Jobs for the boys: ex-pollies never end up in Kabul

EACH time a new federal government is elected there is a faint hope that it might adopt higher standards than its predecessors.

Taking Manhatttan ... former SA Liberal Senator Nick Minchin has landed the post of Consu

EACH time a new federal government is elected there is a faint hope that it might adopt higher standards than its predecessors.

Sadly that hope was again dashed this week with news that the Abbott Government would appoint former Howard Government Minister, South Australian Liberal and Tony Abbott’s hard-right co-warrior Alexander Downer to the plum job of High Commissioner in London.

The latest ‘jobs for the boys’ appointment comes just days after the government announced that another ‘mate’ in former SA Liberal Senator Nick Minchin would get the plum job of Consul-General in New York.

Downer and Minchin join a long conga line of ex-politicians who have had their snouts planted firmly in the taxpayer-funded trough long after they have left the nation’s parliament.

Old mates ... Prime Minister Tony Abbott has coffee with South Australian MP Steve Marshall and Alexander Downer. Picture: Mark Brake

Downer’s appointment elevates the political snouts in the trough habit to dynastic status after his father, Sir Alex, occupied the London job in the 1960s when young Alex was in short pants.

Former prime minister and cunning ex-diplomat Kevin Rudd cracked the mould slightly when he appointed his former political foes in Tim Fischer and Brendan Nelson to the Vatican and Brussels respectively, but Rudd like all other leaders missed the point. Taxpayers don’t like ‘jobs for the boys’ (or girls) appointments regardless of which side of politics they come from.

That is why they fund a large and expensive Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to nurture professional diplomats who are actually trained to fill jobs such as the Consul-General to New York.

Taking Manhatttan ... former SA Liberal Senator Nick Minchin has landed the post of Consul-General in New York.

One of the enduring mysteries of this system of grace and favour is how the ex-pollies always end up in New York or Rome or London or Washington and never in Port Moresby, Kabul, Nairobi or Islamabad.

The Howard Government appointed 14 political mates to plum posts following the 10 sent overseas by the Hawke/Keating regimes.

Abbott has begun his attempt at the record with Downer and Minchin, who replace former Labor Premiers Mike Rann and Steve Bracks whose appointment was cancelled the day after the Coalition was elected.

The announcement of Minchin’s appointment was accompanied by the usual platitudes about how his extensive parliamentary experience made him ideal for the role and well suited to occupy the luxurious Manhattan apartment and limousine and driver that goes with it.

Minchin will join two former Labor mates, Roger Price in Chicago and Kim Beazley in Washington, currently on the US cocktail circuit.

Downer simply lamented that he wasn’t going to Washington where the real diplomatic power lies.

To ensure that the bipartisan spirit of ‘jobs for the boys’ was alive and well Opposition Leader Bill Shorten put on his best confected anger face and said the government had “ripped up the rule book’’ with the appointment of Minchin. Presumably he was referring to a different rule book to the one applied to Steve Bracks, Kim Beazley, Roger Price et al.

Hypocrites the lot of them!