Labor or Coalition, it’s still the same old ‘jobs for mates’

Former Australian Public Service Commissioner, Lynelle Briggs, wrote a report about appointment standards and processes in government two years ago, which was shelved.

Tuesday’s release by the Albanese government of the Briggs Review – aptly titled NO FAVOURITES (Briggs’ own use of capitals) – should have marked a turning point in the way the Commonwealth handles senior public appointments. For years, concerns about politicisation and patronage have grown, culminating in Briggs’ assessment of how deeply “jobs for mates” has seeped into our public institutions, undermining integrity and trust in government.

The Centre for Public Integrity welcomed the commissioning of this review back in 2023, just as we welcome its long-delayed release over two years later. Briggs has confirmed what we and many others have been saying for years: cronyism in public appointments is real, entrenched, and corrosive to public trust.

She found that between 6 and 7 per cent of all board appointments could be described as “political”, and that up to 50 per cent of appointments are direct ministerial appointments that cause perceptions of politicisation.

The experience of the former Administrative Appeals Tribunal illustrates how vulnerable public bodies can be when there is unlimited ministerial discretion over appointments. As the Grattan Institute’s research demonstrated, the history of that body “shows a growing share of political appointments in the final years of the former Coalition government”, including appointments of former politicians.

These concerns were significant enough that the Albanese government, led by then-attorney-general Mark Dreyfus, chose to replace it with the new Administrative Review Tribunal. Dreyfus observed that the prevailing “jobs for mates” culture had “fatally compromised the AAT, undermined its independence and eroded the quality and efficiency of its decision-making”.

The issue is not limited to one side of politics. As the Centre for Public Integrity highlighted in its six-month Integrity Report Card on the Albanese government, there continue to be insufficient guardrails to guarantee public trust in appointments, as seen in the recent elevation of a prime minister’s adviser to be director-general of the Office of National Intelligence.

The government’s handling of the Briggs review raises troubling questions of both process and substance. If this report was delivered in August 2023, why was it not released then or soon after when the minister had promised? Why was the wider Australian public shut out from discussions about how its recommendations should be implemented? It signals a lack of confidence in – and respect for – the Australian people, who have every right to help shape the integrity of their democracy.

In terms of its substance, the government is billing its new appointments framework as an important public service reform. In truth, it is a very small one.

The framework is not legislated. It is highly flexible. It contains broad exemptions – including entire categories such as time-limited positions, for reasons left unexplained. It permits the prime minister to exempt any appointment at his discretion. And it simply suggests that ministers use independent assessment panels “when appropriate and proportionate”, a phrase so vague it imposes little real restraint. This falls far short of the independent, transparent merit-based appointments framework that the Centre for Public Integrity had previously proposed.

And we now know it falls short of what Briggs proposed. She called for a genuine shift in power and oversight, recommending the Public Service Commissioner take responsibility for monitoring, guiding and ensuring integrity in board appointments – in her words, “becoming the integrity centre of government”.

She accepted this would require ministers to “trad[e] off” some freedom to recruit as they choose, but she emphasised a broad suite of benefits: better appointments, stronger institutions, improved business outcomes, and greater public confidence in government.

Crucially, Briggs was unequivocal that lasting reform required legislation. “To change ministerial behaviour among all political parties needs the strength of legislation to enforce the change,” she wrote, “and then a period of stability to embed it.”

But the government has declined to do that. Instead, it has offered a framework of principles with no real bite, that can be bent or abandoned at will.

It has also refused to introduce new legislative appointments processes. Since receiving Briggs’ report, the government has introduced bills establishing major new bodies – including the National Environmental Protection Agency and the Centre for Disease Control – without embedding transparent, merit-based, arm’s-length appointment processes. These omissions are inexplicable considering the genuinely independent, transparent appointments legislated last year as part of the establishment of the new Administrative Review Tribunal.

If the government intended to reform public appointments culture, the new bodies were the obvious opportunities. They were missed.

Australia has been handed a diluted response to a robust, independent review. Briggs made clear that perceptions of patronage and nepotism will not be fixed through voluntary guidelines or discretionary frameworks. It requires rules, independent oversight, and accepting limits on ministerial power.

The government has chosen not to impose those limits on itself. In doing so, it has left the door open for the very behaviours the Briggs Review seeks to stop.

Australia deserves an appointments system that puts merit before mates. The Briggs Review showed us the how to do that. The government’s response does not get us there – and it is Australians whose lives are, as Briggs acknowledged, directly affected by the work of these public bodies, who bear the cost.

Professor Gabrielle Appleby is a professor at the faculty of Law and Justice UNSW and director of research at the Centre for Public Integrity

Dr Catherine Williams is executive director of the Centre for Public Integrity

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