Whether minister goes comes down to politics

NO Australian minister has ever stepped down in accordance with the traditional doctrine of ministerial responsibility, whereby a minister should resign over public service failures within their department.

Come to think of it, no minister anywhere in the Westminster world has resigned on such terms. The closest example was in 1954 in Britain, when Thomas Dugdale resigned over the Crichel Down Affair -- a case about requisitioned land not being returned to its original owners. Archive materials released years after the event suggested the minister may have personally been involved in covering up the problem -- the real reason he stepped down.

Of course, ministers are also responsible to the parliament, and Peter Garrett's refusal to answer opposition questions about exactly when he was informed about a consultancy report into the roof insulation program is starting to look as if he has something to hide.

Siren calls about ministerial responsibility rarely relate to the traditional doctrine. If Garrett or any other minister acts too slowly, incompetently or corruptly -- all subjective assessments about personal action (or inaction) -- it is a political decision whether or not they should resign.

The media and opposition like to hark back to the days when the traditional model of ministerial responsibility was adhered to. There was never such a time, one of the reasons political scientists find debates like the one we are having now tedious.

If Kevin Rudd doesn't sack his Environment Minister on the grounds of ministerial responsibility, he will be in line with every Australian prime minister since Federation. If he chooses to sack Garrett for political reasons, that's a different story. Yesterday Rudd provided a brief description of what he considered ministerial responsibility to entail. It included a minister commissioning risk assessments and acting responsibly on advice received. That's a good guide for acting appropriately, but it has nothing to do with ministerial responsibility.

Rudd has to decide, if he hasn't already, whether he is better off retaining Garrett and weathering the political storm, or sacking him to allow the government to get back on message in an election year.

At the front of Rudd's mind would be the realisation that people remember ministerial resignations long after they forget what caused them, or the names of those who refused to resign. That should make the decision to retain Garrett's services an easy one, except that governments in the past that stood by ministers far less battered than Garrett on occasion developed a stench of political death that stuck all the way to polling day.

Just ask former West Australian premier Richard Court and his fair trading minister, Doug Shave, who refused to resign over a finance broker's scandal eight months ahead of the 2001 state election.