Jeff Kennett: I won’t work for a cheating government
CHEATING seems to be accepted across government and sport. But that doesn’t mean that we should just accept it, writes Jeff Kennett.
Opinion
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AT the end of my president’s address at the dinner prior to Hawthorn’s game against Collingwood on Saturday night, I said words to the effect, “let’s hope we witness a good game with no injuries and may the best team win”.
Why? Because I understand the importance of football to the good health of millions of Australians and other sports, such as cricket, also help us through some of the challenges, stress and anxiety we face every day.
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We all want our team to win, but competing, and the competition itself, are much more important.
In the past two weeks we have seen the spirit of competition severely compromised and challenged, in two different fronts: the conduct of politics in Victoria and the conduct of our cricket team in South Africa.
In Victoria Labor cheated to maximise its chances of victory at the election in 2014.
Not only did it cheat using our money, it then spent our money to stop any investigation and more recently to stop the release of the findings of the independent Ombudsman, Deborah Glass.
Just before the report was released, the ALP repaid the amount it was found to have taken from the public, roughly $388,000. But of course it has not repaid the huge amount it spent trying to stop the release of the report.
And the Premier and his colleagues have refused to accept any personal responsibility.
So, what happens if a person robs a convenience store, a bank, or steals from a client, is caught and repays the money? Will our government say that is fine and no further penalty need be imposed?
I have a personal respect for many people in the Victorian government. For me politics has always been about the challenge of ideas and implementing those ideas successfully. Partisan politics has never been as important as delivering positive outcomes.
My appointment of John Cain’s chief of staff Elizabeth Proust as head of the Premiers Department in the early 1990s, or working to have Julia Gillard succeed me at beyondblue, should be testimony of my approach to public administration.
But so disappointed am I at the failure of the Andrews government to apply its standards consistently, to accept responsibility for the fraud it has collectively committed, I have decided to resign as chairman of the review panel overseeing the introduction of Victoria’s first medically supervised injecting facility.
I have been an advocate for such a facility for a long time. In the past few months I have done considerable work preparing for this role.
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But as a citizen I do not feel comfortable on one hand criticising the government for an abject failure of standards yet on the other hand work for it.
So on Tuesday I wrote to the Premier resigning as review panel chairman. That might not be earth shattering, I know, but I consider it a small step in support of higher standards of accountability in public administration.
The fact is the Andrews government, and some of the leaders of our national cricket team, have lost any moral authority. NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell lost his job over a bottle of wine, Victorian Labor hounded MP Geoff Shaw over the claimed misuse of his government provided vehicle — but when it was caught defrauding the Victorian public, the Premier and his team appear to believe those standards do not apply to them.
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That failure to accept any responsibility damages the reputation of public administration — indeed it’s a further erosion of confidence in politicians and the political process.
Many will say “well, what else would you expect from politicians”. But the conduct of our Parliament is important and I consider public service to be the most honourable of all service.
Whether talking politics or sport, I am reminded of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, who said: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”
The spirit of that attitude applies to life as much as it does to sport; but we seem to have lost sight of the fact that the spirit in which competition is conducted is more important than the outcome.
What has occurred in South Africa has left us all feeling sullied. Our international reputation is sullied.
Think how often we have criticised Russia, and other countries, for cheating. Where does that leave us now? How can we promote good sportsmanship when one of our national teams has so blatantly cheated?
What example does that set for the thousands of boys and girls who play sport?
Of course, no one is perfect, and we all make mistakes, but that is very different from deliberately setting out to defraud, to cheat, in order to simply gain advantage over one’s opponent.
I hope the rest of the week is better than the past two.
Have a good day.
Jeff Kennett is a former premier of Victoria
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