Over the weekend, Australia’s newly reinstated Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, announced a reshuffle among the Nationals that will see Senator Bridget McKenzie elevated to the Federal Ministry less than 18 months after she was forced to resign for breaching ministerial standards.
The Guardian reports that Senator McKenzie will become the Minister for Regionalisation, Regional Communications and Regional Education. Her role will also include responsibility for emergency management and drought, previously held by the Nationals’ David Litteproud.
In February 2020, McKenzie was forced to resign from Scott Morrison’s ministry, having breached ministerial standards in light of the “sports rorts” saga.
At the time, Morrison did not force McKenzie to resign for using the $100 million sports grants program for political advantage by favouring marginal seats, but rather for the lesser sin of failing to declare her membership of gun organisation that benefitted from the program.
That’s despite an audit of the program that revealed McKenzie and her office had rorted the system, using millions of tax payer funded dollars to give grants to sporting clubs in marginal seats ahead of the 2019 federal election.
Ahead of McKenzie’s swearing in as a minister this week, Morrison released a statement boasting about how this new cabinet will have the highest female representation of any Australian government.
“These changes will provide the strongest female representation in an Australian government cabinet on record, building on the previous record also achieved under my government,” Morrison said.
“However, it is not just about the size of the female contingent in my cabinet but the skills and the experience they all bring to help us solve our nation’s challenges.”
What Morrison says about the importance of the “skills and experience” of ministers is very true; having the best of best is critical to solving Australia’s challenges.
It remains unclear how Senator McKenzie meets any criteria that relates to the best “skills and experience”, having now ostensibly suffered no consequences for her breach of ministerial standards in 2020, when she was forced out of cabinet. Her return, with its lack of acknowledgment about why she needed to resign in the first place, is an insult to every hard-working and honest Australian.
Having more women in federal cabinet will not make a difference to women’s lives in this country while our political leadership tolerates such neglect of responsibility. And in this cabinet, it’s not just McKenzie who has faced no long-term consequences.
As it stands, the federal ministry, headed up by Morrison, harbours one man facing allegations of historical rape (who denies these allegations) and another man, now Deputy Prime Minister, who has faced an unresolved claim of sexual harassment (which he also denies). There’s also former defence minister Linda Reynolds, who was forced to apologise after she described Brittany Higgins as a “lying cow”. While she has been removed from the defence portfolio, Reynolds remains in cabinet as Minister for Government Services and the NDIS.
This doesn’t even cover other actions by ministers in the Morrison government that have betrayed the trust of Australians. There was the robodebt debacle that was deemed by a federal judge to be a “massive failure in public administration”, the mismanaged vaccine rollout and lack of national quarantine facilities, and the death of more than 650 older Australians from COVID-19 in residential aged care during the pandemic. Then, there’s the lack of commitment to address climate change and the refusal to commit to a net zero emissions by 2050 target, a step that would put Australia in line with our strongest international allies.
As we wade our way through the uncertainty of 2021, is there any wonder a recent national survey revealed many Australians have a lack of trust in the democratic process? It’s clearer than ever as to why we do not have trust in our politicians to do the right thing, and it’s at the peril of our democracy.