Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Life used to be much simpler for all of us when everyone observed a few basic "givens" in Australian politics.
These include that the Coalition parties think the public sector is an inefficient abomination in whatever form it manifests itself, and that Labor thinks the opposite.
Events of the past week show how topsy turvy that has all become.
A COVID-19 vaccine program was the one service delivery job the federal government gave itself in the current pandemic and it puffed long and hard about how it had all been planned with exceptional military precision.
That was until this week, when it turned out that neither the supply nor distribution of the vaccines seemed to be quite working out as planned and the federal government has, once again, had to turn to the states, to get it out of a service delivery bind.
Whatever the supply questions (and the question of whether there should have been more contracts signed is for another day), the vaccination of aged care residents was contracted out, the delivery of vaccines around the country — including to doctors' surgeries — was contracted out to DHL and Linfox (rather than Australia Post), and the vaccination of the general populous was going to be done through the quasi private sector capacities of the GP network.
What could possibly go wrong when the full resources of the private sector had been engaged?
Well, apparently quite a lot. And it looks like the federal government will have to politely ask the states to help use their public resources to get us out of a jam, just as they did with quarantine facilities.
Cheap shots and blame games
All this sharp planning was going on more or less at the same time as the chief executive of one of the few arms of government that actually does still do service delivery — Australia Post — was effectively sacked by a Prime Minister under siege on various fronts, including a dodgy $30 million land deal done by his government.
And what was she sacked for? Rewarding four executives who secured a deal which — wait for it — secured the delivery of banking services to 1,500 communities who would otherwise not have any.
There's been the occasional tendency by the government in recent days to blame the Opposition for the fact that the Australia Post chief executive in question, Christine Holgate, was sacked.
That's because Labor had asked questions about the Cartier watches given to the four executives as rewards for securing the deal.
And it is true that in the all outrage about the appalling treatment handed out to Christine Holgate, Labor has been lucky to escape much attention for taking a cheap shot.
The question from Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese that provoked such outrage from the Prime Minister last October, after the Cartier watches rewards had been revealed, gives a flavour of the politics.
How is it, Albanese asked, that on the Prime Minister's watch:
"in the middle of the worst recession in almost a century, with one million Australians unemployed, businesses collapsing and a trillion dollars of liberal debt, this government's taking no action against the liberal appointed Australia Post board, which spent $12,000 of taxpayers' money on Cartier watches?"
The watches were actually a reward given out two years ago — long before COVID hit — and you can see who the actual target of the question was: the board, not Holgate.
But Labor's role in all this was lost in the prime ministerial outrage against Holgate that followed.
Scott Morrison had been "appalled" by the revelations. "It's disgraceful," he stormed. "And it's not on, Mr Speaker."
And who's on the board?
It seems no-one asked what the story was about before the Prime Minister publicly humiliated Holgate in the Parliament.
An independent investigation into this "disgraceful" episode was outsourced to a legal firm, Maddocks. The report found "no indication of dishonesty, fraud, corruption or intentional misuse of Australia Post funds by any individual involved in the matters relating to the purchase and gifting of the Cartier watches".
But it did find quite a lot of confusion about corporate governance. For example, there were:
"varying levels of understanding of the current and former Board members who were interviewed with regard to: the obligations of Australia Post's Board as the "accountable authority" for the purposes of the [relevant act covering public sector enterprises]"; and the requirements of guidelines for all such bodies "with respect to board and corporate governance and accountability obligations".
The report said there were contradictory reports about whether the former chairman, John Stanhope, had approved of the rewards (even though he had signed the cards that went with them) and the deal was apparently bad because the non-executive directors (who hadn't issued any guidelines on gifts) wouldn't have approved of the gifts if they had known. Which they didn't.
So who is on the board of this
multi-billion dollar taxpayer asset, but who only seemed vaguely aware,
according to Maddocks, of their obligations?
Christine Holgate, under questioning from Labor in the Senate inquiry, gave us a form guide this week.
It includes Tony Nutt, former Liberal Party director, member of the so-called Star Chamber that has determined ministerial staff in the current government, and apparently the board member who is supposed to represent the unions and the postal agency franchisees (who have apparently never met him, according to other evidence to the Senate inquiry).
There is Michael Ronaldson, a former Liberal senator and minister, Bruce McIver, former president of the Liberal National Party of Queensland, Mario D'Orazio, "a personal friend of Minister [Mathias] Cormann", according to Holgate, and Deidre Willmott, who Holgate told the Committee "worked for the Liberal Premier in Western Australia [and] Minister Cormann used to work for Ms Deidre Willmott".
How well is the board doing?
Australia Post was corporatised in 1989 — that is, its structure was turned into something more closely resembling a private sector company than a government instrumentality.
Corporatisation has been fashionable in recent decades: designed to make public sector organisations more efficient and more accountable for how money is spent and, hopefully, put the pressure on to ensure they are self-funding rather than a drain on the taxpayer purse.
And that was what was happening at Australia Post — despite the huge forces at play on its traditional services from the internet, the decline of snail mail and the rise of online shopping.
But the political story of Australia Post only seems to show how such corporatised bodies remain at the whim of the prime minister of the day and a haven of high paying board jobs for political associates.
Yet another consultant report, by Boston Consulting Group, was prepared for the incoming and current chairman, Lucio Di Bartolomeo, in 2019 at the cost of $1.38 million.
It darkly predicted Australia Post would be running at a loss by now and proposed a cut back in its retail presence and in its staff, and the possible hiving off of its lucrative parcel service.
Holgate thought that was a terrible idea. Australia Post has done very well on its current model. But the question of how well the current board is doing, and where the current divide between private and public sector now sits, remain unclear.
Laura Tingle is 7.30's chief political correspondent.
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