There is little evidence that the major political parties really believe deep down that their internal operations and those of their closest supporters are in need of reform. While the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption continues its revelations in Sydney and the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption does likewise in Melbourne, the major parties remain relaxed and comfortable about their internal culture.
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Both major parties continue to defend their own. They do so for two reasons. The first is that those who benefit from the present system are in charge and want to remain so. The second is that in an adversarial system to admit internal dysfunction gives an electoral advantage to your opposition. It is more rewarding to defend yourself by switching the focus of attention to the opposition's troubles.
There are the occasional individuals on both sides who break ranks. Their motives are never clear, but we should give them the benefit of any doubt. One is former Howard-era federal government minister Jackie Kelly, once MHR for the Sydney seat of Lindsay, who revealed last week that she has resigned from the NSW Liberal Party after 19 years. Kelly claimed that the NSW Liberal Party was run by lobbyists to the extent that there was no reason to be a member any more. This is exactly the image that has been revealed by ICAC and which the Prime Minister has sought to address. Tony Abbott stepped in to make Liberal Party officials choose between their trade, lobbying, and their party office-holding. But clearly that was addressing only the most public evidence of internal malaise and not the deeper causes.
The problem is a cultural one, embedded in the everyday conventional wisdom within each of the major parties. This becomes clear in the still unresolved case of former assistant treasurer, Arthur Sinodinos, who has appeared before the NSW ICAC. Jane Cadzow's recent sympathetic profile "Things Fall Apart" in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend magazine was revealing not just of Sinodinos, who has a long list of admirers in high places lining up to say that he is a good bloke, but of those party people around him. The views of sympathetic party officials and of his fellow senators reveal the culture of the party.
He has the public support of the director of the NSW Liberal Party, Tony Nutt, who worked with him in John Howard's office. He also has the support of the Ambassador to France, Stephen Brady, who also worked with him. On balance, despite airing some criticisms, Cadzow's profile served as part of his rehabilitation and a step towards his return to office in the New Year.
Who knows what will happen. But the most striking comment came from a Liberal Senator, un-named, who reckons that the parliamentary party supports Sinodinos. The supposed grounds are remarkable. "We don't actually think he's done anything wrong. Or if he has done something wrong, it's of a parking ticket level rather than a capital offence." If that opinion is widespread then it reflects badly on the party. Unfortunately it is also a statement that one can imagine being held within Labor about one of their miscreants within the broader labour movement.
There is no way of knowing how widespread support for Sinodinos is within his party. It may not matter as the choice will be the prime minister's and the judgement of prime ministers in matters of ministerial rehabilitations tends to depend on public opinion, not the merits of the case. As public attention fades he may be able to be salvaged. And he may go on to be a serviceable minister. But that is not the point.
Ironically one of the ways of saving Sinodinos is to paint an unflattering picture of the business community, the Liberal Party's allies and the very people whom ICAC has revealed are embedded within the political party (Kelly's claim). He then becomes the naive patsy from politics who has fallen among thieves. Cadzow reports that Sinodinos seemed to go along with the idea that he was swimming with sharks. Nutt even describes the corporate jungle and suggests that political life is no preparation for such a world. If so, that would be a surprise to the many politicians, like Graeme Richardson and Andrew Robb, who have previously made that journey.
By implication Nutt paints a picture of the business world that came to surround Sinodinos as an environment in which so-called spivs were common, whereas in politics in Canberra, he says, you would only get the odd spivvy business person coming through the door.
There is no doubt that the ICAC hearings have painted a portrait of a world of spivs, but these do not seem to be marginal characters at all, but individuals not just with strong links to policy-makers but also sometimes holding party fund-raising positions. Sinodinos himself wore more than one hat. He combined numerous board positions, including Australian Water Holdings, with numerous party positions, including NSW party treasurer and finance committee chairman.
There is also no doubt, as revealed by various inquiries in recent years, including the current royal commission, that there is a trade union jungle equally as full of spivs as the corporate jungle. But justifying the misdeeds of political figures because they are unprepared for life in such an environment is not a convincing way to proceed.
On both sides of politics Liberal and Labor should be committed to cleaning up their respective jungles and removing the spivs who play by the rules of that jungle. There will inevitably be individual casualties as this clean-up takes place.
John Warhurst is an emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University.
