Politicisation of the Public Service
As a cause proposed for the rise of alleged corruption in the public sector, and for the rise of the whistleblowing response to such corruption, politicisation of the public service needs some definition.
In the terms of an independent public service as per the Westminster system, any politicisation of appointments in the bureaucracy may be seen as corruption.
The United States political system, however, utilises a rationale that executive government does need to work with principal appointees that have the confidence of the Executive to carry out the Executive’s policies.
This logic allegedly was used by the Goss Government when it came to power, in forcing hundreds of senior public servants into “gulags”, and appointing chiefs whom Goss had confidence would implement the policies of the Goss Cabinet.
This logic may have been tested when the Goss Cabinet ordered the destruction of the Heiner documents.
The problem with politicised appointments is that, from somewhere in the system, the Executive needs to obtain fearless advice in order to serve the public interest.
A public service supportive of government programs, if that public service loses the capability to provide fearless advice, reduces itself or is reduced to a subservient service, and is no longer a supportive public service, it is proposed.
Minister Russ Hinze used to value fearless advice from his public servants. If and when he wanted to act opposite to that advice, he would get the advice that he wanted from a private sector consultant, and then take action based on the consultant’s advice.
Significantly, Minister Hinze did not move against his public servant advisor offering the advice that the Minister rejected. Minister Hinze appeared to value the advice and the benefit that it provided to him in informational terms.
Minister Hinze, however, was not a Minister during the operation of the Freedom of Information Act. This FOI legislation, if in force and in accord with robust accountability processes now expected in 21st century governance, would have allowed others (like the Opposition and media) to access the fearless opinion offered by the public servant.
The discovery of advice contrary to the action taken by the Minister, may have caused political embarrassment.
In a system where the separation of powers is most pronounced, the US Government have a system of Congressional public hearings with respect to the most senior appointments made by the Executive.
By this technique, the US system seeks, in public view, to ensure that an appointee has the experience and skill sets to fill an appointment with capability. The US Federal system also has more effective whistleblower protection laws. This includes a separate whistleblower protection body, and legislation that entitles whistleblowers to a significant portion of the savings that the whistleblower’s disclosures provide to the government.
Australian governments have refused repeatedly to adopt any of these systems. It can occur then in Australia, that the first ‘hearing’ into the capabilities of a political appointee can happen during the Senate Inquiry into the alleged corruption disclosed by a terminated whistleblower.
The Australian system appears to pretend that what has been a political appointment has been made within the Westminster system – the pretence is then that the selected candidate has sufficient independence and capability, with the skills and experience, to offer the same quality of independent advice that the merit processes of the Westminster system were designed to provide.
A criteria by which a politicised bureaucracy acting (purportedly) in the public interest might be distinguished from a politicised bureaucracy (allegedly) affected by corruption, may be the degree to which ‘fear and favour’ processes impact upon the operations of the bureaucracy.
An activity within a ‘fear and favour’ environment, that may be an indicator of corruption, may be the activities of ministerial advisors with respect to reports being written within the agency for the agency’s CEO to then present to the Minister.
Australia needs a new word to describe public servants and contractors who lose their jobs in a bureaucracy because they refuse entry to a Ministerial advisor to their office when preparing a report, and/or refuse to change their report as suggested/directed by the Ministerial advisor before the report goes to the public servant’s general manager and CEO.
These behaviours by Ministerial advisors may reflect a fear by the politicised bureaucracy that the expert report may be accessible by others through Right to Information legislation. The politicised CEO may be well disposed or more disposed, by their politicisation, not to protect their public servant from this type of intimidation, for fear of wash-back on themselves from their political masters.
The appointment to replace the terminated ‘reportblower’, (if this ‘new” descriptor sufficiently differentiates from its cousin word, ‘whistleblower’), may then be given as a ‘favour’ to a politicised public servant, or contractor (such as the contractors that Minister Hinze may have used). The ‘favour’ is returned, in the form of the desired report content.
A ‘fear and favour’ environment in a politicised agency finds its way down to the lowest level of report writer in the agency, usually the lowest level of independent expertise in each specialisation within the primary functions of the agency.
In this environment, for the ‘reportblower’ to then blow the whistle, may not only hasten the demise of the ‘fearless’ public servant, it may also diminish public confidence in government.
This type of politicised agency is thereby disenabled and/or denied access to fearless advice, and higher levels of expertise may also have been lost in the politicised drive to secure a subservient public service, an agency open to freestyle interference by Ministerial advisors and other political influences.