Independent MP for Indi Helen Haines has introduced a private member’s bill to crack down on pork-barrelling. Haines has argued that pork-barrelling is happening right now ahead of the Dunkley by-election on March 2, where Labor is splashing out money hoping to retain the seat.
Without government or opposition support, the bill is unlikely to pass. But it puts the issue of pork-barrelling in the public eye. So would the proposed measures work?
How common is pork-barrelling in Australia?
Pork-barrelling involves governments channelling public funds to seats they hold and wish to retain, or seats they would like to win from an opponent, as a way of winning voters’ favour. This means the money is used for political purposes, rather than proper allocation according to merit.
We have been inundated with pork-barrelling scandals in recent years. This includes the car park rorts scandal, where 77% of the commuter car park sites selected were in electorates held by the then Coalition government, rather than in areas of real need with congestion issues.
This followed close on the heels of the “sports rorts” scandal. Bridget McKenzie resigned from cabinet following allegations she had intervened in the sport grants program to benefit the Coalition government while in a position of conflict of interest.
My journal article shows pork-barrelling is an intractable problem across multiple governments over many decades and takes different forms based on electoral systems. Australia has a single-member electorate parliamentary system, which makes it more susceptible to pork-barrelling than multi-member electorates such as Norway or Spain.
The belief is that politicians who “bring home the bacon” for their constituents are electorally rewarded for doing so. This means a government has an incentive to strategically apportion benefits to marginal electorates to increase prospects of electoral success. There is also an incentive to bias the apportionment of funds towards electorates held by the party in power.
In short, rorts scandals keep happening because governments believe channelling money to marginal and government electorates will win them elections.
What does the Haines bill do?
The Haines bill requires all grant programs to have clear and publicly available, merit-based selection criteria and guidelines.
Second, the bill ensures robust reporting to the Parliament about what grants are awarded, to whom and why. This includes requirements for ministers to report to Parliament in a timely manner when they’ve gone against official advice from government departments about who should receive grants.
Third, the bill creates a new Joint Parliamentary Committee on Grants Administration and Investment Mandates. This committee would oversee grants administration, including compliance with guidelines.
Will this bill fix our broken system?
My article argued that stronger legal accountability is needed to hold ministers responsible for the biased allocation of grants. The bill seeks to enhance transparency by requiring stronger parliamentary disclosure of the allocation of grants. A joint parliamentary committee would also increase scrutiny and accountability over grants administration.
But the bill does not go far enough in terms of enforcement. There should be penalties for breaches of grant rules. These penalties should be enforceable by an external scrutineer, such as an independent commissioner.
Without strong enforcement, existing laws will be deficient in preventing, deterring and punishing governments that allocate grant funding in a partisan fashion, rather than on merit.
Ensuring proper use of public money is crucial to preserving public trust in Australian democratic institutions. To improve accountability for the use of public funding, we need stronger and legally enforceable rules and regulations.
This piece was first published in The Conversation.
Yes, even though the Haines bill is too weak to really do the job, Labor will still get together its Coalition partners-in-crime to kill the bill, and all the same old fun and games with ministers indulging themselves and trying to buy votes at tax-payer expense will continue. Just as rotten as Labor did with the NACC, conniving with Dutton to ensure the NACC will not hold public hearings, so no scandal will embarrass any sitting politicians. The NACC is in effect where scandals go to quietly fade from public memory, until they no longer matter. And there’s the proposed replacement for the AAT, which will be just as open to being stuffed with the minister’s hand-picked party hacks as the old one, so in fact nothing has been achieved there except a return to square one. Labor’s really taken everyone for a ride, it has no intention of delivering anything of substance after all its talk about cleaning up the rorts and scandals.
On the same page SSR. No public hearings means we can’t judge the deflection and evasion for ourselves. But if Labor slide into minority government, I dream they’ll be cornered into public hearings.
Right now, the NACC must be looking at the dodgy offshore detention centre contracts. You’d reckon when the report, or interim report, is released, it’ll include reference to at least one prominent serving poli.
Yep, the appointments to AAT should be by an independent commission (not sure who appoints the commission.)
The fact that the independents can get pork barrelling, lobbying, and integrity closer to the spotlight gives some hope for our democracy, and a clear message you should vote for a good independent if one is on offer
How will Labor be cornered into minority government? They’ll have a crypto-majority with the ‘opposition’.
Nothing of any significance can happen here until the majors have less than 50% between them.
How could any self respecting parliamentarian not vote for this bill?
The problem with this solution is someone/people on the panel can change their minds at the last moment/ be got at, ive seen it at the movies…
Both main parties are ostensibly neoliberal in action , Labor more completely hamstrung rather than eager, then there’s Marles , therefore under the direct influence of corporates wanting to further entrench their
profit potential.
It is a good idea though and offers some push back, thank you.
The Haines bill is hopeless.
The point of sports rorts was that grants were not a matter for the Minister: Parliament had legislated that grants were a matter for the Commission. The Minister could override but only by doing so publicly.
The Department heavied the Commission to accept that it would go to the Minister to know what the Minister wanted, and this somehow wouldn’t involve the Minister making decisions required to be revealed under the legislation.
So, while the public servants responsible go unpunished, the same pretence of no Ministerial direction would get round the Haines bill.
If Parliament requires money to be directed to particular ends; and requires the Minister not be involved, or be involved only with full disclosure to Parliament at the time; any sports rorts style fakery should be treated as illegal under the Public Service Act requirements on public servants. But it won’t be unless and until sports rorts misconduct is publicly dealt with.
Don’t hold your breath.
Another approach would be to transition to a multi-member electoral system, which it seems the public wants – judging by its voting patterns in recent years.
This is a good argument for not voting for either of the two main parties. They are so accustomed to bending their own rules and profiting by it that they laugh at the possibility of retribution. They treat the public with contempt. But why not? Voting for them is contemptuous. “I’m so slimy nobody in their right mind could possibly vote for me, yet they do. I’ll treat them accordingly.”