After last week’s convulsive expulsion of Kevin Rudd, Canberra is now settling back into its normal routines. The common wisdom in the nation’s capital now is that Rudd’s systematic subversion of federal cabinet was just the work of a rogue individual and that his sacking by the Labor caucus was an affirmation, in a way, of the strength of the Australian system of governance.
Well, last night I addressed a group of senior public servants in Canberra and ruffled their feathers with an alternative view of the affair.
The ease with which Rudd ignored the normal cabinet process for two years has, I said, exposed a dangerous flaw in Australian governance that has merely been papered over by Mark Arbib’s and Bill Shorten’s brutal execution of Rudd and the installation of Julia Gillard.
This is not merely a theoretical discussion in hindsight about proper governance: Rudd’s by-passing of cabinet resulted in the dreadful resource super profits tax, a debacle that has significantly damaged the country and which the new prime minister has now had to quickly sort out with the mining industry.
The fact that this has proved possible, with a deal to be announced today, will no doubt allow everyone to persuade themselves that it’s all worked out okay in the end and let’s just draw a veil over the unfortunate Rudd era. Julia Gillard is entirely different and it’ll never happen again.
In my view that’s not good enough. I invited last night’s group of senior executive service members to think about what would have happened if there had been a terrorist emergency in the past couple of months that not only made it impossible for Rudd’s enemies in caucus to remove him but actually reinforced and continued his autocratic style of government, in which all decisions were made by him and a small coterie of ministers — in the national interest, of course.
Or what if he had been a more competent, more malevolent demagogue, able to manipulate public opinion and remain popular?
What if Rudd had called an election in February, increased his majority and continued his ‘boiling frog’ act of gradually centralising power in his own office for another three years?
In the final 12 months of the Howard government there were 64 cabinet meetings. In the first 12 months of the Rudd government there were 235 constituted cabinet meetings — an astonishing increase in activity.
But most of these were not cabinet meetings — they were meetings of a subcommittee of cabinet called the Strategic Priorities and Budget Committee, the so-called gang of four, or kitchen cabinet, of Rudd, Deputy Prime Minister Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner.
As everyone now knows, most government decisions over the past two and a half years were made by this group, and often by just Rudd and Swan (like the RSPT), and then brought to full cabinet for rubber stamping — sometimes not even that. The shift towards committee government had been justified by the global financial crisis and then it became a habit.
These days company boards have to publish corporate governance statements about how they operate. Consultants are paid millions to advise on proper corporate governance and directors are fastidious about process.
What we have learnt from the past two and a half years is that there is no such governance standards prescribing the way the government must work. If a PM wants to bypass cabinet and run the government as a kind of autocracy, he or she can do it. No one complains unless the opinion polls turn against the PM.
And the fact that Rudd was able to be brought down by ALP enemies before the end of his first term means the flaws in the system will not be addressed — the Canberra elites are now telling themselves, in fact, it works fine. See? Rudd strayed from the path of proper governance and was efficiently sacked.
What I told last night’s gathering was that they were just lucky. It turned out Rudd was a bit of an idiot who didn’t know what was going on. Even last Wednesday night he vowed to stay on, unaware that he was already dead.
If he had been ‘saved’ by a major terrorist attack in the past couple of months or had been smarter, it would have been a different story.
So what should be done? Preferably there should be a change to the constitution recognising the authority and responsibility of ministers. At the moment the constitution barely recognises their existence, let alone spells out what they are supposed to do and how the prime minister is supposed to treat them.
Failing that, since constitutional change is nearly impossible, Gillard should ask the Cabinet Office to prepare a ‘Statement of Governance Practice’ that spells out the proper way in which the Australian government is to operate. It should set out in writing what she has promised verbally to do.
This document could be passed as a law, or perhaps just affirmed, by both houses of parliament so that it binds all parties to the proper use of cabinet at all times, except in rare and specified circumstances.
The policy mistakes of the past six months, and specifically the RSPT, should never be allowed to happen again.
Hallelujah!!!!! Good one Alan…especially the bit about ‘Statement of Governance Practice’ – should be enacted asap……
Hmmm. Interesting perspective. Raises a few questions for me:
a) was Howard’s way any different? My impression of that government was that Howard was in charge, and his Ministers did whatever he told them to – Cabinet as rubber stamp. At least with the Arbib/Shorten putsch, they knew everyone’s phone numbers and managed to get the knives out. Costello and his lot never even had the guts to do that.
b) give us an example of a truly Cabinet- run government – State or Federal – where the contribution of all makes for better government;
c) if it was so bad under Rudd, why did it take them so long to do anything about it? and
d) as a member of the ‘kitchen cabinet’, how can Gillard and Swan have any credibility? I’ve never thought Swan up to the job – Tanner would have made a much better Treasurer, and been a more credible face of economic policy for the Rudd government.
I’m not convinced that putting the RSPT or anything else before Cabinet would have improved the policies of the government. Surely what was needed was good policy advice, including implementation. Listening to Ken Henry might have been a good start.
Alan- I have to ask – what is the “Cabinet Office” of which you speak? Do you mean the Cabinet Secretariat in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, or do you mean the office of the Cabinet Secretary (currently Senator Ludwig)?
@Jenny – you are somewhat correct to say that the Howard government also had form on not consulting before making politically sensitive decisions – sometimes resulting in appalling policy decisions, however I do believe that there was a more collegiate approach in that Cabinet than has been in evidence the past couple of years.
Governments do not have to take the policy advice of their departments (where they request that advice) and sometimes political ends trump effective policy. An emphasis on implementation and measurable outcomes is still sadly under-represented in much policy advice, making it difficult to both deliver and measure outcomes.
Ho hum, another day another Rudd and/or Government bash. Kick him while he’s down, kicked him whilst he was up and will probably kick him in his grave.
If I remember correctly the Rudd opposition were being held to a very high standard as an alternate government throughout the last election year, to a higher standard than the sitting government.
Where is all the scrutiny and holding of the Abbott opposition to a high standard in an election year, and why are they being allowed to get away with saying and doing just about anything they please?
How about asking Abbott how he will run his cabinet if in power and then hold him to that? I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen though.