The Ethics Centre's Simon Longstaff. Illustration: John ShakespeareCredit:
Among this city’s solar system of think tanks, not-for-profits and public policy outfits, it’s hard to find one more tedious than Simon Longstaff’s Ethics Centre.
We count among its greatest hits the long-running Festival of Dangerous Ideas, a talkfest which ranged from the mundane (The Asian Arms Race) to the bizarre (Sex Robots Have No Ethics) to the truly stupid (Honour Killings Are Morally Justifiable).
Then came the Cricket Australia-commissioned organisational review which managed to survey less than one-quarter of players – in which almost all of the board agreed CA really was living up to the organisation’s values!
Now Longstaff, as The Ethics Centre’s executive director, has weighed in on the fraught topic of lobbying, access and influence as part of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Operation Eclipse.
So it was with some interest we learnt that, just before Longstaff’s latest missive, The Ethics Centre added to its board someone with deep experience in lobbying, access and influence.
Enter Scott Gartrell, long-time lobbyist and one-time chief of staff to former Labor health minister Carmel Tebbutt (and relative of Anthony Albanese’s chief of staff Tim Gartrell).
Not that there’s anything wrong with lobbying. Take it from us, some of our best friends do it.
But what does Longstaff have to say about these issues?
“We think that lobbying … gives rise to particular ethical risks,” he wrote to the ICAC.
“Public officials might be affected by personal relationships formed with lobbyists … that is, the professional lobbyist is likely to establish relationships that amplify access and influence beyond the levels available to citizens or the direct representatives of organisations.”
Not that this was “necessarily a ‘bad thing’,'' he added.
It certainly wasn’t a bad thing when it came to Gartrell’s professional life.
Gartrell was, before joining Tebbutt’s office, employed by the lobbying firm assisting InfraShore in its attempt to win a $1 billion government contract. They were successful.
And not long after leaving Tebbutt’s office, where did Gartrell surface?
He became the chief executive of InfraShore.
There's no doubt, by then, that Gartrell had more than enough experience and familiarity with the company's operations to fill the role.
Since that time, our man Gartrell has turned up at a number of different outfits, most notably at Tom Harley’s “consulting firm” Dragoman Global.
Remember, this was the firm (before Gartrell’s time) which said it helped clients “[engage] with senior government and political figures” but refused to list itself on the lobbyist register.
Gartrell denied there was anything contradictory in appointing a lobbyist to the board, and fully supports the centre’s comments.
But lobbying “gives rise to particular ethical risks”, as Longstaff would say? You bet.
FROM TERRIGAL WITH LOVE
While we’re on this NSW Labor nostalgia trip, let’s consider former treasurer Eric Roozendaal.
Eric Roozendaal, pictured here in 2013, has been appointed to the executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies.Credit: Jesse Marlow
The last we heard of him was when he exited as chief executive of Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo’s Yuhu empire in the midst of a scandal which ended Sam Dastyari’s political career.
But did Tuesday night mark Roozendaal’s tentative re-emergence into public life?
It was then at the Sydney Jewish Museum in Darlinghurst that Roozendaal was elected — unopposed — to chair the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies’ public affairs committee.
That puts him on the organisation’s Lesli Berger-chaired executive, on which he will sit with none other than Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s principal private secretary Yaron Finkelstein.
COUNTING THE NUMBERS
CBD is loath to frequently wade into the gutter of local council politics.
But Thursday evening marks a crucial moment for town hall hopefuls across the state, specifically those who intend to run for next year’s elections under the Liberal banner.
The NSW Liberal local government committee meets at the party’s 100 William Street HQ to finalise the preselection timetable for next September’s ballot.
According to emails seen by this column, the committee’s Centre Right faction-aligned chairman Jeff Egan wants things to be finalised with some haste.
The close of rolls for those eligible to vote was, err, nearly two months ago.
The reason for such a rush, we are told, is because while branch stacking never occurs in political parties, something known as membership development definitely does.
And the way the numbers fall greatly benefits the Centre Right, the power base of Liberal MPs from International Development Minister Alex Hawke to Police Minister David Elliott.
If things should take a little more time, the party’s Moderates — think Premier Gladys Berejiklian and federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher — would be better off, as would the Right.
And another point of contention: should the party even run in areas where the scent of scandal is never far away? Liberal hopefuls in Parramatta and Fairfield better hope they give it one last crack.