Associate Editor (National Affairs)
Sydney
Like many revellers, the Turnbull government starts the new year wobbly on its feet, with a 2015 hangover making it hard to focus on the bright lights of the 2016 election year.
Malcolm Turnbull has forced South Australian minister Jamie Briggs to resign in a silly and unfair move, inflaming internal friction and raising standards of ministerial accountability to ridiculous levels.
Photos of the night in question — which I have seen — show Briggs happily posing, and the young diplomat who sparked the inquiry in familiar and informal pose with Briggs’s chief of staff, Stuart Eaton. Yet Briggs has lost his ministerial position for similar informality.
This is not a matter of excusing sexual harassment; no such allegation has been made here. The episode is supposedly about inappropriate behaviour.
Perhaps we should now expect any minister seen in a bar after midnight paying someone a compliment (even in the company of others) or offering a goodbye kiss on the cheek to hand in their commission.
The folly is exposed by what the Prime Minister had to do about Mal Brough. Brough’s role in the so-called Ashbygate affair should have precluded him from the ministry, but as a numbers man for the Turnbull leadership coup his baggage was overlooked.
Once details of the police investigation elevated the issue two months ago it was clear Brough should stand aside, but Brough and Turnbull resisted. So when Turnbull — with input from his deputy, Julie Bishop — decided Briggs had to go, it would have been unsustainable to keep defending Brough.
On the one hand Turnbull tested the limits of ministerial standards by allowing Brough to stay despite a police investigation. On the other, Turnbull has deemed one complaint from a public servant that (even at face value) amounted to no more than a social indiscretion could bring Briggs undone.
No one in the Coalition partyroom misses how Turnbull’s tolerance was extended to a key supporter while a Tony Abbott loyalist was told to walk the plank. Combined with pressure from the Nationals for more ministerial places, the convenience factors for Turnbull worked against Briggs.
Tension between Bishop and Briggs that goes back at least seven years was also a factor ensuring the unintended consequences are unpredictable. To this point Bishop (and others) are privy to details of the claim that Briggs is not.
The cabinet governance committee that ruled on the matter was deeply troubled by the implications of imposing such a hair-trigger standard of accountability and there was a sense the process dictated the outcome. Presented with an independent opinion that guidelines were breached it would be a brave committee that overturned it.
Yet Briggs was not accused or harassing, intimidating or “hitting on” the public servant — just that amorphous “inappropriate” claim.
In matters such as this the process often appears to lean towards guilt unless innocence can be proved. The standard set will be impossible for ministers to live up to. The internal tensions will simmer down or fester — more likely the latter.
It all comes after the disastrous attempted defection of dumped minister Ian Macfarlane. While “Macca” was the architect of his own humiliation, his secretive plot saw Nationals leader Warren Truss conspire against the interests of Turnbull and the Liberals. Truss is expected to retire at the election and so could be replaced soon by his deputy, Barnaby Joyce. If Turnbull and Truss were The Odd Couple, Turnbull and Joyce will be like Blackadder and Baldrick.
A further complication is the imminent release of a NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption report bound to mention cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos. As a witness rather than a target, Sinodinos should survive, but given the evidence he’s unlikely to escape criticism, sparking attacks from Labor.
So Turnbull starts the year popular with voters; confronted by internal tension and issues of ministerial standards; challenged by flexing from the Nationals; considering tough policy decisions; requiring a ministerial reshuffle; and needing decisions on election timing and strategy.
If he has made a resolution or two, there is no doubt what they should be: commitments to unity, stability and economic reform. If governments are competent and make the right calls in the national interest — even unpalatable ones — the public generally will reward them. And because that sort of leadership can be unpopular and difficult in the short term, maintaining unity through tough times is paramount.
Turnbull exploited Abbott’s political mistakes and inattention on unity to seize the top job and now must create stability. He is yet to start repairing the budget and reforming the economy. Happily for him the solutions are complementary: the necessary reform tasks — cutting costs, tackling unions and minimising taxes — are the battles that will unify his team.
The big question for 2016 is whether Turnbull will adopt this approach or risk disharmony by taking his party to the Left to please journalists and massage polls. Still, surely while ever the alternative is Bill Shorten and an ALP promising to fix nothing, Turnbull can expect to see in 2017 from the Lodge (where, no doubt, the bar will close as the clock strikes midnight).
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