Talking Point: How could revealing grants hurt mental health

It is the antithesis of leadership to spend vast taxpayer sums secretly, says Greg Barns

Premier Peter Gutwein. Picture: Patrick Gee

NOT everyone thinks Premier Peter Gutwein is a good leader. While he got plaudits for closing down the island (an easy strategy) and therefore controlling COVID, the reality is that Mr Gutwein is glass-jawed and authoritarian. His nasty, carping and bullying performance with the ABC’s Leon Compton on Thursday was a case in point. And like all authoritarian politicians he does not believe in transparency when it comes to being accountable to the community for expenditure of their funds. Mr Gutwein was being interviewed by Mr Compton about the dangerous decision of his government to refuse to reveal the identities of businesses which have received $26m on government grants, aimed in theory anyway at avoiding the worst impact of COVID on the business bottom line. Mr Gutwein’s minister responsible Sarah Courtney and the bureaucrat in charge of the Stalinist-sounding Department of State Growth that greases the palm of businesses, Kim Evans both ran the emotionally manipulative line that identifying the businesses could have adverse mental health consequences!

On Thursday Mr Gutwein, clearly angered by Mr Compton’s very reasonable questioning, turned nasty. In essence he accused the ABC and other media of putting at risk the mental health of individuals. In a Trumpian-like turn Mr Gutwein then asked whether Mr Compton would like the government to release the names of visa-holders whom his government had rightly thrown a few dollars at because of their federal counterparts’ preparedness to let anyone who is not an Australian citizen starve during COVID.

The Premier’s tone was hectoring, bullying and showed that when forced into a corner this is not a leader who can respond with grace and flair. It is not often other media organisations and journalists publicly go into bat for each other but so appalling was Mr Gutwein’s performance that the editor of this newspaper, Jenna Cairney, tweeted on Friday that “The Premier’s treatment of @LeonCompton yesterday was disgraceful and he should apologise. Media should never be shamed in such a manner for asking for transparency. And this is absolutely NOT how to talk about mental health.”

This last point is worth dwelling upon for a moment. To accuse someone of putting at risk the mental health of others, as Mr Gutwein did in his Compton interview, is a very serious accusation and not one that should be made except in the context of their being direct and real evidence this is the case (for example, the mistreatment of asylum-seekers by the Australian government has demonstrably put at risk mental health).

This is not the first time Mr Gutwein has turned nasty when his glass jaw begins to splinter. In September the Premier accused Labor and 22 doctors at Launceston General Hospital of working hand in glove to write a letter ripping shreds off the government. It was churlish and unbecoming. So absurd was his claim Mr Gutwein was forced to apologise.

That Mr Gutwein and his government think it is acceptable to spend $26m on grants and not reveal where the money has been spent says again this premier is secretive and authoritarian. During COVID he sought to avoid parliamentary scrutiny, instead opting for tete a tetes with the Opposition Leader Bec White and the Greens leader Cassy O’Connor. He was loathe to reveal what advice he got about border closures. His government has a shocking record on disclosure of information through the right to information process. It delays then releases blacked out pages.

Mr Gutwein’s, and his predecessor Mr Hodgman was not better on this score, addiction to secrecy is corrosive of democracy. It is the antithesis of leadership. And it is the antithesis of leadership to spend vast sums of taxpayer dollars secretly. Because it is only through transparency one can detect if there has been any problematic government largesse.

Secret and authoritarian government needs to tackled and undermined. The way to do this is to encourage people of good will to blow the whistle and if necessary ensure that documents the government does not want you to see, find their way into the public arena. Leaking documents in the public interest should not be an offence or a matter for any form of sanction. Instead those who would cover up, and throw a black curtain over the window of government decision making, should be seen as the wrongdoers. And this includes the much lauded, and wrongly so, Mr Gutwein.

And lastly, as someone who lives with depression and anxiety, if this columnist had been successful in obtaining a government grant to keep the wolf from the door during COVID, publication would not cause any decline in mental health. How could it? It’s part of being in a democratic society that the community knows which businesses get what from taxpayers.

Hobart barrister Greg Barns SC is a human rights lawyer.