Would we know good governance if we see it?

Miss Eagle finds herself focussing more and more on the topic of governance. So it seems about time to discuss what governance means. Miss E's ancient Concise Oxford Dictionary (Sixth impression 1978) gives the following definition:

n. Act, manner, fact, or function, of governing; sway, control

The phrase "corporate governance" has entered the language in recent years following spectacular failures in governance and oversight across the globe.

Miss Eagle has been discussing governance in the public sphere; in particular, in the state and federal governments of the Commonwealth of Australia. In Australia, there are quite a few runs for poor performance getting up on the scoreboard.

Governance is a simple word. It differs from the word Government which relates more to(definition thank s to the old COD):

1. System of governing, form of organization of State.

2. Body or successive bodies of persons governing a State; the State as an agent; and administration or ministry.

Another term for governance in the public sphere (as opposed to the corporate or business sphere) is Public Administration.

Australia has produced some fine servants of the public who have exhibited a high level of administrative expertise in the public interest. Miss Eagle thinks of her hero, Nugget Coombs;

Sir John Crawford; Sir Lenox Hewitt OBE (father of British politician, Patricia Hewitt); and John Menadue. Perhaps there are, as this is written, distinguished men and women beavering away within bureaucracies of state and federal government.

However, life has moved on in public administration. Most heads of department are on timed contracts. They are dependent on their political masters to renew their contract. Prior to the introduction of timed contracts, public servants were tenured. The contract system has allowed a thorough-going politicisation of the public sector. (Yes Miss E knows that politicisation did precede the introduction of contracts but it is Miss E's view that politicisation was not on the same scale as that which prevails now.) Time and again public administration in Australia seems to demonstrate master-pleasing advice and action rather than the old "without fear or favour" culture.

The servants of the public are not acquitting themselves well. Instance the equivocation, cover up, inaction, avoidance and blurring by DFAT bureaucrats before the AWB inquiry.

Miss Eagle is not the only with a point of view about governance in Australia. Over at Casting a short shadow, Miss Eagle discovered a reference to a speech by Lieutenant General John Sanderson, AC given as the Annual Oration 2007 to the Order of Australia Association entitled Federal Renewal and Unity in Reconciliation: a return to government by the people.

Miss Eagle is happy to forward a copy of this speech to readers if they email their requests to Miss Eagle's email address which is accessible if you look under the AusFlag logo on the sidebar.

Is that the sound of a passing buck whistling on by?

Prime Minister John Howard appeared at the Cole Inquiry this morning and it appears to have been a damp squib affair. Any Australian who thinks its government is astute, on-the-ball, accountable and transparent has surely been proved wrong in evidence given to the Cole Inquiry by Howard, Downer and Vaile. While Miss Eagle does not wish to prejudge Cole's findings, she does not have great confidence. AWB is almost certain to bear the brunt of any findings with the likelihood of the distant and uninvolved (as far as the Cole Inquiry has been concerned) UN getting some opprobrium. As Mike Steketee says, "if no minister is to be held to account, that points to something very rotten in our system of government. "

Miss Eagle believes that time is an element that is frequently discounted. The three ministers along with Commissioner Cole and Counsel Assisting the Inquiry, John Agius SC, have their actions or lack of action exposed through this Inquiry. Miss Eagle likes the old Buddhist saying -"you may forget your actions, but your actions don't forget you".

Kevin Rudd: rust-proof, high-yielding and red?

...and while there's mention of Kevin Rudd and the scandalous behaviour of AWB, Miss Eagle has uncovered a little known fact. AWB has listed an interesting variety of wheat with the name of Rudd. In the great and historic tradition of Australian wheat, it has great resistance to rust and is high yielding. It is a red feed quality grain and a dual purpose winter wheat for grazing as well as grain production. It is suitable for the high rainfall regions of VIC, TAS, NSW, QLD, SA, WA which means it should steer clear of dryland marginals.

Downer: perjury, misleading or fiddling the truth?

Kevin Rudd says that Alexander Downer has denied reading a cable in relation to the AWB oil-for-food scandal which he formerly admitted, in Parliament, to reading. More information please, Kevin. Miss Eagle wants to know did Downer mislead Parliament or did he commit perjury at the Cole Inquiry? It may not be proper to ask if he is fiddling with the truth.

Downer: Innate, primate, or Sergeant Schultz.

Are they born this way? Or is it a learned response? Y'know Governance 101 - Subtitle: See no evil, hear no evil, read no evil. Or is it just too much television: the Sergeant Schultz response - I know noth-ing. And it appears it is not just Alexander Downer, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs with responsibility for matters relating to the UN and the oil-for-food scandal, but all those bureaucrats in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Whichever way it becomes ingrained into political and bureaucratic personnel, we have seen the art form at work before - in the Children Overboard affair.

And the one time the Department queried anything, they asked AWB if they did it and they said no. What thorough-going investigators they are! Police don't take a suspect's word for it that they are innocent. Immigration officers don't take new arrivals' words that they are genuine refugees and asylum seekers. But the word is taken of a corporation whose personnel support the incumbent government when it denies breaching international law and indulges in breaches of Australian corporate law. What a difference a white collar and designer tie makes!

The next questions are - who reads and actions memos? How would they know if their houses were on fire?

Vaile sells out Australia's integrity, Australia's good name

What price can be put on integrity, reputation, and good name? They are priceless. Once integrity is besmirched, reputation downgraded, and a good name has become a byword, it is difficult - in fact, well nigh impossible - to make up the ground that has been lost. So it is with Australia following the AWB bribes and kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime. Australians have been and are shamed by the actions of AWB's gun-totin' cowboys - gun-totin' cowboys who were buoyed with the confidence of Australia's Howard Government.

Australia's Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, made that quite clear in his evidence to the Cole Inquiry yesterday. He didn't read the cables. He didn't ride shotgun on his department. He didn't double-check with his department. He didn't require an investigation to be carried out into the probity of AWB. He bought the flim-flam lock, stock and smoking barrel and then he dished it out - through the Ambassador - vouching for AWB with the solid backing of Australia's integrity, Australia's good name, Australia's reputation.

Read Mark Vaile in his own words here.

Vaile, venality and vacuity

His written statement addressed 21 diplomatic cables about suspected irregularities in AWB contracts, and 21 times he said: "I have no recollection of receiving or reading this cable."

This is the summation of Mark Vaile's evidence given to-day at the Cole Inquiry into the oil-for-food scandal uncovered by the United Nations which showed AWB, Australia's single-desk wheat seller, was the biggest subscriber, through bribery sometimes known as 'facilitation fees', to Saddam Hussein's coffers.

It appears from to-day's evidence that - if the Cole Inquiry's Terms of Reference allowed it - it would be possible to draw a conclusion that Mark Vaile, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Minister for Trade and Leader of the National Party (a rural rump agriculturally based party), has been negligent in his administration of the Department of Trade.

The sort of support the AWB expected of and was provided by the AustralianGovernment was something worthy of Australia Inc dogma and politics. Tim Costello - CEO of World Vision, aid activist and brother of Australian Treasurer Peter Costello - suggested at a public meeting in Melbourne yesterday that official government aid money was diverted from AusAid to the benefit of AWB in its dealings with and in Iraq.

Now the taxpayers of this country, the defence forces of this country who have been sent to the mess of Iraq, those who expect ethical and responsible governance require answers. At this point of the inquiry, those of us on the outside looking in are left to think that Ministers including the Prime Minister and their Heads of Departments were asleep at the wheel at best and complicit or negligent in their attitudes to malfeasance at worst.

Oh, and by the way, Vaile's evidence carried a sting in its tail. A desperate throw of the dice, perhaps? A little insurance? He mentioned that he had no ministerial responsibility for the United Nations or its oil-for-food program in Iraq. The person who has will be next cab off the rank, to-morrow.

Tim Costello: AusAid, Flugge and AWB

Tim Costello, speaking at the Melbourne Town Hall, 9 April 2006

The heat is on and so is the game at the Cole Inquiry

"The heat is on" says the song and, now that Ministers have to make statements to the Cole Inquiry into AWB's dealings with Iraq on wheat contracts, things are hotting up. Last night, the Prime Minister on the 7.30 Report said

it stands to reason that if Cole finds that Downer or Howard were told by AWB that it was paying kickbacks and we did nothing about it, it would be game over.

Kevin Rudd and people associated with him have been sitting in the inquiry keeping count. To-day, Kim Beazley said in the House of Representatives that the Cole Inquiry had been told of 27 occasions when the Australian Government had been told of AWB kickbacks to Iraq. Beazley then declared the game "on".

Miss Eagle thinks that perhaps The Hon Terence Cole AO QC is miffed or at least Counsel assisting the Inquiry, John Agius SC, is. Miss Eagle thinks he is miffed at Howard's hide in the Kerry O'Brien interview last night. Then the "game over" attitude blew out courtesy of Beazley to-day to "game on".

It is clear that Howard is not going to volunteer a further extension of the Terms of Reference to the Inquiry and Cole, who appears to be the essence of propriety, is not going to stretch the situation beyond the norm to pointedly request an extension of the Terms. But Cole is not only a man of integrity. He is a man of intelligence. He has played his cards as they have come but in a well prepared and searching way. The mountain of evidence requires ministerial input before the Inquiry. So it begins with the obvious suspects - Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Mark Vaile, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade.

Miss Eagle will be using her eagle eyes to see if the Downer and Vaile statements exhibit ministerial and departmental self-justification and to assess the accuracy and alertness and overall quality of their individual (surely they would not collude) memories.

The heat is on. The game is on. Bring it on!

Smoking guns become a cannonade at the AWB kickback inquiry

Is amnesia in the workplace contagious? Is John Howard suffering from the same failure to recall as Trevor Flugge? He is keen to tell us that there are lots of cables come to his office and that he doesn't see them all.

Well, Prime Minister - Miss Eagle never imagined that you did. You see, you always - well, almost always - look pretty relaxed. None of that ageing in office that she remembers with Malcolm Fraser. And when you are filmed at your desk, it is clear that you adhere to a "clean desk" policy so it has always been reasonable to assume that the cables and correspondence are piled high on someone else's desk.

So whose resonspibility was it to read the cables - and remember they were sent not only to you but to quite a number of ministers? Pass the buck all you like - but in the end it has to stop with you, Prime Minister.

Of course, if office policy has been one-remove-deniability as it appeared to be in the children overboard scandal and no-responsibility-taken as with the great variety of immigration malfeasance, then how are you ever going to see a cable alleging impropriety even if it is the only cable ever received.

You are responsible for setting the pace, Prime Minister,

not only in your office but for the whole-of-government.

'Onya, Einfeld J.

Justice Marcus Einfeld has a distinguished track record. He is one of Australia's most distinguished jurists and one of our most outstanding activists in the matter of human rights. Most recently he was part of the team who dealt - with great sagacity - with the Australian Government on the matter of Vivian Alvarez Solon and her compensation and her repatriation to Australia.

Last night, at the University of Western Sydney, he said

Apparently political transparency is a democratic ideal to which we only pay lip service these days.

He was speaking with particular reference to the support of terrorism by western democracies and with direct reference to the involvement of the Australian Government in the support of the regime of Saddam Hussain by AWB . However, political transparency is an issue for democratic governance in Australia whether it is at Federal level with a Liberal-National coalition or at State level where there is an ALP hegemony across the states. "Commercial-in-Confidence" has become a modern catch cry, a wall government puts up to hide its dealings from public view. This goes hand in hand where government has "de-regulated" and put many areas which once had direct government oversight into the hands of the private sector. This allows government to be at least one remove when accountability and transparency is sought and encourages a culture of deniability. And the Howard Government has become the master of deniability. The Tampa affair and the children overboard matter are areas where the Prime Minister was able to achieve a high level of deniability and was never brought to book by the Australian electorate.

Justice Einfeld asks:

...how far we can allow ourselves to be led away from fundamental liberal and democratic tenets in the name of the fight against terrorism. The anti-terrorism bill - in particular its anti-sedition laws - was, "a Pandora's box of possible abuses if used incorrectly". He added: "This is the hallmark of a society leaning towards an autocratic framework, one in which nationalism, homogeneity and a warped and misinformed concept of 'the other' are thrown together into a heady and volatile cocktail."

AWB and bribes

I haven't posted on the AWB bribery scandal before. It is big, it is complex, it is unfolding. It seems wise to wait - particularly when one hopes that a Government who has turned a blind eye might actually get targetted with some convincing evidence. However, that retired partygoer, Redness, at I'm Over It has drawn my attention to this ad. Get Up! Go see for yourself.

Leunig hoax Cooke-d up

The deed has been done. The name has been named. The perpetrator of the Leunig hoax is Richard Cooke of The Chaser. Now The Chaser has definitely been hanging around the Federal Parliament for far too long - it has picked up the knack of deniability. Of not letting your right hand know what the left hand is up to. Instance, the Howard Government and the AWB. Similarly, The Chaser and Richard Cooke. Cute! Don't believe ya! In fact, that's the Cooke-d goose at the right. Clearly, there is a desire to use someone else's name one way or another. Read what he has to say about that here.

Photograph by Stephen Bacon

Published by The Sydney Morning Herald