Transparency and Accountability: Our Agenda

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1 Transparency and Accountability: Our Agenda Senator John Faulkner Cabinet Secretary and Special Minister of State 30 October 2008 First, let me acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, and pay my respects to their elders past and present. Ladies and gentleman, United States Senator Alan K Simpson once said: If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don t have integrity, nothing else matters. Senator Simpson was talking about personal integrity but his words can equally be applied to integrity in government, for government integrity is at the heart of the democratic contract. This is a far broader concept than the personal integrity of those who hold public office, although such personal integrity is a crucial component of government integrity. As the Chief Justice of NSW, James Spigelman, said in his 2004 lecture on The Integrity Branch of Government, government integrity is where each governmental institution exercises the powers conferred on it in the manner in which it is expected and/or required to do so and for the purposes for which those powers were conferred, and for no other purpose. 1 In other words, government integrity is about methods and means, as much as it is about the individual probity of officials and bureaucrats. Ladies and gentlemen, it may seem to be both simple and obvious to say that our government institutions, organisations, and officials ought to act and operate as the parliament and the public sanction. However, it is an age-old fact that power accretes to the institutions and individuals who exercise it. This is not unique to democracy, but exposes one of the internal strains and contradictions in democratic government. 1 The Integrity Branch of Government The First Lecture in the 2004 National Lecture Series for the Australian Institute of Administrative Law by the Honourable James J Spigelmen AC, Chief Justice of New South Wales (Sydney, 29 April 2004)

2 In a democracy, power may belong to the people but it is exercised on their behalf by both public servants charged with administration, and by politicians authorised by electoral success to implement their policies and programs. For both elected governments and appointed public servants, there is what one writer has described as the constant temptation of slipping into less regulated ways of wielding power, of becoming less democratic as they go along. 2 This is why the Government s agenda of returning a high level of integrity to government in Australia is a comprehensive policy program, not simply an expression of goodwill. Ladies and gentlemen, the Labor Party went into the Federal 2007 election campaign with a strong suite of policies to this end. Many of these policies will bring more transparency. Two examples are reform to political donation disclosure laws and reform to the Freedom of Information regime. Transparency ensures appropriate visibility to government actions and the political process. I've personally taken the view, after many years in both politics and Parliament, that there s no better way to achieve integrity and accountability within government and government transactions than by promoting transparency and openness. Australians must be able to know how their government works, and have confidence that authority is exercised appropriately. In the almost one year since the Rudd Government was elected, we have made considerable progress in this area and we have a comprehensive agenda to move even further forward. We have demonstrated our commitment to the principle of parliamentary responsiveness. Parliamentary responsiveness is something that non-government MPs place a higher priority on than perhaps do the general public. Yet accountability to the parliament is fundamental to our democratic system, and critical to transparency. In the early days of the Rudd Government, Cabinet made a deliberate decision that Ministers and their Departments had to be much more responsive to questions placed on notice by MPs and Senators and we have met that challenge. For example, consider the record of the Prime Minister s own department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. For questions-on-notice lodged in the financial year, in which the government changed, the average response time was 161 days for House of Representatives questions and 70 days for Senate questions. This compares positively to the last full financial year of the Howard Government, , where the figures of 182 days for House of Representatives questions and 152 days for Senate questions. 2 Eva Etzioni-Halevy Bureaucracy and democracy

3 That s an improvement, but those statistics don t tell the whole story of the impact of our Government s commitment to parliamentary responsiveness. In the financial year, the average time to answer House of Representative questions on notice was 207 days before the change of government but only twenty six days after the change of government. Similarly, in the Senate, average response time was 115 days before the change of government but reduced to 55 days after the change of government. The new government has also ensured that answers to all Senate Estimates questions from the Prime Minister s portfolio have been provided within the time frames set down by the Senate. As a Senator with some experience of Estimates from the non- Government side of the table, I can tell you that this was not standard operating procedure under the Howard Government! The Government takes responsiveness to Parliamentary inquiries so seriously that we have included for the first time in the Standards of Ministerial Ethics the requirement that: Ministers are required to provide an honest and comprehensive account of their exercise of public office, and of the activities of the agencies within their portfolios, in response to any reasonable and bona fide enquiry by a member of the Parliament or a Parliamentary Committee. 3 The Prime Minister released his Standards of Ministerial Ethics on 6 December 2007 three days after the Government was sworn into office. The Standards set out the Prime Minister s expectations of his Ministers and reflect the fact that, as holders of public office, Ministers are invested with immense authority and entrusted with wide discretionary powers. As we have seen both in Australia and overseas, setting out vague expectations for personal integrity is not an automatic guarantee that such expectations will be met or enforced. The Government s Standards give specific guidance. Two notable new inclusions are the requirements of the standards that: o Ministers must undertake that, for a period of 18 months after they have left office, they will not seek to have business dealings with members of the Government, the Australian Public Service or the Australian Defence Force on any matters that they dealt with in an official capacity in the preceding 18 months; and o electoral fundraising at the Prime Minister s official residences (The Lodge and Kirribilli House) is prohibited. Ladies and Gentlemen, while the number of ministerial staff has greatly increased since the early seventies, there has until recently been little thought given to the need to formalise their role and responsibilities. Yet undeniably, ministerial staff are critical to the way in which the government functions. On 26 June 2008 I tabled in the Senate the first comprehensive code governing the conduct of ministerial staff at the federal level. The Code took effect from 1 July Along with requirements for personal integrity, the Code requires staff to provide statements of private interests and declare in writing the receipt of gifts and 3 Standards of Ministerial Ethics [4.4]

4 sponsored travel, and to recognise that executive decisions are the preserve of Ministers and public servants, and not ministerial staff acting in their own right. This last obligation ensures that executive decisions are made by those who are accountable to Parliament or its committees, and that government powers are exercised appropriately and by appropriate persons. This evening I am announcing a further extension of transparency in relation to Ministerial Staff. The Government is introducing an annual report on Ministerial and Parliamentary staffing, following the recommendations for more transparency contained in the Forshaw Report. This annual report will provide an overview of the numbers of Ministerial staff and the costs of their employment. It will significantly enhance the transparency of employment arrangements for all MOP(S) Act employees and the report will be tabled in the Parliament. The Members of Parliament Staff annual report will include: an overview of the employment framework; a staffing overview, including position allocations and employment numbers and types; a summary of employee home bases and nonstandard home bases I have approved; salary ranges and information about non-salary benefits; and other related information such as fraud prevention and control, occupational health and safety, and professional development. Ladies and gentlemen, another group playing an increasing role in modern government is lobbyists. On the 13 th of May this year, I tabled the Government s new Lobbying Code of Conduct, fulfilling our election commitment to adopt a Lobbying Code of Conduct and establish a Register of Lobbyists. I tabled the new Lobbying Code on 13 May The Code was adopted to promote trust in the integrity of government processes and ensure that contacts between lobbyists and Australian Government representatives are conducted in accordance with public expectations of transparency, integrity and honesty. In adopting the Code, the Government recognised that lobbying is a legitimate activity and part of the democratic process. However, there was a concern that Government representatives who were the target of lobbying activities were not always fully informed as to the identity of the people who had engaged a lobbyist to speak on their behalf. This information can be fundamental to the integrity of government decisions and should be freely available to those who are lobbied and to the wider public. The Register became fully operational on 1 July From that date, lobbyists who represent third parties must be on the Register or they cannot lobby Government representatives. As of 10 October 2008, 204 entities were on the Register, with a total of 522 individual lobbyists registered. You can now find the full details on the public Register.

5 Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot speak about transparency and accountability in government without considering the operation of our Freedom of Information laws. On 22 July 2008 I announced the Government s intention to implement our election commitments for FOI reform. The aim of these reforms is to promote a prodisclosure culture across Australian Government agencies. The Government intends to implement its election commitments to reform the FOI Act in two phases: introduction of a bill to remove the power to issue conclusive certificates in the FOI Act (and the Archives Act 1983) by the end of this year; and release of exposure draft legislation for public comment addressing broader reforms of the FOI Act as early as practicable in The exposure draft legislation will address remaining matters identified in the Government s election policy, Government information: restoring trust and integrity. Key initiatives are: the establishment of an FOI Commissioner, who will be an independent statutory officer and champion for FOI; implementation of other key recommendations of the 1996 joint Australian Law Reform Commission and Administrative Review Council Open government report; and making access to a person s own information free of charge. As part of the Government s determination to strengthen integrity in governance, the Australian Government is committed to a pro-disclosure culture within the public sector. Our efforts go beyond FOI. We are also examining how we should protect public interest disclosures, often referred to as whistleblowing. The Government has referred the issue of whistleblower protection in the federal public sector to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, chaired by my colleague Mark Dreyfus. The Government has asked the Committee to consider and report on a preferred model by February The Government will examine the Committee s recommendations with the aim of developing legislation implementing strengthened whistleblower protections during the course of Ladies and gentlemen, in a democracy, where the ultimate accountability is to the public through the ballot box, the fair, open and transparent operation of our electoral system is essential. The Government is committed to improving the integrity of the electoral system and, most urgently, to restoring transparency, openness and accountability to the funding and disclosure regime.

6 In March, I announced that the Government would introduce legislation to close loopholes in donation disclosure and public funding laws. That Bill was introduced into the Senate on 15 May The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters reported on the Bill on 23 October. While I am currently considering the Committee s recommendations for minor amendments to the Bill, I remain strongly committed to seeing this important legislation passed before year s end. The legislation includes measures to: lower the threshold for the disclosure of political donations and political expenditure from $10,900 to $1,000; introduce six-monthly disclosure of donations and political expenditure, rather than just annual disclosure; ban anonymous and foreign donations; no longer allow donations to separate branches of the same party to be treated as separate donations for disclosure purposes, and so close a loophole where multiple donations below the threshold can be hidden; and make the receipt of public funding for elections more accountable, by tying it to verified electoral expenditure, so that candidates are not able to make a financial gain from public funding. I consider these measures to be urgent. They are critically important reforms. It was therefore disappointing earlier this year to see this legislation deliberately obstructed by the Opposition, with an unnecessary referral to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, in an attempt to delay its passage for more than twelve months. I have also announced that the Government will release two papers on electoral reform for public comment, as part of a green paper process. The first paper, to be released soon, will focus on disclosure, funding and campaign expenditure. This first paper will discuss both the values Australian electoral law ought to serve, and the specific measures taken to pursue those values. In considering reforms to Australia s political finance regime, we must consider first what we wish our democracy to look like, how we want it to operate, and what kind of political parties and candidates we want to have. In Australia, as in other democracies around the world, the potential for large sums of money in election and campaign financing to go undisclosed has become more and more a matter of concern. Perceptions of the potentially distorting nature of large donations either in cash or in kind to political parties degrades the public s trust in the integrity of the political process. The perception of undue influence can be as damaging to democracy as undue influence itself. It undermines confidence in our processes of government, making it difficult to untangle the motivation behind policy decisions. Electors are left wondering if decisions have been made on their merits. Public debate, the involvement of the Federal Parliament s Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and a genuine consultative approach with the states and territories about these issues is critical, but it is also vital that we attempt to work cooperatively with political parties of all persuasions to progress these issues. We must

7 work within the framework provided by our Constitution and democratic system, and in line with the values of our Australian democracy, values which I hope are shared across all parties. I also hope a level of bipartisan political support can be achieved for these changes to promote greater transparency and accountability. I will certainly work hard to get that, but I can assure you that the Government will not back away from our commitment to strengthening the integrity of Australia s electoral system. A further measure included in our program to restore a high level of integrity to government in Australia is winding back the previous government s expansion of the advantages of incumbency. While there is, I believe, widespread acceptance that it is reasonable for Government Ministers to have staff to assist them, and that the Government should communicate information about policies to the general public, such tax-payer funded resources should be used for the business of government, and not exploited for partisan political advantage. Shortly after taking office, the Government implemented its election commitment to reduce the number of ministerial staff. The Government also fulfilled its election commitment to reduce the printing entitlement of members and senators. From 1 July 2008 the printing entitlement for Members of the House of Representatives was reduced from $150,000 to $100,000 per financial year; the provision for Members to rollover up to 45% of the base printing entitlement was removed; and the printing entitlement for Senators was reduced from $20,000 to $16,667 per financial year. One of the starkest illustration of the difference between our approach and that of the previous government is the end of the abuse of Government advertising for partisan political purposes. On 2 July this year I announced a new process and new guidelines for Government advertising which will take the politics out of Government communications. The new guidelines ensure that: Advertising should have a legislative authority, appropriation or be subject to a Cabinet decision intended to be implemented during the current Parliament. Material should be produced and distributed in an efficient, effective and relevant manner, with due regard to accountability. Material should be presented in an objective, fair and accessible manner. Material should not be directed at promoting party political interests or contain political argument. I think every Australian with a television will agree that this is a very different way of doing business to that which prevailed under the Howard Government.

8 We have put an end to political spin in government advertising by abolishing the Ministerial Committee of Government Communications, which was comprised of Ministers, Liberal MPs and senior Ministerial staff. This committee politicised Government advertising campaigns. We also abolished the Government Communications Unit located in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Development of Government communication campaigns is now managed at a departmental, not a political, level. Departmental Secretaries are responsible for ensuring that advertising complies with the new guidelines and their certification of any campaign against the guidelines will be reviewed by the Auditor General, providing an external and independent sign-off of every campaign costing more than $250, 000. As an additional transparency measure I have also announced that government advertising campaign expenditures will be published every six months. Every report on government advertising will be tabled in Parliament, beginning early Ladies and gentlemen, I have said before, Australia s tradition of democracy is older than the nation of Australia itself: our nation was founded through a process that was orderly, parliamentary and profoundly democratic. Our founding fathers were directly elected by the people of what would become the Commonwealth of Australia. The Constitution they drafted, which created our nation, was adopted by popular vote in every colony. As the only Australian political party older than the nation, the Australian Labor Party has a great tradition of support and respect for the institutions, conventions and values that underpin our democracy. One of the most fundamental of these is the integrity of government, without which the connection between ballot box and policy outcome becomes tenuous and uncertain. And I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that I am committed to, and the Government I am a member of is committed to, ensuring the structures and processes of federal government and administration support transparency and accountability. Transparency and accountability are worthy aims in themselves. Their overarching significance, however, is found as a buttress for integrity in government, the bedrock of public trust for government action.