Growing culture of secrecy will hurt the Albanese government

The Albanese government is still way short of absolute power, but a growing culture of secrecy hints at a creeping hubris further tainted this week by a taste for schoolboy bullying.

The Herald learnt that the government on Thursday threatened to strip Coalition MPs of their deputy chair positions on House of Representatives committees in retaliation for their upper house impudence in pressuring Labor to release its long-awaited review into Canberra’s cronyism.

Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher announced the review into jobs for the boys and girls in early 2023 as a way to bolster public trust in public institutions, with the added attraction of tipping the bucket on the Morrison government’s public-sector appointments. However, she has refused to release the final report by former public service commissioner Lynelle Briggs, claiming the document was prepared for the cabinet and was therefore protected by cabinet confidentiality.

What rot. Australians do not need to wait 20 years for the annual New Year’s Day release of past cabinet papers to learn that nepotism is a plague in Canberra. They already know.

The Albanese government came to power promising the world: a commitment to transparency, respect for parliament, and checks and balances, but it is gridlocked by arrogance. Its zeal to reform and for open government has evaporated. Regrettably, Labor has twinned the greater power bestowed by the ballot box with less enthusiasm for accountable democracy.

It has squibbed it on freedom of information. Its proposed changes – expanding exemptions, re-introducing application fees and banning anonymous requests – are antithetical to open government. The statistics alone are disturbing: only 21 per cent of 2023-24 FOI requests were granted and it took 51 hours for a decision. In 2006-2007, under the Howard government, 81 per cent of requests were granted, and a decision took 13 hours.

In other sordid attempts to control the narrative, the Albanese government spent weeks playing dumb about the return of the ISIS brides, until details came out in Senate estimates this month; and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unfairly ticked off our North American correspondent Michael Koziol for asking President Donald Trump if he had really forgiven Australia’s US ambassador Kevin Rudd for calling him a village idiot.

Six months after Labor’s re-election, the independent think tank the Centre for Public Integrity reported on the party’s transparency record and awarded fails in six fields: secrecy, jobs for mates, reining in lobbyists, parliamentary accountability, an independent public service and oversight of the executive branch of government.

The Albanese government needs to quickly get down from its secrecy hobbyhorse and deliver the transparent and accountable democracy it promised Australian voters.

A good start would be to stop bullying senators for doing their jobs and to make Senator Gallagher get on with tabling the Canberra cronyism report. A full, independent review of the FOI system is surely required, because the government’s proposed legislative changes are predicated on non-transparency and would make a repeat of the disastrous robo-debt cover-up a likely prospect.

Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.