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.
The other day, Matt Canavan tweeted that he’d been talking to Steve Bannon about the looming threat of fifth columnists (man, the US never really left the 50s when it came to communism/socialism) and because Canavan never makes a move without a self-interested political motive, could it be that the new hill for the Nats to plant their flag on is going to be a homegrown version of the Trump/MAGA/redneck one in the states?
Barnaby has come out all guns blazing against climate action, Christensen (though retiring) was out there supporting the anti-vaxxers, WIN news has been replaced with Sky in rural Oz, and now Matt has progressed from coal coal coal to chatting with Steve Bannon on air about the commies…there seems to be a bit of a pattern emerging, an effort to push rural Australia hard right and loony!
I think you left out a vital word when describing the rural Australia voters: MORE hard right and loony
Trump’s strongest vote is that of the rural, white, uneducated sector
Oh and I forgot Christian, clap clap clap
…. Voting for “Donald the Messier”?
He received loud acclamation when telling a crowd “I love the poorly educated!” – go figure.
Next thing they will be complaining that their Second Amendment rights are being violated.
One can kind of excuse many Americans for going the demented maga route, after all, generations of lead ridden water delivery systems is going to have a dumbing down affect. Our rural neighbours have no such excuse, maybe they’re just stump dumb. We’ll see…
Reflects how nativist and/or populist conservative parties globally (promoting and enacting libertarian policies) are focusing upon regions with ageing, retired, less educated and less diverse voters, with free legacy media support, manipulating the same voters into voting against the future.
In Europe it’s known as ‘pensioner populism’ where very hard nativist Christian ‘values’ are pitted against ‘urban elites’, the left or ‘communists’, immigrants, Islam and/or Judaism aka Soros conspiracy while hollowing out politics, media, judiciary, education and democracy.
Elsewhere, except the US, a MP chatting with (4Corner’s favourite guest) Steve Bannon would be crossing a red line, but reflecting the same murky ecosystem as recent visitor Katie Hopkins, Farage, alt/far right, eco-fascists etc.
Underlying this is deep seated fear of, especially US GOP types, that they cannot gain power democratically nor fairly then justify unethical and immoral behaviour.
It was Franco during the Spanish civil war in the 1930 who coined the phrase “5th column” to describe those in Madrid, a republican stronghold, who would rise up when his mostly African Spanish Foreign Legion troops attacked.
“seems to be a bit of a pattern emerging, an effort to push rural Australia hard right and loony!”
What’s this “push” business? They have been out there on the right fringe for decades. Canavan, Joyce and Christiansen are just winding them up and coralling them in the Nationals holding pen for the election.
And like Trump’s Lot the rural vote in Australia is proudly stomp dumb
Coalition pays consultants $2.2m for 2 months’ work, refuse to reveal nature of jobThe federal government has handed management consultants McKinsey & Company a $2.2m confidential contract for two months’ work, but is refusing to give even basic details about what the company is doing with taxpayers’ money.
The government’s tender website Aus Tender reveals that McKinsey last week won the $2.2m contract for the work through the Department of Education, Skills and Employment.
But basic details of the contract have been kept confidential.
The department did not answer questions about the nature of the work McKinsey was conducting, how it was selected for the work and why it was being paid so much.
Sadly, this behaviour has seemingly become ‘accepted’ by the electorate (shrug the shoulders, ‘what can we do?’ response). And with Gladys baldly stating ‘everyone does it’ with no real public outcry such behaviour will continue unabated. The Nationals, in particular, could well benefit from (ongoing) Ethics training and building an appreciation of what ‘public duty’ really means.
I fear ethics training would be about as useful as empathy training. If you’ve reached adulthood without any, it’s too late.
As a Queenslander, where we have a single far right party – basically the Bjelke Joh country party hiding under the Liberal name – of any improvement, even with “Ethics” training.
That is both an issue and an objective, to make unethical and immoral behaviour the norm for MPs and/or parties of the right; justified by ‘whatever it takes’.
Not sure that ethics training is the solution. Abbott, Joyce, Hockey, Pyne and even Dan Tehan were all educated for years at top end Jesuit schools that pride (and market) themselves on the moral formation of their students.
Opus dei
As were Shorten & Albanese – maybe it was the constant beatings that gave them speech impediments.
Didn’t know about Albanese. I was aware that Shorten went to Xavier which was where he got to be good friends with John Roskam, the generalissimo over at the IPA. In fact, Bill was best man at Roskam’s wedding. Inspires confidence, doesn’t it?
Also confidence inspiring for the battlers witht capitulation over tax cuts for the wealthy and the blessing of the iniquitous negative gearing rort is AA’s property portfolio having just divested himself of one of his properties for $2.1M… or am I indulging in the politics of envy?
In 2019 after the last election, Mr Albanese declared he owned four properties across Sydney and Canberra, two of which were owned by himself and his former spouse, Carmel Tebbutt.
Along with the investment property in Marrickville, he shared another personal residence in the same suburb with Ms Tebbutt, although in late 2019 the title deeds were transferred to him alone. Additionally, he owns a personal unit in Canberra and another investment property in Dulwich Hill.
“..inspiring for the battlers was the capitulation over tax cuts…”
And what about Peter Dutton now multi-millionaire with several properties michelia cash Sussan Ley and all the rest
The record holder in an LNPer with 48 properties, all negative geared.
Qld LNP senator Barry O’Sullivan, a former country policeman and grazier, who holds 16 real estate portfolios mostly in the Toowoomba region, with others in Goondiwindi, Kingaroy, Silver Ridge, Brisbane and Canberra.
For details on O’Sullivan – substitute the usual for DOT.
independentaustraliaDOTnet/politics/politics-display/aussie-politicians-and-their-300-million-property-portfolio,6750
Just curious to test whether Independent Australia is, like aph.gov.au or Guardian, a site to which it is possible post a link without being blocked –
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/aussie-politicians-and-their-300-million-property-portfolio,6750
Oh good!
That’s nice to know, as there is a wealth of sound information to had there.
I have posted information from that excellent news source and the link has been accepted in the past
What’s the next gravy train laden with pork leaving National Party Central Station? The ‘Preparing Australia Program’ of course. The PAP is a $600 million fund to be directed to building resilience in the built environment against natural disasters. This financial year, $50 million is set to be doled out under the stewardship of, you guessed it, Minister for Emergency Management Bridget McKenzie and the Nats hand-picked head of the newly minted National Recovery and Resilience Agency, Shane Stone. Word has it McKenzie is soon to announce a $50m grant round directed to household disaster adaptations for which there was no consultation over guidelines with people who actually know about this stuff, there will be no resilience performance baselines, no means test of any kind, no measurement and evaluation framework and no way insurers can tell if a property is a lower risk after the work has been done and therefore worthy of a lower premium than before the work was done. All the hallmarks of another rorted grant scheme.
It is why Scott Morrison got the sack the tendering of contracts without due process
I wonder if Senator McKenzie will keep reporting small gifts with a value less than $300. It is a stunt that could back-fire. Think of the number of small value gifts that could be ’embarrassing’ for her ; such as a small battery powered hand-held device designed for personal pleasure …. or perhaps a low value mobile phone. Apparently both devices do come with instructions.