In the election campaign the need for an integrity commission has been a minor issue. Many independent candidates have supported it, but the major parties seem to have concluded that it will not significantly shape the way people vote. Yet given the evidence of a lack of integrity in behaviour by and within governing parties both at Federal and State level, the nature and importance of integrity in the processes of government deserve reflection.
Integrity has to do with consistency in relationships. A person of integrity will behave with due respect in all their relationships – within family, workplace and other institutions, in the handling of money, in gifts, in decision making. In government, due respect will characterise the relationships between members of parliament, their staff and their constituents. In these relationships and in the making of policy, administration and in the allocation of money, integrity means that the decisive focus is on the good of the Australian people. It demands that this focus will override self and Party interest, and that decisions are subject and transparent to review.
Although much of the evidence remains untested, the number of people who have accused politicians, including ministers, of sexual harassment and bullying, the attempts in the media to discredit the complainants, and the slowness of party leaders to deal with these complaints, suggest a culture of male entitlement, an imbalance of power in which women pay a heavy price for demanding respect.
There is also frequent circumstantial evidence that appointment to public positions and the awarding of public appointments and contracts favours people with connection with the ruling Party. Such appointments and contracts have bypassed the recommendations of public committees and been awarded without the normal processes of merits review and of tendering.
Election time always highlights projects funding allocated to seats that are marginal or are held by politicians whom the governments need to placate. Such projects often breach Governments’ own regulations for such funding. Even politicians with a reputation for high ethical standards seem to regard this as one of the perks of office. This practice has become so blatant and shameless that the Guardian newspaper can publish Pork-o-meter without meeting protests of hurt innocence.
Finally, reporting of the internal affairs of parties contains many accusations of branch stacking, factional backstabbing, of disregard of constitutional rules, and of the use of government funds for party political campaigns.
'If the recent evidence for lack of integrity in government is distressing, the evidence for public resistance to it is equally encouraging.'
Some of the behaviour described here is arguably corrupt, but more significantly it is all lacking in integrity. Those involved in government and in political life are charged with governing for the people. To act as governments and their representatives for their personal gain or for the advantage of their party betrays that trust. It displays a sense of entitlement, whether to sexual favour, patronage, allocate money or to make laws to act in the interests of the Party.
All this leads to public disengagement with political life and the weary acceptance that this is what we can expect of politicians and governments. That lack of trust leads in turn to paralysis and neglect in government policy to do with the public good, to a focus on looking good and not doing good.
For this reason a lack of integrity and a culture of entitlement matter. At their extreme level the harm can be seen in totalitarian states like China and Russia where the interests of the Party or of the associates of the Populist leader rule supreme. It results in the apparent paradox of the coexistence of a libertarian approach to government behaviour and repressive laws and scapegoating directed against enemies of the Party or scapegoats for the Party. In Great Britain, a nation more like Australia, can be seen the same evidence of sexual misbehaviour, crony appointments, disregard for processes of approval and review, direction of public money to unscoped projects of donors and connections and disregard for the rule of law. Distrust of politics has also grown.
It is easy to curse the darkness and to bemoan each new instance of corrupt or self-interested behaviour, to pillory its perpetrators, and to preach on the text, ‘Do not put your trust in politicians’. It is more responsible and effective to muse on the virtue and attractiveness of integrity and to demand it of our political representatives. Integrity is the habit of mind that places the good of all Australians above individual or Party interests, resolutely acts on that basis, and expects that political friends and opponents will do the same. It accepts the entitlement to rule that comes with a favourable election result, but sees it as the license to lead wisely and to act as steward on behalf of the people. It also accepts that people in public life should be role models of public service, They should help shape a culture of integrity in society.
'A political culture in which virtue is honoured and its breach condemned is important. It is also the garden bed for democracy. It encourages the participation of the people in public life and the expectation of integrity in other areas of public service.'
Of course this ideal of nobility of purpose and conduct does not, and never has, reigned unchallenged in Australian or in other governments. Parliamentary representatives represent the rest of us Australians in our individual and collective mixture of intelligence and obtuseness, of virtue and vice, of selfishness and altruism, of the desire to serve and the desire to get to the top. For that reason a political culture in which virtue is honoured and its breach condemned is important. It is also the garden bed for democracy. It encourages the participation of the people in public life and the expectation of integrity in other areas of public service. Its absence alienates people and leads them to mistrust governance at any level.
If the recent evidence for lack of integrity in government is distressing, the evidence for public resistance to it is equally encouraging. The #MeToo movement, for example, has been effective in making the abuse of women a hindrance to Parliamentary advancement. Independent candidates who have supported Integrity and Anti-corruption commissions have also won strong popular support. We might hope that these and other similar grassroots activities will drive more general resistance to politics as usual.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services.
Main image: IBAC Commissioner Robert Redlich speaks during the Operation Watts public hearing on October 11, 2021 in Melbourne, Australia. (James Ross / Getty Images)