Public trust crisis: Government under fire for ethical failures

Almost 40% of Australians report low or no trust in the federal government, while political parties and mainstream news media rank as the least trusted institutions, according to the recent OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions.

The newest watchdog, the National Anti-Corruption Commission, has identified conflict of interest, ethical decision-making, and the electoral process as its three focus areas for corruption prevention this year.

Despite breaches of finance laws in the Department of Health’s handling of former Health Minister Greg Hunt’s hospital grants project, government officials received the infamous ‘Congestion Busting’ awards. These breaches included expenditures made without legislative authority, blatantly disregarding legal advice.

The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA), in its recent damning report on probity and ethical leadership, recommended that the Secretary of the Department of Health and Aged Care, Blair Comley, formally review the appropriateness of the ‘Congestion Busting’ awards in light of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) report. The Committee suggested considering whether the awards for this project should be revoked, particularly for senior officers involved.

Committee Chair, Julian Hill MP, expressed dismay over the frequency of such breaches, stating, “The Committee has observed over many years, including through this inquiry, a pattern of persistent resistance to accountability across the public sector.”

The Committee report noted, “What appears truly innovative in this instance, however, was that a corporate award was given for performance within a program where the law was deliberately broken.

“In retrospect, the provision of any award for administering a scheme where ultimately public money was paid without any legal authority, in defiance of legal advice, seems to be not just wrong, but a form of trolling that perverts the proper purpose of internal agency.”

The Committee also recommended that the Department of Finance issue guidance making it clear to public officials that breaching finance law, even without malice or personal gain, is not sufficient to fulfill their obligation under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 to act honestly, in good faith, and for a proper purpose.

Organisational culture or ‘the way we do things around here’ is a key element that sits between the law and the achievement of desired outcomes in an ethical manner. According to the Committee, “the tone is set by governments and the Parliament”. However, the public service lacks accountability mechanisms for cultures that go off the rails.

When the Committee examined the Australian Public Service (APS) Integrity Taskforce report, Louder than Words, it found that while there were recommendations regarding culture, there was no definition of a sound organisational culture, no metrics by which it could be monitored or assessed, and no guidance on how an agency could be accountable for its culture.

“Metrics for culture must be capable of providing insights and assurance of the extent to which officers are, in fact, behaving in a way that is right and proper, and according to the letter and the intent of the law,” the JCPAA Committee asserted.

According to the OECD survey, only 25% of people in Australia believe it likely that the government would refuse a corporation’s demand that could be harmful to society as a whole, lower than the average across OECD countries (30%).

Men in Australia, on average, are more likely to have high or moderately high trust in the federal government (54%) compared to women (38%). This gender trust gap is above the 7 percentage point average gender trust gap across OECD countries and represents the largest deviation from the OECD trend of all population group comparisons in Australia.

Consider the former general manager of business integrity in the then Department of Human Services, Mark Withnell, who, according to the report of the royal commission, “engaged in deliberate conduct designed to mislead cabinet.”

Or, the late DHS deputy secretary Malisa Golightly, who ordered the statement that robodebt did not change how income was assessed or overpayments calculated be added to the submission to cabinet, not to mention the phone-chucking allegations suggesting less-than-desirable leadership behaviour on her part. Or the senior Social Services trio, Russell de Burgh, Serena Wilson, and Cath Halbert, of whom the the Commission was satisfied that their behaviour “in making the false representations and concealing critical information was designed to, and did, mislead the Ombudsman in the exercise of his functions.”

These examples illustrate the urgent need for stringent accountability and rigorous ethical standards within government and among public servants.

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