MP pushes for new laws to end ‘jobs for mates’ culture

Independent MP Sophie Scamps is pushing for all major government-appointed jobs to be chosen through an independent panel process, stepping up pressure on Labor to do more to end the jobs-for-mates culture that has pervaded federal agencies and tribunals.

In her first private member’s bill, to be introduced on Monday, the Mackellar MP will propose establishing a public appointments commissioner whose job it would be to steer an arm’s-length recruitment process to block governments from handing lucrative appointments to political allies.

Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps says a proposal by Labor does not go far enough. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The proposal goes further than the Albanese government’s commitment to end the practice of political appointees after Finance Minister Katy Gallagher last month ordered a review into public sector board appointments that she said would “put merit and integrity back at the centre” of the process.

Scamps said Labor’s review, which will be led by former Australian public service commissioner Lynelle Briggs with findings due mid-year, would offer limited reform because it was focused on board appointments only.

“It doesn’t go nearly far enough. What I’m proposing is a gold-standard, best-practice model for making sure we have an independent and transparent process,” Scamps said.

“What my bill is looking at is all accountable authorities, all those integrity institutions that underpin our democracy, like the commissioner for the National Anti-Corruption Commission and appointments to the National Audit Office, and the Australian Electoral Commission,” she said.

Asked to respond to Scamps’ proposed changes, a spokesman for Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley pointed to several appointments by the Labor government which the spokesman said were handpicked, including Professor Peter Dawkins as the interim director of the new Jobs and Skills Australia agency.

The government has pledged to follow an open selection process for the permanent leadership once the agency’s final model has been determined.

Scamps’ proposed recruitment regime would cost $3 million a year to run, according to estimates by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office. She said this would be a “small price to pay for restoring integrity into our political system.

Private members’ bills are rarely ever backed by government, but they can influence the public debate and policy settings, as independent MP Helen Haines proved in the previous parliament with her influential bill prosecuting the case for a national corruption watchdog.

Scamps’ bill limits a minister’s role to determining the selection criteria for a job at the start of recruitment and then appointing a candidate from a shortlist compiled by new independent selection panels inside Commonwealth departments.

The public appointments commissioner and the panels would provide the minister with a choice of three candidates for each position, with the minister unable to add any further candidate.

The bill would also establish a parliamentary joint committee on appointments, which would have oversight of the new system and be required to have a non-government majority to ensure its independence.

The proposed legislation, to be seconded by Haines, has been drafted with the Centre for Public Integrity, a public policy think tank led by former judges and legal academics, and closely resembles recommendations made by the Grattan Institute last year in a report on political appointments.

The Grattan Institute’s analysis found that 21 per cent of appointees to federal government board positions since 2014 had direct political connections.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus announced in December that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal would be abolished and a new tribunal would be set up in its place by the end of 2023, while all existing members would be required to reapply for their jobs in line with a new merit-based selection process.

The federal opposition accused Dreyfus of aiming to “stack” the tribunal himself after he said the Coalition had “irreversibly damaged” the body charged with reviewing government decisions. Thirty-one per cent of appointees since 2017 were linked to the Liberal and National parties. 

Scamps said that while the scrapping of the tribunal was welcome, her bill would enshrine in law a robust process to ensure that cronyism would not infect the new body in the future.

Anthony Whealy, a former NSW Court of Appeal judge and the chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, said a legislated independent process was needed to restore confidence in public appointments.

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