The great media brouhaha over the appointment of former Carr minister Brian Langton to the chairmanship of Sydney Ferries is misplaced.
Langton, a former transport minister in the 1990s, is something of a specialist on transport matters. He spent his days in Opposition during the Coalition governments of Nick Greiner and John Fahey (1988 to 1995) brushing up his credentials to take ministerial responsibility for trains, buses and ferries — unlike some of the utterly hopeless individuals who have held the portfolio before and since.
The media attack on Langton’s elevation to the chair of Sydney Ferries after 10 years in the political wilderness is based on an adverse finding made against him by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1998.
The substance of the finding was that Langton had given his air vouchers to other MPs who used them to visit parts of regional NSW drumming up support for the Carr Government.
The practice of ministers slipping their travel warrants to battling backbenchers wasn’t new: lots of MPs had been doing it, from all sides of the house.
The Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery took one look at the ICAC brief and decided that there were no grounds for prosecuting Langton. He was a political scapegoat for a practice that was dumb and self-serving.
The real problem with Langton’s appointment to Sydney Ferries is neither his qualifications nor his brush with the ICAC, it is the fact that the Iemma Government has become a cottage industry for its own.
As noted before, this isn’t a government in the strict sense, it is a clique. It trusts no-one outside its own circle and that is why job after job goes to members of the NSW ALP and its devotees.
Only last week another former party stalwart, Alan Kirkland, was appointed head of the NSW Legal Aid Commission. Now, virtually every legal and quasi-legal body in NSW has a safe pair of hands at the helm.
Ditto the Premier’s Department, the Health Department, the Education Department, the Department of Community Services, and the list goes on.
NSW is being governed by a narrowly cloned collection of clique members, their devout allies and friends. No, it isn’t Jakarta or Manila in the 1980s, it’s Harbour City in late autumn. Dontcha love it!
These are desperate times in NSW .. that we have to recruit the sullied like Langton to make decisions involving billions of public $ is sad .. that anyone would even contemplate appointing the damaged and reprehensible like Koperberg and Gibson is horrid .. that when the Bathurst hospital was built with ten thousand and one screw ups, and local member Gerard Martin didn’t even offer to resign is frightening .. give Turnbull a run in NSW
Brian Langton was not a minister when he mis-used travel vouchers.He was a shadow minister.The charge wasn’t that he gave away his vouchers but that he mis-used the vouchers of others to pay for trips.
…Just go to ‘NSW Parliament’ via google and choose ‘former members’ //Brian Langton born 1948, Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly [seat of Kogarah] 22 Oct 1983 5 Mar 1999 15yr(s) 4mth(s) 12day(s),
Minister for Transport and Minister for Tourism 4 Apr 1995 1 Dec 1997 2yr(s) 7mth(s) 28day(s)
Minister for Fair Trading and Minister for Emergency Services 1 Dec 1997 30 Apr 1998 4mth(s) 30day(s)
// In other words a backbench for the last 11 months or so in Govt Party.
Got out the dusty files on Brian Langton yesterday. He was a minister in the govt elected in March 1995 – I was there pounding the streets of the east – 10% vote too. Langton was Transport Minister – till at least 1997 from memory. Not so sure about 1998 if that’s Mr Travis’s point. Certainly he was involved in electioneering by that stage, as the whole show was, up to March 1999 end of 4 year term defending 3 seat majority. Right or wrong Langton had a good reputation amongst ngo/green movement 95-97 and for instance Scully as Roads minister announced April 97, $132M changes to Eastern Distributor tollway in the backlash from the public transport lobby, of which Langton was involved as minister. I think Alex Mitchell is on the money here. The Parliamentary online history will reveal chapter and verse of his ministerial career and retreat pre 99 election. As SMH editorial implies today, NSW public could do worse.
Brian Langton was not a minister when he mis-used travel vouchers.He was a shadow minister.The charge wasn’t that he gave away his vouchers but that he mis-used the vouchers of others to pay for trips.