(Image: Private Media)

It was only 18 months ago that the sports rorts scandal, starring then-sports minister Senator Bridget McKenzie, became the symbol of all that was wrong with the Morrison government — and in particular the National Party. 

McKenzie’s return to the cabinet — thanks to Barnaby Joyce — is a sign that, in the universe of the Nationals, questions of public trust matter little.

The sports rorts scandal was a textbook example of a government using public money for party gain. For McKenzie the issue was how she handled her conflicts of interest as a minister dispensing grants to organisations of which she was a member.  

Amid a torrent of revelations, McKenzie never admitted there was any “real or apparent” conflict of interest in her decisions. Ultimately she was forced to resign after a Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet investigation found she breached ministerial standards by failing to declare an interest: that she was a member of a gun club that received a $36,000 grant.

Last year Crikey also revealed that McKenzie had at times failed to declare the source of gifts big and small, or only did so years after receiving them. This included “sponsored” trips and accommodation from gun merchant Beretta Australia. 

So how has Senator McKenzie handled her conflicts of interest during her recent time on the backbench? 

From one extreme to the other 

The senator’s declaration of interests for 2020 includes gifts that fall well below the threshold of value needed in the interests of open and transparent government. So comprehensive as to be absurd, the list includes (noted as being given by constituents): 

  • A packet of Allen’s Chicos chocolate lollies
  • A box of Cadbury Roses chocolates
  • A box of Roses, again
  • Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut bar
  • Boxes of baby spinach, mixed salad leaves and broccoli, and
  • A single gerbera flower.

So does it add up to a newfound zeal for transparency? Or is it a pointedly petty response to the sports rorts saga? What, after all, does a $2 chocolate bar from a constituent have to do with the integrity of national government?

Under official guidelines senators should declare any gift over the value of $300 (or $750 if it is from an official source, such as a foreign government). Other interests which should be declared include financial investments, directorships of companies, membership of family trusts, real estate and the like — substantial interests which might influence or which could be seen to influence decision-making in the public interest.

Crikey asked McKenzie why she had made the declarations but we received no answer before deadline. A day after publication we received the following response:

“Being a senator is a great honour and privilege, I take my responsibilities to the parliament and the Australian people very seriously.

Given the opposition and media interest in my failure as minister to declare in a timely manner to the prime minister in 2020 a gifted $30 honorary membership, I have since regularly updated my Senate statement of interest to declare memberships and gifts received irrespective of monetary value.”

In any case, McKenzie’s current approach to declarations stand in in sharp contrast to previous years.

Since 2011 when McKenzie was elected to the Senate she has been plied with gifts ranging from holidays to Tasmania and New Zealand, flights to the Mount Hotham ski fields and tickets to marquee sporting events like the Australian Open, the AFL and the Melbourne Cup.

There have been dozens of bottles of wine, complimentary REX flights, a tennis racket, tickets to the Ashes, and an Essendon Football club 2018 signed team jersey among a great deal else.

The gift givers have included Emirates, Integra, the Seven Network, Tabcorp, Dairy Farmers, Credit Union Australia, Cricket Australia, the Nine Network, Tennis Australia, Seppelt, Swisse vitamins, Grain Growers, and Croplife — an agricultural company facing legal and regulatory issues in Australia over its glyphosate product. 

From strength to strength

Whatever the public anger over sports rorts and McKenzie’s loose handling of conflicts of interest, she was never rebuked by National Party leadership. 

And why would it? As Crikey revealed last year, then-leader Michael McCormack was so close to the powerful lobby group the Pharmacy Guild of Australia that he donned the guild’s official necktie to pose for a photo with officials at a Parliament House shindig, making him indistinguishable from those lobbying him.

McCormack had also been part of a ministerial panel — along with McKenzie — which was heavily criticised by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) for the way it doled out $200 million in grants under the government’s Regional Jobs and Investments Scheme. As we reported, the ANAO found that the ministerial panel overturned close to 30% of recommendations from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications, and replaced them with other projects.

In the meantime the McKenzie family presence in the party has grown. Son Jake, who was assistant state director in the Victorian Nationals office, earlier this year moved into a government job as an assistant adviser on the staff of federal Nationals MP Kevin Hogan. Hogan is assistant minister to Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who is in the next electorate over in northern NSW. 

Another of McKenzie’s sons, Rhett, was employed as an electorate officer on the staff of former Tasmanian Nationals Senator Steve Martin in 2019. (Senator McKenzie has also declined to comment on these topics.)

It is of a piece with other examples in the party. As we reported yesterday, Joyce’s daughter Bridgette Joyce has landed a paid government adviser’s job with NSW Nationals Leader John Barilaro.   

On a bigger canvas, the blurring of lines between public duty and private interest endemic to the Nationals has produced a party where almost no behaviour has a consequence — just look at Queensland LNP member George Christensen’s public support for an anti-mask rally, and Matt Canavan going on the radio program of leading US alt-right figure Steve Bannon.

It’s the kind of breakdown of respect for democratic processes and transparency that had many in the party hoping former party leader and deputy prime minister John Anderson might return to the fray as the party’s Senate nomination.

Anderson had said he was gravely concerned for the nation’s future and wanted to act as an adviser and mentor to the party’s leadership. However, he lost out to one-time director of the NSW Nationals Ross Cadell, who, in an exquisite closing of the circle, was the man appointed by the NSW state executive to investigate sexual harassment claims against Joyce.