RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Australians are grappling with the fallout of a devastating pandemic and its associated economic turmoil. We look to our politicians to solve these problems, but our trust in them, and our political institutions, is at an all time low.

Scandal after scandal has battered the authority of the government when its purpose has never been more clear. Today, former leader of the federal Liberal Party, John Hewson, on how rorts, mates and marketing took over politics - and how we can take it back.

RUBY:

John, could you start by telling me about some of the most notable examples of abuses of power in politics that you have seen in recent times?

JOHN:

Well, there have been many and I would say that the practise has been increasing over recent decades and they extend from everything from members of parliament to ministers, staff and so on, cheating on their expenses or abusing their entitlements...

Archival tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Parliamentary speaker Bronwyn Bishop is under fire this morning over her recent spending. Labor is demanding answers after she billed taxpayers $5000 for a helicopter flight…”

JOHN:

...through to some of the big ones that occurred, for example, under the Howard government in particular: never held accountable for the Wheat Board scandal...

Archival tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“The Wheat Board had paid hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq…”

JOHN:

...never held accountable for spying on Timor Leste...

Archival tape -- Unidentified Speaker:

“ASIS installed listening devices inside East Timor’s ministerial rooms and cabinet offices under the cover of a foreign aid program…”

JOHN:

In the middle, I guess you've got sports rorts and other other government programmes that are being treated a bit like a gravy train for perceived political benefit rather than, you know, in the intention of the programme, whether it's supporting sporting facilities or regional development or whatever the programme has been.

Archival tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Details have emerged about the so-called sports rort scandal with revelations, 136 emails were shared between Bridget Mackenzie and the Prime Minister’s office…”

JOHN:

These things occur, they reoccur, at the time there's a bit of a focus on them, it gets bad press for a few days and then it sort of is forgotten and people move on. You know, it's a culture that's developed, which is really about entitlement, and, you know, ‘don't you know who we are, we're important people, we’re here to get power, we've got power, we’re exercising that power, we shouldn't be that accountable for that’, and I think that's what's so wrong with the system.

RUBY:

And so this lack of transparency and accountability, do you think that it's just a feature of the system?

JOHN:

Well, you know, partly it's the system and partly it's the people in the system. I mean, I guess in the end you can have as many codes of conduct as you like for whoever, whether it's ministers or backbenchers or staff or parliamentarians or whatever. But, you know, unless those codes are actually enforced in the spirit as well as the letter of the code, it doesn't tend to make too much difference. But really, it's a bigger question, I think, of the culture. You know, rules are important, they have to be enforced, but you need to build around them a culture that says these are things that matter. And there's a lot of focus these days on whether some of our parliamentarians and political processes have simply lost their moral compass when it comes to some of the bigger issues.

RUBY:

Hmm. And when those bigger issues do come to light, it doesn’t seem like there are many consequences for the politicians involved. Do you think that’s a more recent development?

JOHN:

Yeah there's no accountability. I mean, under the current government, of course, the focus is really on the big headline announcement.

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Today I announce that we are committing 130 billion dollars…”

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison:

“We committed 2 billion dollars to the work of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency on the ground…”

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Today we’re announcing 250 million dollars which is all about getting the show back on the road…”

JOHN:

We have a headline announcement after headline announcement almost every day through Covid but more you know, more generally, there's no follow up as to whether that money that's committed, whether firstly, whether it's new money or just a reshuffling of existing money allocations and whether it's actually directed to the target and whether it actually is delivered in the end.

So you see examples of bushfire relief most recently, not going to... being declared a big number, but then not actually being allocated to those who really need it, people who suffered from the bushfire expecting that they'd be well in the process of building a new house or new or whatever their expectations were not being validated because there's no follow through. And, you know, it seems that, you know, when the government's asked a question about that now, the press conference is a very different exercise than it was in my day.

Archival tape -- Richard Carleton:

“Dr Hewson tell me, did Mr Peacock show poor judgment - was he wrong - when in response to a question from Peter Luck, he predicted that under a Peacock government there would be massive falls in interest rates?”

Archival tape -- John Hewson:

“We’ve talked, Richard, consistently about significant and sustainable falls in interest rates…”

JOHN:

I can remember inconsequential areas of things that I announced; I might get 18 or 20 questions in a row about it anyway.

Archival tape -- Richard Carleton:

“He said massive, was he right or wrong?”

Archival tape -- John Hewson:

“Look we’re not playing with the words--”

Archival tape -- Richard Carleton:

“No, no, I’m just asking you a straight question: he said massive, was he right or wrong?”

Archival tape -- John Hewson:

“I can’t scale, what you think or what anyone else thinks is massive…”

JOHN:

Yet where there's a lot of issues, where there's a lot to find, you don't see it pursued. And today they get one question, they move from one to the next, quite often you hear the prime minister or minister say, look, I don't accept the premise of that question as if ‘I don't need the answer to that one’.

Archival tape -- unknown:

“What will it take for the Morrison government to stop denying the 685 deaths on its watch, to take responsibility and to ensure that this never happens again?”

Archival tape -- unknown:

“Senator Colbeck.”

Archival tape -- Richard Colbeck:

“Thank you Mr President. And can I completely reject the premise of the question…”

RUBY:

And so, John, what do you think the effect of all of this is in terms of public trust in politicians and by extension, the institutions of democracy?

JOHN:

Well, it's consistently undermined public trust. I mean, public trust hasn't been great. It's got worse and worse in terms of the trust in politicians, the belief in politicians, the belief in the political process. Covid has given you a bit of a reprieve there in the sense that, you know, government's been seen to have reacted more decisively, to listen to the science or the medical advice, to, you know, to be more responsible and more effective in its response. But there's still the long term background that it's just progressively been eroded by the sort of behaviour we're talking about.

And, you know, when you see the big issues being kicked down the road, climate change is a classic example, where the government is out there today obfuscating on that issue, denying its urgency, denying the significance of the challenge, pretending that what they've committed to is an adequate response for this country, not really facilitating the transition to renewable energy or to, say, electrification of the vehicle and transport fleets or regenerative agriculture, there are nods and winks in the direction of some of these things, but almost a new response compared to the magnitude of the challenge and to the urgency of that challenge. So they've compounded the lack of trust problem.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

John, we’re talking about a lack of trust and accountability in our politics. One way to counter that would be through a Federal Integrity Commission. What do you make of all of the moves that we've seen on that so far?

JOHN:

Well, the government has begrudgingly, a couple of years ago committed, Morrison committed to having an integrity commission...

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison:

“We think it is always important to raise the bar, maintain the bar, to ensure the public can have confidence in the integrity of public administration.”

JOHN:

...and taking a couple of years to get an exposure draft.

Archival tape -- unknown:

“This draft does not propose public hearings for the public sector division. The rationale for that on the government’s part is there is a higher risk and a much greater threat from corruption from inside law enforcement agencies…”

JOHN:

And the legal opinions that I've seen suggest that it's you know, it's really a protection racket for the ministers and parliamentarians and their staff, if you like. They're not really...it doesn't go to the issues of integrity and anti-corruption that it should do. And, you know, a body like that is going to be fiercely independent, well-funded, fiercely independent, able to take referrals, anonymous referrals, even, of instances where people think there are you know, there's a lack of integrity or there's a possibility of corruption. It shouldn't have to rely on referrals from the government.

And, you know, it should be able to be a genuinely independent break on some of this material and some of these arguments. But the exposure draft so far sort of says it meets a commitment. Yes, I said I'd do it, but it doesn't address the issue. And until it does, I think you'll have a substantial community reaction because I mean, they are a long way short of an adequate response in that respect.

RUBY:

And do you have other suggestions about what could be done? Because in your piece you say that the problem requires a complete reset and reform of politics and policy making. So what would that look like?

JOHN:

Well, I mean, you'd have to go at all the elements, really, of what's wrong with the system. I mean, one of them basic failings of the system is campaign funding. And we've seen this in so many ways where large donors expect to be able to buy influence from a government by funding their campaign. And I sort of reluctantly come to the view that unless you can make campaign funding sort of less, you can restricted to individuals up to a certain level level, say, let's say a thousand dollars or something, and get rid of union funding and business funding and all these research groups and so on those fronts, they've set up to channel money, I think, you know, that's that's the place to start.

Yet there is a recent piece of legislation that both sides of parliament supported that really allow them to now accept in secret donations from, say, property developers that many of the states have ruled out. You know, this is a very sad commentary of, you know, both sides will say, yes, this is something this is an area for reform, but they don't actually ever do it.

RUBY:

Mm. But you're alluding, I think, to the crux of the problem here, because for any major reforms to increase accountability to happen, politicians themselves would have to be on board. So is asking politicians to reform themselves too big of an ask, given that the problem that we're trying to solve here is essentially one of self-interest over the greater good?

JOHN:

Yeah, it's difficult because it requires leadership and it requires bipartisanship. And we aren't getting much of it either right now - I thought we might have had more of a bipartisan response, even in terms of Covid. And, you know, the whole idea of a national cabinet was important, but leaving the opposition out of that, I think, was a failing, an opportunity really to take a more broad-based bipartisan response. And I think looking at, you know, the way some of that’s unfolded with the states having to do their job - I mean, the extent to which some of the government ministers kicked Andrews' to death in Victoria, you know, was just totally counterproductive to what needed to be done. So in those circumstances, I think we've got a long way to go on your points, right?

But to get it outside of government, into an independent commission, maybe an integrity commission would drive a lot of that. But, you know, if you even had an electoral reform commission with the powers of a royal commission, I suppose it...it's not going to change that. Go back to the original point I made about culture, you got the wrong people with the wrong culture. But and I think if a government decided, if the prime minister said, look, I'm going to run a pretty morally tight government and I'm going to start setting standards and enforcing them, and people who don't adhere to them will be called out and in some cases, appropriate cases punished accordingly, then I think you're going to have a different world. But I don't see them. They think they can exploit each side, sort of believes they can exploit the system better than the other side. So a lot of the big things about political reform just aren't going to get done.

RUBY:

John, thank you so much for your time today.

JOHN:

Thank you very much.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

The UK Labour Party has called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to reject former Australian finance minister Matthias Cormann’s bid for general secretary of the OECD over his record on climate change. The Australian Labor party is supporting Cormann’s bid.

And far-right activists supporting US President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud clashed with counter protesters in Washington D.C over the weekend. The pro-Trump protest was held in the lead up to the electoral college vote today that will formally ratify Joe Biden’s victory.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See ya tomorrow.