate on how their presence can be regulated. For a system that is small by comparative standards, UK government personal staffing arrangements have been closely monitored by analysts, parliament and the media. Significant attention has been given to developing a strong governance framework. Although he has disputed some of the more extravagant claims about the problems of special advisers, Blair has been forced, by weight of public opinion, to moderate their role, especially within number ten Downing Street. For example, the civil service order in council permits up to three special advisers in the prime minister’s office to have executive powers, but currently only one (Jonathan Powell) has been given such authority. Alistair Campbell’s replacement in the position of director of communications and strategy has not been given powers to direct civil servants (see Blick 2004, p vii). The government claims it has no plans to appoint other special advisers with these powers (Gay & Fawcett 2005, p 11).Through select committees and the committee on standards in public life, the British parliament has asserted its role in regulating and monitoring the place of special advisers within the British political executive.

Ministerial staff in Canada The personal staff of Canadian ministers have a somewhat longer history than their British and Australian equivalents, evolving from small numbers of personal assistants in the 1940s and 1950s towards greater numbers and more active political and policy engagement by the 1960s (Benoit 2006, pp 151–154). As in Australia, this development brought notoriety and controversy. In 1964 the staff of the Canadian ministers of justice and immigration became embroiled in a bribery and corruption scandal that became known as the ‘Rivard affair’ (Newman 2005). The controversy was a catalyst for detailed investigation of ministerial staffing arrangements in Canada, culminating in publication of a seminal article by Professor JR Mallory, that identified ministerial staff as operating ‘in an area which strict constitutional theory


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does not recognize as existing’ (Mallory 1967, p 26). He concluded there was ‘a danger inherent in having such untrained people, lacking the career motives and professional standards of the civil service, in positions of both influence and power’ (Mallory 1967, p 25). He recommended that ministerial staff should be limited to facilitation and liaison duties, and that they should not become involved in policy or programme development activities which were rightly the province of the public service. Others supported initiatives to augment capacity within ministers’ private offices, motivated by a desire to counterbalance the power of the bureaucracy and to accommodate the growing demands on their time and attention (Savoie 2003, pp 123–131). The election of the Mulroney government in 1984 ‘heralded a substantial change in the culture and trappings of political staff’ (Benoit 2006, pp 160–162). Staff numbers grew, their salaries increased and they became more prominent and active in their dealings with the bureaucracy. But, as in Australia, governance arrangements for exempt staff lagged behind these developments. This became apparent during the 1991 ‘Al-Mashat affair’. The case involved the arrival in Canada of the former Iraqi ambassador to the US, who had been recalled by his government when the first Gulf War broke out in January 1991. The decision to allow his immigration was handled by officials without reference to ministers. At issue was the fact that secretary of state for external affairs, Joe Clark, was not aware of the former ambassador’s arrival, reportedly because his chief of staff had failed to pass on advice provided in a memo from a senior official in Clark’s department. The case was significant because it broke the convention that ministers would accept responsibility for the actions of their staff (Sutherland 1991). By revealing that ministerial-exempt staff were controlled neither by the bureaucracy nor the minister, the case exposed the deficiencies of the accountability framework for exempt staff. It also highlighted their potential to provide ‘plausible deniability’ for ministers; allowing ministers to evade responsibility on the basis that their staff failed to pass on key information and facts (Benoit 2006, pp 202–204).22


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230 Power without responsibility Similar questions about the responsibility and accountability of ministers for the actions of their staff were raised during the ‘sponsorships scandal’. The commission of inquiry led by Justice Gomery named former prime minister, Jean Chrétien, his chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, and minister for public works and government services, Alfonso Gagliano and members of his exempt staff, among those responsible for the maladministration of the $C332 million sponsorship programme, under which advertising firms associated with the Liberal Party received large fees (including for work they had not performed), some of which were used to make political donations to the Liberal Party. The sponsorship programme had been financed from a ‘special reserve’ under the direction of the prime minister’s office; an unprecedented situation which meant it was not subject to departmental oversight and procedural safeguards (Gomery 2005, p 73). The programme had been the subject of several audits over the years, including two by the auditor-general, each of which identified a litany of management irregularities and deficiencies, including the potential for programme funds to be misused (Greene & Shugarman 2006). Gomery found Chrétien and Pelletier were ultimately responsible for the sponsorships scandal. He concluded Chrétien was accountable for the defects of the sponsorships programme, since he determined the programme should be run from the prime minister’s office (PMO) and that his exempt staff should direct its activities, against public service advice that responsibility for its administration should be transferred to a department. The report accuses Pelletier of failing to take ‘the most elementary precautions against mismanagement’, and for not addressing the documented failings of the scheme (Gomery 2005, pp 75–76). The sponsorships controversy highlights systemic problems with ministerial-exempt staff in Canada, particularly the lack of clarity about what constitutes their ‘proper role’, especially in their dealings with public servants (Smith 2006). As in Australia, the affair has been a catalyst for a wide-ranging debate about their place within a Westminster-style political system.


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Conclusion A number of important parallels can be discerned between the problems and dysfunctions of the Australian system of ministerial staffing and those of the White House staff. These lend support to Hart’s (1995, p 2) suggestion that such problems may be endemic to political staffing systems. However, as earlier chapters have shown, recent Australian governments have failed to recognise the potentially problematic nature of the ministerial staffing system as it has evolved, preferring to see problems and controversies involving the staff as individual failings or, as in the various cases documented in this study, in some way attributable to the actions of the public service. But as we have seen, and as the White House staff experience suggests, the kinds of problems that gave rise to Watergate and other controversies may be endemic to personal staffing systems. A brief survey of recent British and Canadian experience lends further credence to this conclusion. US experience shows that the problems of staff can become extremely serious and, as in the Watergate case, even criminal. This is especially worrying in the Australian context because of the dominance of the political executive. Although the US congress has not exercised its powers over the White House staff, there exists some provision for legislative oversight over their conduct and activities. The British parliament has forced the development of formal arrangements to regulate and control special advisers, despite their small numbers. Similarly, the new Canadian government has had to respond to the recommendations of the Gomery commission. For example, it has legislated to prevent ministerial-exempt staff being appointed to public service positions without competition (Grainger & Greene 2006, p 9). In Australia by contrast, there has been limited attention to developing a robust governance framework for ministerial staff. The system has been underpinned by conventions rather than by the kinds of formal arrangements that characterise the operating frameworks of other institutional actors. But the Australian ministerial staffing system has now reached a stage where the lack of governance arrangements is proving problematic.


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232 Power without responsibility Given the weak governance framework regulating and controlling ministerial staff and considering the potential trajectories suggested by the US experience, there is a strong case for reform. The next chapter explores some of the prescriptions that have been offered for reforming the Australian ministerial staffing system, and evaluates the prospects of these being adopted by future Australian governments.


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TEN Reforming the staffing system It is widely claimed that ministerial staff exercise power without responsibility. This book has shown that although the hybrid system that has evolved to better support Australian ministers often works well, in constitutional and managerial terms, the ministerial staffing system is ‘out of control’. Over time, and particularly as staff have taken more active policy and political management roles, it has broken out of the conventions and understandings on which its development was premised. Its governance framework is inadequate to an organisation of its size, cost, complexity and importance. Mounting evidence of systemic problems in the advisory and support structures surrounding Australian ministers, and lack of constraints on executive power, make a powerful case for urgent reform of those features of the system that inhibit the effective


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234 Power without responsibility provision of information and advice. There is a need to address problems of ministerial staff accountability, staff conduct and behaviour, and to develop governance arrangements that would clarify the staffing system’s place within the Australian system of government, and bring it into line with other core executive institutions. Staff play important and necessary roles in helping ministers manage the demands of office, but they are an awkward fit in a system that assumes close, cooperative relationships between ministers and their public service advisers; two parties, not three. We have seen from comparative analysis that the presence of staff disrupts key tenets of Westminster governance, but political staff pose a more general management challenge that has yet to be fully acknowledged by political leaders. Without reform the staffing system can be expected to continue along the trajectory documented in this book: further growth and professionalisation, with relatively few constraints on its power and activism. This chapter considers the prospects for reforming ministerial staffing arrangements.

Senate finance and public administration committee inquiry In March 2003, the senate referred to the finance and public administration (F&PA) committee, an inquiry into staff employed under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (Cth) (the MoP(S) Act). Its purpose was to ‘review aspects of the staffing provided to members of parliament, with a particular focus on issues of governance and accountability of ministerial staff’ (F&PA 2003, p xi). But any expectation it would provide a forum for open and informed debate about the role of ministerial staff was quickly dashed. Its genesis as a recommendation of the majority report of the senate select committee on a certain maritime incident (SSCCMI) meant it was framed from the outset as a partisan contest. The ambivalence on display by both major parties suggests there is little appetite for staff system reform among current or prospective ministers.


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Throughout the inquiry government senators defended the status quo, asserting the necessarily confidential role of ministerial staff in supporting ministers and rejecting the need for closer scrutiny or oversight of their activities. Their minority report mounted a rhetorically awkward and ultimately unconvincing argument that making ministerial staff accountable to parliament would undermine the principle of ministerial responsibility, since (notwithstanding their demonstrated unwillingness to accept responsibility), ‘ministers may be held responsible for the conduct of their ministerial staff’, including having ‘political responsibility’ for explaining why a matter might be known to their staff but not to them and accepting criticism accordingly (F&PA 2003, p 87). Government senators dismissed calls for greater transparency about the operations of the staffing systems, noting these reflected the arcane preoccupations of academics. By contrast, they argued, ‘those with experience of actually making government work may be expected to be focused on outcomes’ (F&PA 2003, p 88). Though it had pursued the Howard government aggressively in the SSCCMI process, Labor seemed less committed to the F&PA inquiry. Neither of its two top performers, the formidable senators Robert Ray or John Faulkner, was directly involved. While it succeeded in framing broad terms of reference, the timeframe for the committee’s investigations, by October 2003, was somewhat truncated. The general lack of political enthusiasm for the inquiry was neatly captured in a Canberra Times editorial on 7 September 2003: After two days of hearings of the Senate inquiry into the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act, few people seem to believe it will ever amount to much … There was not so much an atmosphere of disappointment around during the week as one of cynical resignation, but there was some entertainment to be had, not least in the rich political ironies abounding on all sides. Instigated as a result of the children-overboard inquiry, this excursion down the lane of ministerial staffers’ accountability or lack thereof, was never going to get strong political legs.


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236 Power without responsibility Unsurprisingly, neither side even appears remotely serious about reforming the present system to bring some discipline to bear on ministerial staffers in their relationship with the public service.

Political ambivalence notwithstanding, submissions, evidence and public debate surrounding the committee’s inquiry canvassed four main proposals for reforming ministerial staffing arrangements. These included: • •

• •

making ministerial staff more accountable; clarifying the respective roles and responsibilities of ministerial staff and public servants, and addressing relationships between staff and senior public servants; developing a code of conduct for ministerial staff; and providing training and professional development opportunities for ministerial staff.

Making ministerial staff more accountable Many respondents and witnesses to the inquiry accepted as appropriate that much of the work of ministerial staff should not be subject to public scrutiny because confidentiality ‘is necessary to guarantee both the trust in the relationship and the robustness of the advice that staff provide’ (F&PA 2003, pp 22, 88; Maley 2003b, p 2). But others argued the ‘need for some sort of accountability for this large number of people on the public purse’ (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 2 September 2003, p 79).1 Submissions and media commentary canvassed a variety of options for rendering ministerial staff directly accountable. These included suggestions that they should be able to be called before parliamentary committees (Evans 2003; Stretton 2003a; 2003b), and that there should be greater administrative transparency about the operations of the ministerial staffing system such as, for example, through the publication of information about cost, staff numbers, characteristics and so on (Seth-Purdie 2003; Tiernan & Weller 2003). Some questioned whether measures to render the staff directly accountable would undermine the principle of individual


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ministerial responsibility making ‘ministers less rather than more accountable’ (F&PA 2003, pp 87–88). Others were concerned it would allow ministers to ‘escape blame and avoid responsibility for the actions and misconduct of their ministerial staff’ (Lindell 2003). These witnesses favoured measures that would create incentives for ministers to accept responsibility for the actions of their staff (Maley 2003b; Russell 2003). The committee itself drew a distinction between ‘accountability (being required to give account)’ and ‘responsibility (attracting any credit or blame)’ (F&PA 2003, p 19). It argued this distinction ‘underpins the principle that ministers should be responsible (censurable) for their staff’s actions, but that staff should be accountable (required to give account) to parliament for their actions in certain circumstances’ (F&PA 2003, p 24). It concluded such circumstances might include cases where: •

A minister has renounced or distanced him or herself from a staff member’s action;

•

A minister has refused to appear to answer questions regarding the conduct of a member of their staff;

•

Critical or important information or instructions have emanated from a minister’s office but not from the minister; or

•

Critical or important information or instructions have been received by a minister’s office but not communicated to a minister [F&PA 2003, p 34].

Governing staff Other reform proposals had a more managerial focus. These included calls for clarification and tighter specification of the respective roles and responsibilities of ministerial staff and public servants (Barratt 2003; Uhr 2003). It was recommended there should be greater attention to documenting communications between departments and ministerial offices (F&PA 2003, pp 78–80), a finding reinforced by the senate select committee on the Scrafton evidence (SSCSE) (2004, p 49), and that systematic


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238 Power without responsibility efforts should be made to improve record-keeping (NAA 2003). Barratt (2003, p 7) argued the presence of a written record would ensure ‘the authority, accuracy and accountability of ministerial decisions and directions, leaving no doubt as to their status’. The committee recommended the government ‘move swiftly’ to ‘develop and implement a new management framework for ministerial staff’ (F&PA 2003, p 53). Other proposals addressed problems in relationships between ministerial staff and public servants. Former prime minister and cabinet (PM&C) secretary, Michael Keating, recommended ‘reining in the unaccountable power being exercised by ministerial advisers’ through ‘some strengthening of the position of departmental secretaries to act as a counterweight’. Though he did not advocate a return to lifetime tenure, Keating argued for ‘a system of appointment and tenure that allows government some flexibility in the appointment of secretaries, but equally protects secretaries from capricious decisions unrelated to the quality of their performance’ (Keating 2003a, pp 95–97). Similar suggestions have been proffered by Paul Barratt (2006).

A code of conduct? Of the various reform proposals advanced during the committee’s deliberations, it was a code of conduct for ministerial staff that received the most support. Australia has made limited progress with codes of conduct to govern the activities of political staff (McKeown 2004). The lack of any formal guidance about expected standards of behaviour for ministerial staff sets them apart from other core executive actors (Uhr 2005, p 25). Witnesses, including the former public service commissioner, argued the staff need more explicit guidance about their conduct, and that this should take the form of ‘some statement of values and conduct’. This would, he argued, ensure that roles, responsibilities, and expectations about behaviour are clear to everyone in the system, and would put ministerial staff on ‘a stronger professional footing’ (F&PA, Committee Hansard, 2 September 2003, pp 58–59). Academic John Uhr (2003, p 1) also


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advocated the value of a code of conduct to regulate the ‘political use and abuse of public office by ministerial staff’. The F&PA committee recognised the need for a code of conduct to be implemented under the leadership and with the imprimatur of the prime minister. It recommended amending the MoP(S) Act to require the prime minister to promulgate a code of conduct for ministerial staff (F&PA 2003, p 62). It further recommended the ‘Prime Minister should take a leadership role in education and training of ministerial staff in regard to the code of conduct, and that resources be publicly committed to this objective (F&PA 2003, p 67).

Induction, training and professional development Most submissions and witness testimony supported access to training and professional development opportunities for ministerial staff (Maley 2003b; Tongue 2003). The lack of induction and training, particularly for senior ministerial staff was identified as an important weakness of the current system. It was identified as being particularly urgent when individuals recruited to ministerial staff positions do not have prior public service experience (F&PA 2003, p 84). The committee recommended: that the level and intensity of training for ministerial staff be increased, and be given significantly higher priority by Ministers. It recommends a mandatory induction training process for staff commencing in ministers’ offices, which focused on political ethics, relationships with the [Australian public service] APS and record keeping responsibilities [F&PA 2003, p 86].

Problem, what problem? The view that something is awry with ministerial staffing arrangements is widely shared among analysts and commentators, but has limited support among ministers themselves. Despite its difficulties, the Howard government contests suggestions there


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240 Power without responsibility are problems with the ministerial staffing system in its current form (see, for example, F&PA 2003, p 88). Health minister Tony Abbott, for example, has disputed claims that ministerial staff create firewalls around ministers (ABC AM, 15 July 2003). He has rejected calls for more stringent accountability requirements for ministerial staff. According to Abbott (2002): Inevitably, after each controversy there are calls for more rules. In government administration, problems typically arise from errors of judgment rather than breaches of the law or a total breakdown of ethical behaviour. I’m sceptical about new regulations which might turn out to be better at tripping conscientious people focused on doing their job than trapping villains who know how to cover their tracks … Ministerial staff agreements already require advisers to act with skill, discretion and integrity. It’s hard to see how more prescription will produce better government as opposed to more complicated administration as people focus on who they told rather than what they did.

Abbott’s remarks are typical of ministers’ responses to the problems of ministerial staffing. Maintaining a notion that there may be ‘a few bad eggs’ is an effective means of stone-walling demands for more systematic accountability and management of ministerial staff. How might we understand politicians’ apparent lack of interest in an issue which, as this book has shown, has been at the heart of recent political controversies and scandals in Australia and elsewhere? Four possible explanations can be identified. First, ministers value the support they receive from their ministerial staff. They believe they are best served by flexible arrangements, determined by incumbent governments to reflect their own needs and preferences. Second, they fear reforms will limit their ability to cope with the pressures of contemporary politics. Acutely sensitive to constraints on their capacity to achieve their objectives, they are sceptical of proposals advanced by those they suspect want to curtail their flexibility, and who in any case, they believe, cannot appreciate the exigencies and demands on modern ministers.


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241

A third explanation is that because of their deep engagement in partisan politics, and because they are driven by concerns about power rather than institutions, ministers are unable to perceive the organisational dimensions of the ministerial staffing problem. They are not managers, often have limited experience of working in organisations, and hence are more focused on individual rather than systemic issues. A final explanation is that arrangements as they stand serve ministers well – providing them with personal insurance in the face of political problems – a convenient shield that can be deployed to deflect responsibility, in the knowledge it will be the prime minister who will determine the final outcome, based on judgments about the political damage being sustained, and confident that for most of the voting public, issues of governance are not their primary concern.

Prospects for system reform US experience suggests that despite substantial evidence of its deficiencies, reformers face a difficult task persuading ministers of the need to reform ministerial staffing arrangements. Watergate and other controversies prompted a flood of scholarly and popular literature aimed at reforming presidential staffing arrangements (Hart 1995; Pika 1991). Proposals include reducing the size of the White House staff, making presidential staff accountable to congress, limiting staff specialisation and power, and making greater use of cabinet and the ‘neutral competence’ available to presidents through the career bureaucracy. 2 Presidents have been generally unresponsive and in some cases, have actively resisted reform proposals. Dickinson (2003, p 45) argues this is because prescription has proceeded without proper diagnosis; analysts have failed to understand that the bargaining uncertainty of presidents is the key driver of presidential staff growth and influence. He cites developments including the weakening of party influence in the electorate, the growth of candidate-centred campaigning and the rise of an adversarial media as having cumulatively made it more difficult


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242 Power without responsibility for presidents to achieve their preferred outcomes. In response, presidents have hired staff experts to provide information and advice that will assist them to gain greater certainty and control over the bargaining process. Although congress has been reticent to invoke constitutional mechanisms to regulate and control the White House staff, Hart (1995, p 241) notes the staff are constrained by the competitive forces inherent to the pluralist and fragmented nature of the US government and by the fact that power is dispersed, not concentrated within the executive branch. He argues that: its power and activities are more likely to be constrained by the political forces competing against it and by the interplay of the other branches of government with the presidential branch than by the largely futile attempt to persuade presidents to adopt a contrived set of changes that run counter to the basic purposes for which the staff system now exists [Hart 1995, p 241].

This is an important point of contrast with the Australian ministerial staffing system. Although there is evidence of power dependence, the power and influence of the Australian political executive remains substantial. This book has shown there are comparatively few constraints on the ministerial staffing system. Throughout its recent history, senate committees have been the primary means by which its operations have been publicly scrutinised. Committees now have substantially diminished capacity to perform this oversighting function following changes that came into effect from 11 September 2006 (Young 2006). This is a concern, as this removes the only significant limitation on the power of Australian governments and their ministerial staff (Russell 2004).

Where to from here? The growing and unchecked power of ministers is the elephant in the room of ministerial staffing arrangements. It is easier


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243

for critics to focus on the actions of their staff than to confront ministers’ attempts to bolster their authority and dominance and to use their staff to avoid responsibility rather than accept their own shortcomings. Ministerial staff are a mark of their minister. It is ministers and prime ministers who create the cultures of their offices, and it is up to them to manage their personal staff. Like presidents, they believe they are better served by flexible and personalised arrangements. Reform proposals need to be grounded in an understanding of the needs and preferences of ministers, of the demands they face in the course of their duties, and should be directed towards improving the quality and integrity of advice and support they receive from their advisory systems. Unless and until they can be persuaded of the benefits of better governing the ministerial staffing institution, we can expect the problems being experienced in Australia and internationally to persist.


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APPENDIX

Growth in staff numbers 1983–2006 April 1989 May 1990


304.3 311

May 1991 April 1992 April 1993 April 1994 April 1995 May 1996 April 1997 April 1998 April 1999 April 2000

325

April 2001 April 2002 May 2003 May 2004 May 2005 May 2006

356.4 363.9 371.6 391.6 407.5

353.72 348.72 353.72 356.22 294 294 325.5 340 345.9

444.6

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NOTES

Interview data in this book was gathered from a sample of 43 respondents, including current and former Howard ministers and ministerial staff, members of parliament and senators (including former Labor ministers), political party officials, bureaucrats, lobbyists and interest group representatives and press gallery journalists. Most participants wanted their association with the project to remain confidential. Except where indicated, ministerial staff numbers are derived from documents tabled by the department of finance and administration in senate estimates hearings or in response to questions on notice in that forum.

ONE New actors, new politics, new problems 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8

Arthur Sinodinos left the prime minister’s office in December 2006, for a position with investment bank Goldman Sachs JBWere. His replacement as chief of staff is Tony Nutt. Press gallery historian Clem Lloyd noted this in private correspondence with James Walter (National Library of Australia (NLA) MS 7846). Adapted from the 1937 report of the president’s committee on administrative management (the Brownlow committee). See, for example, Campbell (1998); Kavanagh & Seldon (1999); Foley (2001). For an Australian perspective see McAllister (2004). Walcott and Hult’s research traces the evolution of governance structures within the White House staff institution over the period from 1929 to 1980. The matter was considered sufficiently serious to be discussed at length in the Australian senate (Debates, 23 March 2004, pp 21689–21700). For Whitlam’s staffing arrangements see Walter (1992, p 54). Howard’s staff includes the prime minister’s office (PMO) and the cabinet policy unit (CPU). For an overview of Howard’s advisory system see Tiernan (2006). In Queensland in 2003, a ministerial media adviser was at the


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246 Notes to pages 10–27

9 10

11

12 13

centre of a controversy that became known as the ‘Winegate affair’. Other staff of the same minister were subsequently caught up in the ‘Palm Island Airfare affair’, forcing her resignation. In June 2005, a former senior adviser to the premier of South Australia stood trial on charges of misuse of public office. He was acquitted, but political fallout over the case continues. In February 2006, a former chief of staff to the Western Australian minister for housing, works and land information was jailed for seven months for corruption. In October 2006, a political adviser to former Tasmanian deputy premier, Bryan Green, appeared in court alongside his boss on charges of criminal conspiracy. Legge (2002); Nethercote (2002); Solomon (2002). Scandals attributed to the actions of White House staffers include the Bay of Pigs affair, Watergate, and the Iran–Contra affair. Presidents George Bush Snr and Bill Clinton also had staff problems (see Hart 1995, p vi; Dickinson 1998; Pfiffner 1996, pp 148–182). In March 2006 Bush replaced long-serving chief of staff, Andrew Card, and press secretary, Scott McLellan, amidst speculation they were tired and error-prone. He reshuffled the responsibilities of his chief political strategist, Karl Rove. Chief of staff to vice president Dick Cheney, Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, has been found guilty of one count of making false statements, two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice: Goldstein & Leonnig (2007). For a detailed account of these earlier scandals see Benoit (2006). For useful commentary on the processes that led to Britain’s commitment to the war see Runciman (2004).

TWO Ministerial staffing system overview 1

2 3 4 5 6 7

Both Walter (1986) and Maley (2002b) focused their research on ‘ministerial advisers’ on the grounds ‘their work tends to be distinct from that of other advisers and they may not have much involvement with the department or policy issues’ (Maley 2000b, p 51). Given the time devoted by ministers and especially prime ministers to media activities it is now untenable to exclude media advisers from analyses of ministerial staffing arrangements. This study incorporates the full range of ministerial office staff. See Humphries (2005). For earlier data on Howard’s press activities, see Steketee (2001). See, for example, senate finance and public administration (F&PA) committee 2003. Also see Holland (2002a); Maley (2000a). For raw data see the Appendix. Projected actual staffing numbers for the 2005–06 financial year were 475, a major increase on the 370 in 2004–05 (PM&C, Portfolio Budget Statements 2006/07). Maley’s findings are reported in five journal articles and her doctoral dissertation. For full details, see Bibliography. A Draft Civil Service Bill: A Consultation Document CM 6373. Search


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Notes to pages 27–43

8

9

10

11 12 13

14

247

‘Draft Civil Service Bill’ at , viewed 23 November 2006. For details on the government’s consideration of the special adviser issue, see Gay & Fawcett (2005). Under section 12, the prime minister may determine that a senator or member be empowered to employ staff under Part III of the Act. On 26 November 2001 the prime minister authorised the special minister of state (SMOS) to exercise the powers conferred on him under section 12 of the Act in relation to office holders as defined in section 3 (PM&C, additional information provided to F&PA committee, 26 September 2003). The political website Crikey.com has published ‘lists’ of the career destinations of former Labor and Coalition staffers, most recently in 2004. Search , viewed 23 November 2006. A recent study found that 85 members of the 41st parliament had worked previously in ‘politics-related jobs’. These include working for a party or union, a political lobbying or consultancy firm, or in a political research or electorate office position (Miskin & Lumb 2006). See particularly F&PA committee (2003, pp 55–71). On the vulnerability of ministerial staff see Tiernan (2004). Barns (2003a) provides a personal perspective on the culture of Parliament House. This occurred in 1999 when the former health minister, Dr Michael Wooldridge, agreed that his staff could be interviewed by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) over the ‘scan scam’ case (Wanna & Gash 2001, pp 152–153). This was debated at length at the senate F&PA committee’s inquiry into staff employed under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (Cth) (MoP(S) Act). See Committee Hansard, 2 September 2003, p 39. Also see Weller (2002, p 71).

THREE Ministerial staffing system establishment 1 2 3 4

5 6

For a useful summary see Walter (1986, p 52). For various accounts see Hawker et al (1979, pp 115–116, 232– 237); Smith (1977) and Wilenski (1979). For reflections on the transition see Freudenberg (1977, p 258); Warn (1996). There have been several analyses of the tasks performed by Whitlam staffers, including a consultancy report prepared by Dr Bob Smith for the royal commission on Australian government administration (Smith 1976; 1977). See Freudenberg (2006, pp 137–139); Sexton (1979, pp 191– 193). Cairns and Morosi consistently denied a romantic involvement, bringing defamation actions against several newspapers that published such inferences. Cairns later admitted to an affair with his ministerial staffer, claiming his previous denials were


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248 Notes to pages 43–59 7 8 9 10 11 12

motivated by a desire to protect his wife (see Strangio 2002). On Fraser’s attitudes towards ministerial staff see Schneider (1980, pp 39–40); Mediansky & Nockles (1981, pp 394–395). For academic accounts see Weller (1989a); Mediansky & Nockles (1981); Walter (1986; 1992). For practitioner accounts see Kemp (1988); White (1988); White & Kemp (1986). Kemp (1973). For biographical details of David Kemp see Walter (1986, pp 98–103). On Kemp’s views about how the PMO should operate see Kemp (1988). Fraser’s poor relationship with the Canberra press gallery is described by Parker (1991, p 34) and Weller (1989a, pp 182– 194). On Fraser’s disciplining of journalists and pursuit of leaks see Weller (1989a, pp 189–190).

FOUR Developments under Labor 1983–96 1 2

3

4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

The ministerial staff advisory panel (MSAP) operated between March and July 1983, after which the SMOS assumed responsibility for ministerial staff appointments. For example, one respondent interviewed by Walter commented: ‘I think MSAP was a mistake. It was very slow and ministers were very frustrated in getting their staff … It was a good concept, but it fell down in the nature of the people who were appointed to the panel. They were a shady bunch’ (NLA MS 7846). Because Hawke became leader so close to the 1983 election, he had no time to develop a personal staff. As prime minister he could not afford to wait for the MSAP process before assembling a team (Walter 1986, p 93). On the events that led to Keating’s branding of advisers Ross Garnaut, Geoff Walsh, Peter Barron and Bob Hogg as a ‘manchu court’ who exercised too much power over Hawke see Mills (1993, p 8). For a recent appraisal of Hawke’s approach to the prime ministership see Bramston (2003). Ward (2003) provides a useful description of Labor’s media innovations. The national media liaison service (NMLS) was perhaps better known as aNiMLS; a term coined by journalists to describe its aggressive political activities (see Parker 1991). ALP (1983). For discussion of the genesis of the document see Weller (1983). A detailed analysis of the Reforming the Australian Public Service statement can be found in Halligan (1988). Sir Frederick Wheeler was chairman of the public service board from 1960–71 and secretary of treasury from 1971–79. The Public Service Reform Act 1984 (Cth) provided for the establishment of a senior executive service (SES) to replace the second division of the public service. On the rationale for its


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12

13

14 15 16 17

18

249

development, see Campbell (1998, pp 198–199). In late 1989, SES officers received pay rises of between nine and 19 per cent, plus provision for performance pay. It followed the 1988 decision to provide them with private plated vehicles. For various press reports on this issue see Millett (1989); Burton (1989; 1990). For accounts of the Keating style see Burton (1993); Sunday Age, 22 May 1994. On his lack of consultation see Dodd (1992); Hooper (1992). On Keating’s distance from cabinet colleagues, see Waterford (1995); Watson (2002, p 29). He was particularly scathing about women’s policy adviser, Anne Summers and the free rein Keating allowed Don Watson on indigenous policy. See Walsh (1995, pp 248–251). For accounts of this see Watson (2002, pp 692–693); Williams (1997, pp 76–77). Dunn (1997) and Russell (2002, p 12) argue similarly that Labor staffers respected proper boundaries in their relationships with public servants. Recently, former secretary Tony Blunn blamed himself for the Sports Rorts controversy, arguing he did not work hard enough to maintain good relationships with the minister’s office. Blunn had left the department by the time the audit report was tabled, and while he believes Kelly got herself into the situation, he thinks he could have helped the minister avoid the circumstances that necessitated her resignation (Burgess 2003). In the decade since the Sports Rorts controversy, the case has been extensively examined (see, for example, Gaunt 1999; Smith 1998).

FIVE The Howard agenda 1 2 3 4 5

6

7

For further discussion of the Valder report see Kelly (1992, pp 105–108); Henderson (1998). At the time of his recruitment by Howard, he was director of policy coordination with the Australian Stock Exchange. For commentary on the government’s relationship with the public service see, for example, Seccombe (2003) and Kelly (2006). See Burton (1996). A first-hand account can be found in Edwards (2002). In October 1996 assistant treasurer, Jim Short, and parliamentary secretary to treasury, Brian Gibson, were forced to resign for breaches of the prime minister’s guide. Minister for small business, Geoff Prosser, resigned in June 1997 amidst claims of financial impropriety, conflict of interest, influence peddling and misleading parliament. These included: tax reform, the development of the Wik 10 point plan, additional changes to industrial relations legislation and maintenance of the government’s hard-line on greenhouse gas emissions (Henderson 1998, p 19). Smith, who is now the federal member for Casey, antagonised


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8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

many in the press gallery with his standard response to journalists’ questions, ‘Off the record – no comment’. This provided that the minister for administrative services (and subsequently the SMOS), determined salaries for Australian public service (APS) SES-equivalent positions, after consultation with the secretary of the department of industrial relations and, later, the secretary of the department of workplace relations and small business. For further details on classification arrangements see ANAO (2003, p 36); Holland (2002c). Department of finance and administration (DoFA), additional information provided to F&PA committee, 1 October 2003. Questions on notice (F57 and F59) senate F&PA committee supplementary estimates hearings, 1 November 2005. DoFA salary translation table, tabled in F&PA committee, 30 May 2002. Ministerial senior staff salaries as at 5 April 2005, provided to F&PA committee 28 May 2005. This amount is $18 450 at the time of writing. Personal classifications, tabled by DoFA in F&PA committee, 14 February 2006. Senate, Debates, 13 June 2006, p 184. Letter from SMOS to all senators and members, 20 August 2003. Between 1996 and 1999 staff numbers declined from around 143 000 to 113 500 (APSC 2003a, pp 53–54). Details of the new legislation’s provisions are outlined in APSC (2003a, p 35). For a detailed assessment of the Barratt case, see Weller (2001, pp 212–226). A former secretary observed: ‘Max played the role very differently from previous Secretaries. I’m not sure that the Prime Minister ever understood how effective Max was and what an important role he played, but I think he’s about to find out … Max was driven by achieving Howard’s agenda. Totally loyal, absolutely loyal and Max’s whole approach was driven by delivering whatever it was that Howard wanted irrespective of the cost in delivering that’.

SIX Staffing the Howard ministry 1

2

3

These are Paul Keating in 1996, Kim Beazley whom he defeated in 1998 and 2001, Simon Crean, replaced as opposition leader by Mark Latham in December 2003, and Latham himself after his crushing defeat at the October 2004 poll. Wright (1999) notes the prime minister has ‘very few trusted friends and colleagues … Howard may be at the top of the political mountain right now, but he remembers the many bleak times when he has been forced to plod the dry gulches – a term he uses himself – and he has learnt to put his faith only in those who have been there with him’. Nicole Feely worked for Howard in opposition in 1992–93 when he was industrial relations spokesperson. She returned to his staff when he became opposition leader in 1995 and remained head of the office until May 1997. Arthur Sinodinos was a long-


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4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11

12

13

14 15 16

251

term Howard staffer. Howard’s media adviser Willie Herron, is daughter of former minister for Aboriginal affairs, senator John Herron. She has worked for Howard almost continuously since Opposition. While there has been some turnover in key positions, many of his current staff have been with the PM for eight or more years. Staff movements were monitored using government directories, media coverage and other documentary sources. These are Tony O’Leary and Willie Herron. Arthur Sinodinos resigned in December 2006. Cousins is credited with crafting the communications strategy that got the government back on track after the setbacks of the first term. He resigned his consultancy when nominated by Howard to a position on the Telstra board. Howard’s antagonism towards Keating’s staff is also noted by Henderson (1998, p 7). Howard accused Keating of strutting the international stage like an emperor while holding the Australian people and parliament in contempt (House, Debates, 2 February 1995, p 381). His predecessor had, on average, three media staff plus a speechwriter. For details see department of administrative services (DAS) ministerial directories 1992–95. O’Leary’s abrasive personal style has been widely reported (see, for example, Grattan 2000b; Steketee 2001) and is confirmed by press gallery journalists. Howard’s refusal to appear on Network Ten’s Meet the Press programme reportedly resulted from that programme’s decision to employ former Beazley press secretary, Greg Turnbull (Simons 2003). After more than 12 months of refusing to appear on the programme, Howard made a recent appearance, although on strict terms negotiated with his office. Richard Phillipps’ (2002) study deals with media advisers in Commonwealth and state government jurisdictions and does not provide historical-comparative perspectives on the media styles of earlier governments. The Greiner Liberal government established a cabinet office in New South Wales in 1988; the Queensland Goss government followed suit after its election in 1990. In both jurisdictions, the head of the office was a political appointee with substantial influence, and generally recognised as among the premiers’ most important advisers (Campbell & Halligan 1992, pp 77–78). The four values were ‘self reliance, pulling together, having a go and a fair go’ (Lewis 2001). For further discussion see Kelly (2006, p 15) and Wanna & Hanson (2005). Additional information provided by DoFA to F&PA committee, 28 May 2005. Staff numbers have varied considerably over the period 1996–97 to the present, declining 26 per cent from 479 to 381 between March 1996 and June 2000, and to 347 in 2002–03. This trend reversed in the past two years. Staffing levels increased to 375 in 2004–05 (PM&C 2005) and for 2005–06 were 528 (PM&C 2006), reflecting the significant expansion of the department’s responsibilities for


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17 18 19 20

policy and programme implementation, national security and international policy advising. Staff numbers are a crude measure of the support available to a prime minister from his department, but are an interesting comparison with the consistent growth in the PMO and in ministerial staff ranks more generally. These percentages are derived using government personal staffing figures as at 1 May 2006. Information tabled by DoFA at F&PA committee estimates hearings, 25 May 2004. For example, the senior staffer in the office of the leader of the Australian Democrats is known as the chief of staff. The ministerial directories produced by DAS and later DoFA were regarded within government as authoritative. They were produced only sporadically after July 1996 and were discontinued altogether after September 1999. Parliament House directories are the next most useful source, but are available only to employees who work in the building. It was therefore difficult to assemble a full set to cover the period under study. Where there were gaps in the data, I relied on the National Guide to Government a commercial publication produced twice a year.

SEVEN Travel Rorts affair 1

2 3

4

5 6

These were former parliamentary secretary to the minister for health, Dr Bob Woods, National Party member for Parkes, Michael Cobb and Western Australian Liberal senator, Noel CrichtonBrowne. Colston was regarded by his Labor colleagues as ‘one of the laziest senators’ ever to sit in the parliament; rarely asking questions or making speeches in or out of parliament (Dodson 2003). Victorian Labor senators Robert Ray and Kim Carr assembled a seven-page document outlining Colston’s alleged misappropriations during his time in the senate. Colston had served as senate deputy president between 1990–93, but was not supported by Labor for another term. It was intended he would be appointed administrator of Christmas Island, but former Keating minister, John Faulkner, refused the appointment on advice from his department that Colston had a history of problems handling taxpayer-funded entitlements (Gordon 1997c). After several attempts to indict Colston, in 1999 the director of public prosecutions (DPP) decided to drop 28 charges against him on the grounds that he was suffering terminal cancer. Labor was unsuccessful in its ongoing efforts to have charges against him reinstated. Colston died in August 2003. The ‘election period’ covered the period from the prime minister’s campaign launch to the day after polling day (ANAO 1997, Part 2). Kennedy (1998, p 74) reports that on the basis of their discussions with staff in Sharp’s office, ministerial and parliamentary services (M&PS) officers advised Sutherland they expected the repayment


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7 8 9

10 11

12

13 14

253

cheque would be received before the tabling of the report on 29 May 1997. Subsequent investigations revealed Scott had made three repayments totalling $1785 in the period preceding the tabling of the report (Kennedy 1998, pp 70–72). Support for this assertion would seem to be provided by newspaper headlines which appeared the following day. See, for example, Dore (1997a). A former Howard minister commented it was inefficient and effort-prone. He noted M&PS ‘was always chaos. The people who worked in M&PS hated it because of the chaos and the lack of systems. It always caused headaches’. This amount was repaid in two lots: $2880 on 3 June 1997 and $6320 on 5 August 1997 (Kennedy 1998, pp 68–69). The letter was given to Howard five minutes before question time. According to the article ‘Howard Kept in the Dark’ in the Canberra Times of 27 September 1997: ‘Jull might as well have delivered a hand grenade with the pin removed’. Howard tabled documents including: a statement by John Sutherland dated 25 September 1997; a letter dated 26 September 1997 from Grahame Morris to the prime minister; two documents from Fiona McKenna to the prime minister (one dated 25 September and the other 26 September 1997); a minute from the department of prime minister and cabinet (PM&C) dated 26 September 1997 signed by Philomena Bisshop; and Ms Bisshop’s letter of resignation dated 28 September 1997 (House of Representatives, Debates, 29 September 1997, p 8639). See, for example, Gordon (1997a); Macklin (1997). See, for example, Gordon (1997b); Harris (2002a); Seccombe (2000); Waterford (1997).

EIGHT Children Overboard affair 1 2 3

4

5

The hearing was held one day after parliament was prorogued for the October 9 election. The issue of what constitutes ‘advice’ to ministers was a key aspect of the Children Overboard controversy see Weller (2002). Examples of headlines included: ‘Illegal immigrants throw children overboard’ (Adelaide Advertiser, 8 October 2001); ‘Boat people “threw children overboard”’ (The Age, 8 October 2001); ‘Children hurled into the sea – asylum seekers sabotage vessel’ (Courier-Mail, 8 October 2001). In August 2001, a Norwegian container ship, the Tampa, responded to a distress call from an Indonesian vessel carrying 438 asylum seekers, which had begun to sink enroute to Australia. Amid significant controversy, the Australian government refused to allow the Tampa to enter Australian waters, sparking a stand-off that lasted more than a week. For a detailed account see Marr & Wilkinson (2003). The government established the people smuggling taskforce (PST)


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6

7 8

9

10

11

12

13 14

to advise on the Tampa crisis and assist its resolution. It comprised senior officials from a variety of government departments and agencies (for a list see SSCCMI 2002, pp 7–8), and was chaired by PM&C deputy secretary, Jane Halton. Under Operation Relex which commenced on 3 September 2001, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) became the lead agency in Australia’s border protection effort. Its aim was to ‘prevent in the first instance, the incursion of unauthorized vessels into Australian waters such that, ultimately, people smugglers and asylum seekers would be deterred from attempting to use Australia as a destination’ (SSCCMI 2002, pp 13–14). The Coalition held a majority of 14 seats compared with 12 in the 1998 election. Howard ministers interviewed for this study expressed distrust of the department of defence which they were convinced was a law unto itself. Former cabinet ministers were scathing about its professionalism and performance. This was nowhere more evident than in the sacking of departmental secretary, Paul Barratt, in July 1999. Both Peter Reith and former minister, John Moore, had emphasised their determination to reassert civilian control over defence and to reform the organisation (see Barratt v Howard [2000] Federal Court of Australia 190, 10 March 2000; Department of Defence Annual Report, 2000–01). Ward (2002) describes the Howard government’s manipulation of the asylum seeker issue in the lead-up to the 2001 campaign, noting Coalition strategists had identified the ‘boat people’ issue as a negative for Labor as early as July. Howard wrote to Moore-Wilton on 13 November 2001 requesting that the PST conduct a ‘full examination of: • the advice that was provided by Australian personnel involved in the sighting and handling of the vessel, as well as any other relevant information; • how that advice was obtained, and conveyed to authorities in Australia; and • the nature of advice provided to government ministers, and how it was transmitted [Bryant 2002, p 1]. Scrafton noted both the Bryant and Powell inquiries focused on the performance of public service agencies in the Children Overboard controversy, not on the role of ministerial staff (SSCSE, Committee Hansard, 1 September 2004, p 53). See, for example, House, Debates, 13 February 2002, pp 114–119, 14 February 2002, pp 250–278. The question of whether the minister and ministerial staff could be called to give evidence was a significant point of contention throughout the inquiry. Clerk of the house, Ian Harris, argued Reith had legal immunity from appearing before a senate committee (see Correspondence from Harris to senate select committee on a certain maritime incident (SSCCMI) committee secretary, 3 April 2002 in SSCCMI 2002, p 347). Senate clerk Harry Evans disputed this interpretation, arguing the senate could summon any person in the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth


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15

16

17 18

19

20

21

255

aside from current members of the house of representatives and current state office holders. Debate between the two clerks continued throughout the inquiry, each citing legal opinions in support of their interpretations. The former minister and ministerial staff did not respond to the committee’s invitations to appear. Ultimately it determined not to compel their attendance, noting that if they refused to respond to the summons, they would be in contempt of the senate. The chair noted ‘it would be unjust for the senate to impose a penalty on a person who declines to provide evidence on the direction of a Minister’ (SSCCMI 2002, p xxxv; also see Senate, Debates, 25 September 2002, p 4835). The ‘McMullan principle’, so named by John Howard, was a view expressed by then Keating minister, Bob McMullan, that ministerial staff should not be called before parliamentary committees (Senate, Debates, 7 February 1995, p 611). This was the recollection of the majority of those in attendance at the PST meeting, although Halton could not recall who first advised the meeting about the report from HMAS Adelaide (Bryant 2002, p 7). See Weller (2002, p 89). The first, entitled ‘Laura the hero’ showed able seaman Laura Whittle diving 12 metres into the water to rescue women and children from the SIEV IV vessel. The second, entitled ‘Dogs and his family’ showed leading seaman Jason ‘Dogs’ Barker in a similar rescue situation (for detailed accounts of the photographs see SSCCMI 2002, pp 66–67; SSCCMI, Committee Hansard, 26 March 2002, pp 159–166). Titheridge told the Bryant inquiry that although he did not recall the telephone call, he would have believed the chief of the defence force (CDF) was referring to the photographs of the rescue. He indicated his role would have been to provide clearance in the sense of determining whether it was appropriate to release imagery of defence personnel participating in Operation Relex. In this context, he was considering the principle, rather than the particular photographs. He noted ‘the photographs concerning the sinking of SIEV IV were not authorised, checked or cleared by myself or my staff for release to the Minister or his staff’ (Bryant 2002, p 22). Defence media liaison (DML) officers, apparently unaware the captions had become separated from the photographs, understood requests for the photographs related to Banks’ interview. Bloomfield consistently maintained he did not realise Hampton thought they depicted the Children Overboard incident (SSCCMI 2002, p 74). Hampton disputed this interpretation, noting that during the time the photographs were released everyone was talking about the Children Overboard incident, no one was talking about the sinking. From Hampton’s perspective, conversations were in the context of finding a way to back up Mr Ruddock’s comments, given questioning in the media (Interview with Ross Hampton, Bryant inquiry). The SSCCMI (2002, pp 74–75) concluded there was miscommunication between Bloomfield and Hampton, and that


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256 Notes to pages 185–193 22

23 24 25 26

27 28

29

30

31

they had been talking at cross-purposes about the captions. According to Hampton, Bornholt realised during the course of the conversation that he was looking at the wrong set of photographs (Interview with Ross Hampton, Bryant inquiry). Bornholt told Hampton he would check the photographs and call him back. The SSCCMI (2002, p 82) reported it was ‘not entirely convinced by Hampton’s explanation’. See Bryant (2002, pp 34–35); SSCCMI (2002, pp 58–66). For details of that conversation see Marr & Wilkinson (2003, pp 208–209). Aside from this intervention, the secretary played virtually no role in the Children Overboard controversy. Hawke argued this was because the defence ‘diarchy’ – the dual leadership of the Australian Defence Organisation (ADO) by the secretary and the CDF – inhibited him from providing advice on operational matters which were the province of the CDF (see SSCCMI 2002, pp 152–158). However Hawke was criticised for not taking a more active role in the provision of advice to minister Reith (see, for example, SSCCMI 2002, pp 142–147). Hawke told the committee he had offered his resignation over his failure to ensure McKenry had complied with his instruction to advise the minister’s office in writing of the misrepresentation of the photographs (SSCCMI 2002, p 145). Although defence minister, Robert Hill, did not accept Hawke’s resignation at the time, his contract as secretary was not renewed after it expired in September 2002. Hawke accepted the diplomatic post rejected by his predecessor, Paul Barratt, as ambassador to New Zealand. Scrafton reiterated this version of events during his appearance before the senate select committee on the Scrafton evidence (SSCSE) (Committee Hansard, 1 September 2004, pp 30–32). In 1998 Reith was a central player in a plan to break the monopoly power of the militant Maritime Union of Australia. On Reith’s role in the controversy, and particularly his less than frank dealings with journalists see Trinca and Davies (2000). In October 2000 Reith was involved in more controversy when it was revealed that the AFP was investigating $50 000 in calls made fraudulently using his tax-payer funded telecard. The minister had stopped using the card in 1994, but had given the pin number to his son, who, it transpired, had in turn given it to friends who made the bulk of the calls. While denying Reith was responsible for any wrong-doing, Howard eventually insisted Reith repay the $50 000. Reith would later claim he received the call from Houston on his mobile phone while aboard a submarine. ‘I can’t tell you how long the telephone conversation lasted but my memory of it was I didn’t have a very good line’ (quoted in Mathieson & Gale 2002). As a ministerial staffer, Scrafton, who retired from the APS in 2004, did not give evidence to the SSCCMI. He claimed his decision to go public with his version of events was motivated by the Howard government’s scathing response to an open letter from a group of retired military officials and diplomats, which called for truth in government, and a desire to correct the public


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32

33 34

35

36

37 38

39

257

record (SSCSE, Committee Hansard, 1 September 2004, pp 2–3). Notwithstanding his recent appointment to the defence portfolio, on 29 June 2001 Reith announced he would not be contesting the forthcoming federal election. Some analysts have argued the government’s determination to ‘tough out’ the Children Overboard controversy in the days prior to the election was motivated by Reith’s impending departure and the knowledge he would not face scrutiny nor be required to answer for his actions (Grattan 2002; Marr & Wilkinson 2003, p 172). The officer in question, John Clarke, was based in the chief of the navy’s office, but was a public affairs and corporate communications (PACC) employee. Hampton, a former journalist, had been working as media adviser and acting chief of staff to Melbourne City Council lord mayor, Peter Costigan. Hampton came to notoriety in 1997 when as a freelance journalist he was involved in a much-publicised clash with security staff of supermodel Elle Macpherson. For an amusing reflection on the incident and its aftermath see Barrass (2002). Given Howard’s preference that staff take a low profile, Hanke was something of an anomaly. In his role as Reith’s media adviser and subsequently as chief of staff to former Victorian Liberal leader Robert Doyle, Hanke cultivated an image as a tough political operator (see Kissane 2002; Wright 1999). Each of these episodes had bolstered Reith’s tough guy image, but had also built a strong sense of loyalty among the staff who believed their minister was being persecuted by a hostile media (see, for example, Charles 2001). A former Liberal Party staffer believed this was more likely an edict from Reith himself. In 2002 two advisers in the office of the deputy prime minister were sacked for failing to alert Anderson to the potentially controversial implications of an auditor-general’s report into road funding. See, for example, Edwards (2002); Russell (2002); Uhr (2002).

NINE Power without responsibility? 1 2 3

4 5

Hart (1995) notes that even before the Watergate scandal, Bailey (1956) and Wildavsky (1969) had identified the problematic potential of the presidential staff. For comprehensive analyses of the Brownlow report’s findings see Dickinson (1997, pp 86–113); Hart (1995, pp 26–30). Nixon’s staff committed a range of criminal offences including ‘breaking and entering into private premises, burglary, bugging and telephone tapping, misusing campaign funds and obstructing justice’ (Hart 1995, p 144). Key contributions include: Biggart (1985); Cronin (1975); Hart (1995); Kernell (1989); Pika (1991); Wildavsky (1969). On the role of presidential staff in the Iran-Contra scandal, see Dickinson (1997, pp 19–42); Pfiffner (1996, pp 28–30).


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258 Notes to pages 213–225 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15

16

17 18

19

For further discussion of the behavioural problems of staff see Biggart (1984; 1985); Cronin (1975); Rose (1981). For analysis of the pressures of the White House work environment, see Kumar (2003). On the different skills required to work in government as opposed to on the presidential campaign, see Dickinson & Tenpas (2002); Hess (1988); Kernell (1989); Pfiffner (1991; 1996). On factors contributing to high staff turnover rates see Dickinson & Tenpas (2002). On career prospects for former White House staffers see Kumar (2003). See Burke (1992); Campbell (1998); Moe (1985). For recent appraisals of the pressures on the modern president see Dickinson (1997; 2003); Kessel (2003); Neustadt (2001). For various accounts see Cronin (1975); Dunn (1997); Pfiffner (1991; 1996); Moe (1985). On the pathologies of competition among the staff see Biggart (1985); Burke (1992); Dexter (1977); Heclo (1991); Hess (1988); Kernell (1989; 1991). See Hart (1995); Walcott & Hult (1995; 2004). According to Borrelli, Hult & Kassop (2003, p 222), ‘executive privilege refers to the constitutionally-based protection of confidentiality of a president’s communications with any government officer when the chief executive seeks advice on the exercise of official governmental duties. Its purpose is to promote candid and frank discussions between a president and his advisors.’ Hart (1995, p 135) defines comity as the longstanding traditions between the executive and legislative branches of US government that ‘preclude the one from interfering in the others’ housekeeping matters’. It is a pervasive doctrine that he argues has limited congress from exercising effective oversight of the White House staff. Brown responded on behalf of his minister to a request from the CMI committee secretary, Brenton Holmes, for ministerial staff witnesses to appear before the committee. In subsequent correspondence, Holmes advised Brown that as a ministerial staffer, it was not for him to determine what evidence was relevant to the committee’s terms of reference, nor which witnesses would give that evidence. Brown was reportedly ‘affronted’ by Holmes’ letter (The Age, 20 June 2002). The tone of Brown’s correspondence to the committee secretary was somewhat imperious (SSCCMI 2002, p xiv). It also betrayed a lack of respect for and understanding of the oversight powers available to senate committees. See, for example, Barratt (2003; 2006); F&PA (2003); Nethercote (2002; 2003); Russell (2002); Weller (2002). At the time of writing, the government had not responded to either the SSCCMI report or the F&PA committee’s inquiry into staff employed under the MoP(S) Act. There is further discussion of the Howard government’s attitude to this issue in Chapter 10. For a detailed account of the development of the special adviser and an assessment of their place in British government see Blick (2004).


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Notes to pages 226–241 20

21

22

259

Ministerial code: a code of ethics and procedural guidance for ministers , viewed 27 November 2006. July 2005, 2.12. For commentary on the activities of Labor’s ‘spin doctors’ see Blick (2004); Follett (2000); Jones (2002); Ingham (2003); Riddell (2000). For authoritative discussion of the development of the press secretary see Seymour-Ure (2003). Interestingly, and in stark contrast to the Australian situation, details of the incident were able to be ascertained as the chief of staff gave evidence before the house of commons standing committee of inquiry into the affair.

TEN Reforming the staffing system 1 2

Also see Seth-Purdie (2003); Tiernan & Weller (2003). See for example Burke (1992); Cronin (1975); Dunn (1997); Pfiffner (1991).


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INDEX

A Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility 33–34 A Leader and a Philosophy 47 Abbott, Tony 32, 204–5, 240 Abetz, Eric 101 accountability, see also plausible deniability Children Overboard affair 173, 178 dilution of 3, 35–37, 202–8 in White House 215 lacking in ministerial offices 9–10 principle established 42 reforms proposed 236–37 UK special advisers 226 under Hawke administration 61 under Keating administration 82–83 acronyms xi–xii ADF, see Australian Defence Forces administrative and support staff 19, 125, 145 aggressiveness 212 AGLS 50 Al-Mashat affair 11, 229 ANAO, see Australian National Audit Office Anderson, John 9, 101, 113, 206 annual report on consultant use 60 ANZSOG Program ii appointment of staff, see recruitment of ministerial staff arrogance 212, 218 auditor-general, see also Australian National Audit Office attempts to audit NMLS 69–71 ministerial staff not subject to 36 on Sports Rorts affair 79–80 on Travel Rorts affair 161–62, 167


Auditor-general Act 1997 (Cth) 69 Australia evolution of ministerial staffing 5 ministerial staff 11, 26–27, 218–25 Australian Defence Forces Children Overboard affair 178–79, 188–95 intercept SIEVs 175–76 political use of 182 Australian Democrats 71 Australian Federal Police 43, 165 Australian government liaison service 50 Australian Labor Party, see Labor Australian National Audit Office 69–71, see also auditor-general criticises ‘Sports Rorts’ 79–80 ministerial staff not subject to 36 report on travel allowances 156 Australian Public Service Act 1999 (Cth), see Public Service Act 1999 (Cth) Australian Security Intelligence Organisation raid 43 Australian Wheat Board inquiry 1, 13–14 Australian Workplace Agreements 105–8 Australia’s Mandarins 115 autonomy, see accountability Balderstone, Simon 64 Banks, Norman 178–79 Barnett, David 50 Barns, Greg 133, 202 Barratt, Paul 9, 113–14, 220, 238 Barrie, Chris 179, 188–89 Barron, Peter 54 Bartlett, Andrew 178 Barton, Russell 163

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276 Power without responsibility Beazley, Kim 22, 70, 174 behaviour of staff, see conduct and behaviour of ministerial staff Benoit, Liane 11–12 Bevis, Arch 199 Blair government, see United Kingdom Blewett, Neal 65 Bloomfield, Tim 183–85 boat people, see Children Overboard affair Bornholt, Gary 185–86 broadcast media management 55–56 Brown, Allen 2 Brownlow committee 210–11 Bryant inquiry 188–95 Bryant, Jennifer 176, 196–97 Bunting, John 2 Bush, George W, staffing problems 11 Byers, Stephen 12 cabinet committees 54, 62 cabinet documents, access to 47 Cabinet Handbook 134, 139 cabinet implementation unit of PM&C 143 cabinet ministers, see also cabinet policy unit; ministers autonomy under Hawke 54 staff numbers 22, 93 under Howard administration 140–41 cabinet policy unit L’Estrange heads 88–89 staff numbers 22 strategic role 130 under Howard administration 139–42 Valder report suggests 85 cabinet secretariat 140 cabinet secretaries 88, 139–41, see also cabinet policy unit Cain, John 74 Cairns, Jim 43 Campbell, Alistair 226 Canada ministerial staff 11–12, 228–32 numbers of staff 26–27 prime minister’s office 41 careers in ministerial staffing 32–33, 150


CAs 109–11 Cassidy, Barrie 58 certified agreements 109–11 chief of staff positions 33 GSC vets 102–3 in Howard PMO 129 in ministerial offices 144–45 regular meetings 225 under Howard administration 146–50 Children Overboard affair 9–10, 171–208 calls for reform after 17–18 weaknesses exposed by 13–14 Chrétien, Jean 11, 230 Civil Service Bill (UK) 27 Civil Service Order in Council 1995 (UK) 227 Clark, Joe 229 Coalition, see Liberal National Party coalition Codd, Mike 54, 66 codes of conduct, proposed 238–39 Collins, Bob 72–78 Collins, Jacinta 197 Colston, Mal 151–52 comity principle 217 committee on standards in public life (UK) 226–27 Committees of Enquiry, role in administration 40 communications role of staff 23, 63 community recreational and sporting facilities grant programme 79– 82, see also Sports Rorts affair complementarity with public service 25–26, 54 conduct and behaviour of ministerial staff 218–19 concerns with 15–16 guidelines on 33–34 US concerns over 10, 212–14 confidentiality issues 35, 47, 236 Conran, Peter 2 consultants, limiting 93 contestability 91 convention period, travel during 153–54 Cook, Peter 177 Coombs, HC 44–45 coordinatory roles 24, 147–48

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Index corridor work 63 Cosgrove, Peter 7 Costello, Peter 104, 163, 179–80 Cousins, Geoffrey 125 Crosby, Lynton 100 Dark Victory 172 DASET 79–80 Dawkins, John 59–60 de facto ministers 35–37, 64, 203–4 deep structures in presidential staffing 6 Defence PACC, see Australian Defence Forces demand factors 5 department of administrative services 165, 220–21 Travel Rorts affair 152–59 department of arts, sport, the environment and territories 79–80 department of finance and administration 165 department of the prime minister and cabinet 2–3, 22, 42, 175–76 under Fraser administration 48, 51 under Hawke administration 54 under Howard administration 142–43 under Keating administration 66–68 under Moore-Wilton 89, 115–16 under Shergold 116–17 under Whitlam administration 44 department of transport and communications 72–73 departmental liaison officers 20–21, 143–45 departmental secretaries, see also public service limited-term appointments for 67 relations with ministers 220 sacked under Howard administration 88 tenure changes 112–18 under Keating administration 67–68 diary secretary, see personal secretary position DLOs, see departmental liaison officers DoFA 165 Don’t Tell the Prime Minister 171–72


277

Dunn, Delmer 37 election campaigns 1972: Garran oration 40 1993: Fightback! 85 2001: Children Overboard affair 174–75 travel during 153–54 email contact between ministerial staff and departments 121–22 employment benefits, see working conditions for ministerial staff environmental factors influencing ministerial staffing 5–6 Epstein, David 69–71, 137 ERC 62 Evans, Graham 72 Evans, Harry 203–4 executive leadership 5, 64–65 expenditure review committee 62 F&PA committee, see Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee Farmer, Bill 179 Faulkner, John 160, 178 Federal Accountability Act 2006 (Canada) 12 Feely, Nicole 87, 125 Fightback! 79, 84–87 filtering of information 216, 221 Fischer, Tim 95 Forward, Roy 45 Fraser administration 46–51 features of retained 53–54 Howard’s learnings from 90 specialist consultants under 59 Fraser, Malcolm intervention in other portfolios 132 media management by 50 on Labor staffing 42–43 freedom of information legislation 56 Freudenberg, Graham 42–43 Gagliano, Alfonso 11, 230 Garran orations 40, 90 geography of influence 62, 74, 221 GIU 50, 57 Gleeson, Gerry 76–77 Gomery, John 11–12, 230 governance of staff, see ministerial staff, management of

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278 Power without responsibility government information unit 50, 57 government members’ secretariat 22, 136–37 government staff committee 100–105 Griffith, Alan 167–68 Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility 33–34, 92, 99 Halton, Jane 114, 179, 195 Hampton, Ross 128, 172, 176, 181– 88, 192, 197–202, 218 Hanke, Ian 128, 199 Harper, Stephen 12 Hart, John 10–11, 210–12 Hawke administration 17, 52–64 departmental secretaries under 112–13 public service reform 15 Hawke, Allan 113–14, 189–90 Hayden, Bill 40 Hendy, Peter 179, 190, 194–95, 201–2 Hewitt, Lennox 2 Hewson, John 84–87 Hill, Robert 101, 113–14 HMAS Adelaide 173, 181–83, see also Children Overboard affair Hogg, Bob 54 Hollway, Sandy 24–25, 78–79 Houston, Angus 192–93 Howard administration 206–7, 239–40 cabinet meetings 140–41 Coalition under 132–33 early ‘amateurism’ 95–97 ministerial staff 17, 123–50 Howard, John at AWB inquiry 1–2 in Children Overboard affair 174– 75, 183–84, 193–96 in Travel Rorts affair 160–63, 169 media management by 20 on advice-giving 157 on Cabinet Office role 88–89 on personal staff 91–92 on public service reform 90, 117–18 perceived competence 131 personal style 128 personalisation trend 114 return to leadership 87 staff loyalty to 123–24


induction of ministerial staff, see training and induction Institute of Public Administration Australia 74, 204–5 investigative journalism 56 Iran-Contra scandal 215 Iraq War, intelligence gathering prior to 12–13 issue management 23, 145–46, see also political issues Jones, Kim 195 Jordana, Miles 115, 195, 201–2 journalism, assertive 56 Jull, David 152–61, 165, 220–21 junior ministers 22, 59, 93 junior press staff 98 Keating administration 17, 64–72, see also Pay Television affair; Sports Rorts affair Howard criticism of 126 ministerial staff under 23, 31, 147 scandals under 9 Keating, Michael 66, 114, 238 Keating, Paul 54, 85 Keelty, Mick 7–9, 130 Kelly, David 13 Kelly, Paul 117, 138 Kelly, Ros 79–82 Kemp, David 47, 48–49, 132 Kemp, Rod 70 Kennedy, Peter 157, 165 Kernot, Cheryl 71 Labor, see also Hawke administration; Keating administration; Whitlam administration defends immunity of ministerial staff 178 on FP&A Committee 235 on Government–Opposition disparity in staffing 30 on personal classifications 109 on Travel Rorts affair 158, 160–61 professionalism in 85–87 quality of staff 104–5, 219 reliance on opinion polls 58 Labor and Quality of Government 58 Latham, Mark 128 Leader and a Philosophy, A 47 leadership 5, 64–65

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Index length of service of ministerial staff 126, 149 L’Estrange, Michael 88, 141 Liberal National Party coalition 69–71, see also Fraser administration; Howard administration critical of NMLS 69–71 criticises Sports Rorts 79 distrust of public service 95–96 in Opposition 84–87 Menzies administration 2–3 on FP&A Committee 235 on Pay Television affair 73, 75–76 quality of staff 219 response to Labor staffing approach 127 return to power in 1996 88–92 limited-term appointments for departmental secretaries 67 Lloyd, Clem 49–50 Loughnane, Brian 113, 130 loyalty 123–24, 199–200, 213–14, 219 Magnetic resonance Iimaging scandal 9 Maley, Maria 23–24 Mallory, JR 228–29 McCallum, Mungo 63 McClintock, Paul 89, 141–42 McGauran, Peter 161 McKenna, Fiona 100–101, 125, 162– 63, 165–66 McKenry, Jenny 185, 187, 189 McLachlan, Ian 113 McMullan, Bob 69–70 McMullan principle 177 media, see press gallery media management Children Overboard affair 192 in new Parliament House 63 under Fraser 49–51 under Hawke 54–58 under Howard 135–37 under Keating 68–71 media staff 20, 23 ‘fixer’ role of 146 in PM&C 143 in PMO 125, 135–38 ministerial media group 57, 69, 136 under Howard 98–99, 104 mega-departments 59


279

Mellors, John 161, 165, 168–69 Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (Cth) 14 formalises recruitment 59–62 on employment and management of staff 27–29, 53 Menadue, John 44, 89 Menzies administration 2–3 military, see Australian Defence Forces Minchin, Nick 101 ministerial advisers 20, see also political issues ministerial consultants 59–60 ministerial media group 57, 69, 136 ministerial responsibility, see accountability ministerial staff 3–13, see also conduct and behaviour of ministerial staff; roles of ministerial staff; working conditions for ministerial staff accountability 202 career prospects 150 management of 27–29, 33–35, 110–11, 216–17, 223–25, 237–38 media advisers 136 numbers of 8, 21–22, 46, 49, 93–94, 102–3, 124–25, 142–44, 215–17, 221–22, 244 overview of 19–38 pay allowance 106 professionalism of 85–87, 129 reforms needed 233–43 system conventions 35–37 tenure of 126, 149 Travel Rorts affair 166–67 under Howard 95–97, 123–50 ministerial staff advisory panel 53, 224–25 ministers, see also cabinet ministers; junior ministers autonomy under Hawke 54 close relations with staff 32 numbers of staff per 21 staff support for 3–13 support from PM&C 143–46 Ministers’ Minders, The 14 Ministers of State Entitlements Handbook 106 MMG 57, 69, 136 Mockridge, Tom 68

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280 Power without responsibility Moore, Jo 12 Moore, John 113 Moore-Wilton, Max 89, 115–16, 142, 165, 198 MoP(S) Act, see Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (Cth) Morosi, Junie 43 Morris, Grahame 125, 162–66 MRI scandal 9 MSA, see pay for ministerial staff MSAP 53, 224–25 Mulroney administration, see Canada Murphy, Lionel 43 Murray, Andrew 129–30, 132–33 national media liaison service 57 abolished under Howard 92–93 GMS performs functions of 136 under Keating 69 National Party 101, see also Liberal National Party coalition national security division of PM&C 142 Neill committee 226–27 New Labour, see United Kingdom New Zealand, staff numbers 26 Nixon, Richard 212 NMLS, see national media liaison service Nutt, Tony 2, 101, 126, 130, 148, 196 Oakes, Laurie 159–60, 163–64 office manager positions 110, 145 Office of National Assessment 195– 96

O’Leary , Tony 1–2, 98, 135–36, 137, 195–96 Operation Relex 175–76, 201, see also Children Overboard affair Opposition government monitoring of 57 Liberal National Party in 84–87 staff recruited under 29–30 Parks, Colin 70 Parliament House, move to new 15, 62–63 parliamentary committees 37, 236, see also senate committees parliamentary entitlements 151, see also Travel Rorts affair parliamentary secretaries 22


Paterson, Mark 114 path dependence of presidential staffing 6 pay for ministerial staff, see also working conditions government staff committee input to 102 Howard PMO staff 148 ministerial staff allowance 106 under Hawke 61 Pay Television affair 9, 72–78 Peacock, Andrew 84 Pearce, Dennis 72–74 Pelletier, Jean 230 people smuggling taskforce 174 performance reviews 107 personal classifications 109 personal secretary positions 145 personal support roles 23, 91–92 in PMO 125 to US president 211–12 personalisation trend 114–16, 134 photographs of ‘children overboard’ 175–76, 183–85, 189–90 plausible deniability 169, 207, 229, see also accountability PM&C, see department of the prime minister and cabinet PMO, see prime minister’s office Podger, Andrew 25 policy advice roles 24, 63–64 political issues ‘fixer’ positions 145–46 insulating public service from 7 staff support with 20, 23–24, 48 staffers with political backgrounds 31–32 under Howard 99 Powell, Jonathan 226, 228 Powell, RA 176 presidential government, see also United States growth of staffing for 38 adoption of 132 media management under 20 opposition to reform by 241–42 politicisation of 214 staffing for 6, 11 press gallery 43, 50, 56 press secretaries supplemented by MMG 57 under Howard 98

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Index under Menzies 2–3 under Whitlam 42–43 press units, see media staff prime minister controls recruitment and employment conditions of ministerial staff 28 Fraser’s view of roles 47 staff management role 42, 52–53, 239 prime minister and cabinet, see department of the prime minister and cabinet prime minister’s office chief of staff position 33 coordination role 24 growth under Howard 8, 93 in Children Overboard affair 195–97 in Pay Television affair 77 in Travel Rorts affair 161–62 media staff in 135–38 programme coordination and event management group 125 under Fraser 47, 48–49 under Hawke 54 under Howard 89, 124–35 under Keating 64–65 under Whitlam 41 prime minister’s press office 57–58 principal advisers 102, 106–7, see also chief of staff positions Priorities review staff 40 private secretaries 46, 48 promotions, see careers in ministerial staffing; status of ministerial staff PRS 40 PST 174 public service, see also relations between ministerial staff and public service; relations between ministers and departments claims of politicisation rejected 90 code of conduct for 36 Hawke administration reforms 58–59 Howard administration reforms 111–22 insulating from politics 7 Keating administration reforms 65 limiting power of 4–5 ministerial mistrust of 39–41,


281

94–95, 220–21 ministerial staff drawn from 31– 32, 149–50 ministerial staff returning to 61 pay disparity with 61 view of Howard staffers 96–97 view of Whitlam administration 43 Public Service Act 1922 (Cth) 41 Public Service Act 1999 (Cth) 112 code of conduct under 36 DLOs employed under 20–21 removes link between public service and ministerial staff 29 public service board 59 radio, see broadcast media Ray, Robert 157, 165 RCAGA 45–46 record-keeping, problems with 156 recruitment of ministerial staff formalisation of 59–62 PMO involvement 134–35 PM’s control over 28 under Hawke administration 53 under Howard administration 29–32, 88, 92–94 Regional Partnerships and Sustainable Regions programme 9 Reith, Peter chairs government staff committee 101 in Children Overboard affair 188, 190–94 on public service reform 112 staff support for 199–200 relations between ministerial staff and public service 219–22, see also public service blurring of roles 71–72 code of conduct for 34 complementarity 25–26, 54 in US 214–15 media staff 138 under Howard 119–22 relations between ministers and departments, see also public service Bob Smith on 45–46 complementarity 25–26 increasingly distant 220–21 staff drawn from public service 31 under Hawke 15, 58

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282 Power without responsibility under Howard 97–98, 117–21 US concerns over 10–11 responsibility v. accountability 237 rewards, ministerial positions as 30–31 Ridout, Heather 128–29 Ritchie, David 115 Rivard affair 11, 228–29 role confusion 71–72, 77–78 Children Overboard affair 181–85, 198–99 roles of ministerial staff gatekeeping role 77 information gathering 12–13, 23, 47, 63 support and administrative staff 19, 125, 145 Roosevelt, Franklin D 210–11 Royal Australian Navy, see Australian Defence Forces royal commission on Australian government administration 45– 46 Ruddock, Philip 173–74, 179, 187 Russell, Don as Keating’s PPS 129 on accountability 37, 207 on Keating administration 66 on management of staff 224 on public service reform 58 Ryan, Mark 68 Saava, Niki 104 scan scam 9 Scott, Bruce 155 Scrafton, Mike 172, 187–90, 193–94, 196–97 senate committees (US) 242 senate finance and public administration committee accountability issues 206 calls David Epstein 70–71 data on staff numbers 21 findings of 234–36 inquiry into MoP(S) staff 17–18, 106 senate inquiry into Pay Television affair 78 senate select committee on a certain maritime incident 177–79 calls for reform 17–18 critical of ministerial staff 9–10,


218 determines not to call ministerial staff 190 on rush to judgment 187 report of 172 senate select committee on the Scrafton evidence 172, 237 senior advisers, see chief of staff positions; principal advisers senior executive service 31, 58, 120 senior private secretaries 48 Shackleton, David 194–95 Shanahan, Dennis 162 Sharp, John 154–55, 159–60 Shergold, Peter 25, 116–17, 221 Sherry, Nick 163 SIEVs 173–74, 183, see also Children Overboard affair ‘significant’ government appointments 134–35 Silverstone, Michael 178–81 Sinodinos, Arthur 1–2, 7–9, 101, 125–26, 129–31, 225 Smith, Bob 45–46 Smith, Christine 152 Smith, Ric 114 Smith, Tony 104 SMOS 29, 57, 100–101 special advisers to Blair government 12, 225–28 special minister of state 29, 57, 100–101 speech work 47 sponsorships scandal 11, 230 Sports Rorts affair 9, 79–82, 219–22 SSCCMI, see senate select committee on a certain maritime incident SSCSE 172, 237 Stackpool, Andrew 184 staff conduct and behaviour, see conduct and behaviour of ministerial staff staff management, see ministerial staff staff numbers, see ministerial staff status of ministerial staff, see also pay for ministerial staff; working conditions for ministerial staff Howard PMO staff 148 personal classifications 109 under Fraser 51 under Hawke 60–62

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Index Stone, John 49 Strahan, Frank 2 surrogates of minister 35–37, 64, 203–4 suspected illegal entry vessels 173–74, 183, see also Children Overboard affair Sutherland, John 154–56, 159, 161–63, 166 Tampa incident 174 Task Forces, role in administration 40 Taylor, John 69–71 The Ministers’ Minders 14 The Victory 87 Titheridge, Alan 179, 184–85 Towards a Best Practice APS 112 training and induction for ministerial staff by Liberals in Opposition 86–87 reforms to 239 shortage of 35, 108 Transition to Government report 41 Travel Rorts affair 9, 13–14, 151–70, 219–22 Travelling Allowance Paid To Various Office Holders in the House of Representatives 154–55 Treasury 48, 64, 91 Trioli, Virginia 188 Trudeau, Pierre 41 Truss, Warren 101 TV, see broadcast media Uhr, John 238–39 United Kingdom Civil Service Bill 27 ministerial staff under Blair 12, 225–28 staff numbers 26–27 United States, see also presidential government management of White House staff 224–25, 231 opposition to reform in 241–42 staffing issues in 6, 10–11, 210–17

283

Walker, Frank 69 Walsh, Peter 65 Walter, James 14 water resources office of PM&C 143 Waterford, Jack 81–82 Watergate scandal, aftermath of 10–11, 212 Watson, Don 64 Westminster systems accountability gaps in 210 power dependence in 223 staff numbers 26–27 support for Ministers 4 White House, see presidential government; United States whiteboard use 81, see also Sports Rorts affair Whitlam administration 16, 39–51, 39–51 Wicks, Sir Nigel 227 Wilenski, Peter 41 Williams, Pamela 87 Wilson, Sir Richard 227 working conditions for ministerial staff, see also length of service of ministerial staff; pay for ministerial staff; status of ministerial staff chief of staff positions 147 employment benefits 107 government staff committee input to 102 high workload 34–35, 168 ‘on call’ positions 78–79 PM’s control over 28 turnover rates 213 UK ministerial staff 227 under Howard administration 32–33, 105–8 Wright, Tony 126 Yeend, Geoffrey 2, 54, 77 Young, Mick 57

Vaile, Mark 21 Valder report 85–86 Varghese, Peter 115 Victory, The 87


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19/4/07 3:32:08 PM

Also published by UNSW Press The Australian Electoral System Origins, Variations and Consequences David M. Farrell and Ian McAllister ‘The Australian Electoral System is an outstanding exploration of the range of electoral systems employed in Australia. It benefits greatly from being informed by the broader comparative electoral systems literature – and, for the same reason, it is a book that all those interested in electoral systems generally will want to read.’ – Michael Gallagher, Department of Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin The Australian Electoral System provides the first-ever comprehensive study of the design of Australian electoral systems. It focuses on the two electoral systems, both ‘preferential’, that are most closely associated with Australia: namely the alternative vote and the single transferable vote. The book covers four main themes. First, it traces the origins of Australia’s electoral systems, explaining how and why Australia ended up with such a relatively unique arrangement. Second, it explores the range of variation in the detail of how the various schemes operate – variations which can have significant behavioural and electoral consequences. Third, it uses aggregate and survey data to systematically analyse the consequences of electoral system design. Fourth, it examines voter reaction to these systems, both in Australia and also cross-nationally. David M. Farrell is Jean Monnet Professor of European Politics at the University of Manchester, England. Farrell is the pre-eminent international expert on electoral systems. Ian McAllister is Professor of Politics at the Australian National University and has been a co-director of the Australian Election Study since 1987. He is currently chair of the 50-nation Comparative Study of Electoral Systems group. ISBN 0 86840 858 1


19/4/07 3:32:08 PM

Also published by UNSW Press Cabinet Government in Australia, 1901–2006 Practice, Principles, Performance Patrick Weller ‘An essential read for its insights into the engine room of political decision-making in Australia and understanding how the cabinet system has evolved over the last century.’ – Paul Kelly Cabinet Government in Australia, 1901–2006 is the first comprehensive study of the development of the central institution of government over the first century of its life. Based on the author’s careful archival research and 30 years’ experience writing about central government in Australia, it provides an understanding of both the history and the working of the institution. Patrick Weller has written a detailed history, as well as a politics primer. Penetrating in analysis, rich in anecdote, with lively portraits of prime ministers and their colleagues, it will stand as the principal source for understanding this central political process in our government. Weller’s work: • •

•

provides a detailed historical account of the way in which cabinet developed and functioned from government to government; analyses in a series of essays the principal constitutional doctrines and conventions that allow the cabinet to work, including the conventions of accountability, the rules of cabinet and the contests for power that are a constant of political life; and acts as an important comparative study placing Australian cabinet experience in the context of international practice.

Professor Patrick Weller AO of Griffith University, Brisbane, is arguably Australia’s leading authority on the way our executive arm of government works. Over some 30 years through a systematic study of Australia’s prime ministers, cabinet members and the public service he has developed a keen insight into the levers that Australia’s political leaders have used to exercise their authority, and the power and influence of officials in the national and international arenas. ISBN 978 0 86840 874 3


19/4/07 3:32:09 PM

Also published by UNSW Press Terms of Trust Arguments over ethics in Australian government John Uhr Public trust in Australia’s governments and our political leadership is at an all-time low, according to many opinion polls. Shaken by years of broken promises, political spin, shady deals, obfuscation, and even brazen lies, many consider the condition terminal. According to John Uhr the situation is not irretrievable, though serious, and immediate consideration needs to be given to finding means by which our political leaders can re-earn the confidence of the community. In Terms of Trust John Uhr poses, and answers, fundamental questions about our governments’ leadership:

• • • •

How can we make political leadership compatible with ethical leadership? How relevant is personal character to public life? Why do we need to widen the scope of ‘leadership’ to include all public officials and not just those at the top? How can citizens become more informed about the extent of government trustworthiness?

With such questions in mind, Australians can now get down to business and spell out the ‘terms of trust’ compatible with the exceptional high hopes – but also the everyday low practices – of our democracy. Terms of Trust is the first book-length analysis of the role of ethics in Australian government. It scrutinises what actually happens in practice against the democratic theory, and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of public-sector ethics. ‘John Uhr’s Terms of Trust is timely and essential reading.’ – Tony Smith, JAS Review of Books ISBN 0 86840 639 2


19/4/07 3:32:09 PM

Also published by UNSW Press Westminster Legacies Democracy and Responsible Government in Asia and the Pacific Edited by Haig Patapan, John Wanna and Patrick Weller Westminster Legacies examines the ways in which the Westminster system has been influential in shaping responsible government and democracy across Asia, Australasia and the Pacific. It devotes chapters to each of the following countries: India, Pakistan, Nepal, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the smaller Pacific island nations. Westminster Legacies explores the way Westminster understandings of the executive, bureaucracy, parliament and responsible government have been influential in these countries – home to such diverse histories, cultures and traditions. It examines the ways the Westminster system has been adapted in the light of local practices and traditions, and considers how Westminster remains important for understanding political institutions and practices in these countries. It also looks at the conditions under which Westminster legacies have taken root and endured, and those conditions that have eroded or significantly changed its influence. Some of the countries Westminster Legacies surveys have teetered on the edge of becoming ‘failed states’ (especially in terms of legitimate democracies), while others remain robust adversarial democracies. ISBN 0 86840 848 4


19/4/07 3:32:09 PM

Power without Responsibility charts the rise and rise of ministerial minders – the personal staff of government ministers – under federal governments from Gough Whitlam to John Howard. Over the past 30 years, these backroom operators have become increasingly powerful, growing in numbers, seniority and status. With close personal relationships built on loyalty and trust, and unfettered access to government ministers, staffers have substantial influence on policy processes , and their existence has challenged – many say diminished – the role of the public service. Yet while they wield significant covert power, ministerial staff are constitutionally and managerially ‘out of control’. Anne Tiernan describes the contemporary working environment of political staffers, the issues they face, and the growth in their influence. In considering some well-known cases including ‘Children Overboard’, Tiernan identifies systemic weaknesses in the operations of ministerial staffers that pose risks for ministers, the public service and Australia’s system of governance. Tiernan also suggests responses such as better training, greater accountability and a clearer delineation of roles and responsibilities as means to address the ongoing problems with governance and accountability issues she so clearly identifies. Power without Responsibility will promote public debate about the role of ministerial advisors in Australian governments.

unsw press


‘This is political science where it matters – at the cutting edge of power. Ministerial Offices have become major political institutions needing the sort of examination Anne Tiernan has provided.’ – Dr Geoff Gallop, Premier of Western Australia, 2001–2006

ANNE TIERNAN

ANNE TIERNAN

POWER WITHOUT RESPONSIBILTY ‘Anne Tiernan . . . shines light into some of the darker corners of government, and raises pertinent questions about reform.’ – Michelle Grattan

unsw

press

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