The Commonwealth minister in charge of electoral matters, Senator Don Farrell is a traditionalist. It was entirely in line with parliamentary traditions that recent reforms to electoral laws have been on the nose. Like parliamentarians pay rises being smuggled through in bipartisan mutual esteem at the end of late night sessions, changes to the electoral rules always reinforce the impression of impropriety and irregularity in the divvying up of taxpayer loot by Labor and Coalition machine men. Loopholes to get around the rules, particularly about donations. Small players, especially independents, are not allowed to be in on the joke".

It was just the type of trickery and two-party system abuse of power, accompanied by guilty looks on the faces of the perpetrators, that justifies widespread cynicism about conventional politicians feathering their own nests, and which is giving rise to a growth in the support for independents, and third-party groups such as the Greens. Farrell, like prime minister Anthony Albanese, believes they have some sort of duty to restore the two-party system of government, and he has saidthe inbuilt disadvantage created against independents is precisely the point of the reforms.

Sadly for Farrell, if not for the public interest, the ambush will probably fail. If the opinion polls are any sort of guide, Labor is likely to be pushed into minority government at the election and may even face defeat. It might lose outright to Peter Dutton. Or Labor may lose enough seats that it is Dutton who is in the best position to get the support of enough independents to take power. The seats held by the Teals are mostly seats once held by the Coalition. Most of the teals are moderate, small l Liberals, with views on issues such as the environment, climate change and integrity in government that are in marked contrast to the hard-line conservatism preached by Dutton.

Yet it is equally part of their appeal in their electorates that they are not seen as Greens in disguise, as Dutton alleges. Thus, they make some show at presenting themselves as disaffected Liberals, holding what were once traditional Liberal views.

Some commentators hope or expect that the heyday of the Teals is over, because they are thought to have achieved their aims during this term of government. Thus, it is said, Labor created the National Anti-Corruption Commission. There was a stronger focus on the environment, and higher targets for climate change achievements. None of these, it is said, have the priority as campaign issues that they had at the last election.

But the Teals can invert the argument, saying that their agenda the issues that made them stand against their old party has yet to be achieved. Even more importantly, retaining significant support will be critical if Labor loses its majority and must deal with the Teals and the Greens to retain power. Labor hasnt had the heart or the guts to make good on promises. It could be put in the position of having no choice.

Labors performance has disappointed many voters. Former Liberal moderates in once safe Liberal seats are but one constituency of the very disappointed. Critics from Labors left mainly the Greens will also benefit from anger at Labors timidity, narrow agenda and inaction. So are the opportunities from a widespread feeling that Labor, Liberals and the Nationals are too much the same, as bad as each other and mostly in it for themselves. Labor retained many of the programs and policies of the Morrison Government, including on immigration and AUKUS. Its implementation of particular promises, on climate targets, the environment and NACC fell well short of what was promised or implied.

A powerful campaign factor promised a return of integrity in government. Labor has disappointed those who hoped for a powerful anti-corruption commission and a restoration of public integrity in public administration. It was not a Labor idea; initially Labor had been sceptical. The ideas and the idealism came from independents, including the groupings that became known as the Teals.

But voices were ignored when it came to putting a commission on the books. Though Labor and the independents had the numbers at all stages of putting the legislation through parliament, Albanese and the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, significantly watered down the model in an unnecessary effort to get coalition assent. Having promised open hearings, they substituted closed ones.

NACC promises have not been kept

The NACC cannot be rated a success, nor a fulfilment of campaign promises. It should be promoted as the best example of a continuing need for the Teals, and the best reason to have Teals using their balance of power to force change. The NACC will not be better unless there is pressure from the centre. There is no hope that Dreyfus will improve the castrated model of his own initiative. While under its present leadership, the NACC is incapable of reforming itself.

The commission, under former Justice Paul Brereton, has made serious mistakes, amounting to misbehaviour from the beginning, including, in Breretons case, a lawyers misunderstanding of the law on his obvious conflicts of interest. The NACC also showed itself to have seriously misunderstand its appointed task when it decided not to investigate the Robodebt affair. Brereton purported to disqualify himself from this matter after declaring a personal and working relationship with Kathryn Campbell (like him a major general in the army.) But he tried to influence other commissioners from behind the scenes.

The commission now seems paralysed, not least because Brereton refuses to do the honourable thing and resign. But he still seems to think that the commission, proven to be hopelessly compromised, can be trusted to appoint an independent official to do the job the commission was so reluctant to perform.

It turns out, as well, that there are significant legal problems about how Justice Brereton was made a duty inspector-general of the ADF. Legal advice suggests that the appointment breached the separation-of-powers doctrine about giving judges roles in executive government. Defence (and Brereton) read the wrong High Court judgment and ignored a later judgment much more to the point. It may compromise his war crimes investigation.

One need not dwell on the mess the NACC, and Albanese and Dreyfus have made of anti-corruption and integrity legislation. They wanted a tame and secretive commission. They got one, not least because compulsive secrecy means the public does not find out how much government had been corrupted. Never likely to cause embarrassment to government (even, or especially, when it involved corruption by ministers). Like the present government compulsively focused on secrecy, and on the repudiation of the open government, transparency and lack of accountability it had promised voters. The FOI Act is being ignored, not least by the major departments, continuing to use arguments that have been rejected by the courts.

Is this a projectin which a Teal could say Jobs done. My purpose in politics has been achieved?

Maybe Labor will listen to the Teals when they need their votes.

The Teals and other angry independents who saw the NACC murdered might also reflect that an effective NACC was only a part of plans to restore integrity in public administration. The Morrison Government involved significant abuses of power. Ministers, from Morrison down (including Dutton), ignored procedures and the public interest when making appointments and allocating public money to their own friends and cronies. Programs established to alleviate need were used instead in marginal seats with need almost irrelevant.

Major tenders, not least in Duttons home affairs department, were let without a satisfactory tender process. COVID saw billions pass to the private sector on ministerial whim, without tender, or later, evidence of value for money. The public service sent many jobs to the private sector and the bureaucracy wound down its expertise. Gaps were filled by private sector consultants. Ministers, and watchdog departments such as finance, ignored financial management laws even when they were aware of blatant illegalities; others, including attorney-general’s, rationalised abuses of process on the spurious ground that doing what the minister wanted was always, in effect, a constitutional requirement.

Mismanagement, maladministration and malfeasance

This mismanagement, maladministration and misbehaviour by ministers and administrators wasexemplified by the Robodebt scandal. It was illegal, not authorised by law. It was cruel, and in many respects arbitrary. Though devised to please the government, it was home grown in the bureaucracy. Senior officials punished juniors who brought them bad news and created a culture of fear and retribution. Very few of the officials whose behaviour fell below minimum standards faced any punishment at all.

Robodebt was a moral atrocity the worst in the history of the Australian public service, if from the best-paid and sheltered public administrators, many still with us. But its very enormity can tend to obscure many other appalling failures of administration, ones Labor has had no appetite for investigating, as free kicks against the Liberals. When, for example, a program of handing out money on request for businesses claiming to have shed staff because of COVID, the government failed to provide that money not used for this purpose should be returned. A sum of $30 billion was lost.

The Public Service Commission has steered a few anodyne public administration reforms through parliament, though none would prevent a similar thing happening again. Masking the inaction and lack of will is a rise of popularity of words such as integrity and leadership, though the commission has shown neither over the past three years. It has also taken to claiming that much cannot be said about the guilty because of their right to privacy.

Self-serving insider reviews patting the bureaucratic mates on the back

Recently, a former public service secretary of the Morrison era (now a private sector consultant) prepared a report suggesting that all the loose ends of Morrison era stuff-ups and chronic maladministration had now been resolved. Her colleagues agreed, as one might expect. It was not obvious that any outside views were solicited or considered. Such self-serving insider reports may satisfy finance ministers and prime ministers, but should be regarded by civilians as the obvious tosh it is.

Improvements in integrity in government have been a sham. The government does not mean it when it claims to have restored integrity, openness and accountability. Middle levels of the public service yearn for a restoration of honest and fair dealing. But the senior public service has played dead, with great success. The governments interest has been desultory.

So far as some ministers meant well on reform, they listened to the wrong people. One cannot hope that a Dutton Government would be any better. It is by no means obvious that Dutton or any of his front bench yet accept that the Morrison Government did anything wrong. Abusing the conventions may have become ingrained on both sides of mainstream politics.

Ministers, shadow ministers and backbenchers may not care. But it seems obvious that the public does. It has been political indifference to integrity, transparency and accountability that is helping to inspire rejection of the major parties. Both, and at once. There is a good deal less movement from major party to major party, because one is seen as being as bad as the other.

That is not because the public fails to recognise different economic and moral philosophies in the mainstream parties. It is that they have concluded that these differences are minor compared with the common propensities to put their own interests ahead of those of the public.

In 2021, Labor was hungry for power after being in opposition for three terms. The coalition, by contrast, had shown itself corrupted by incumbency and devoted to punishing its enemies and, particularly, rewarding its friends, donors, cronies and each other.

The public appetite for change was about throwing out people who had been there too long to do any good. But it was also because both the Liberals and the Nationals were seen to be under the influence of crooks.

Labor, by contrast, was initially a refreshing change. But its lack of zeal, its limited agenda, its timidity and unwillingness to offend any Labor constituencies means it has failed to cultivate friends among voters. Especially ones with a passion for honest, ethical and decent government. Bad big parties have created the space for motivated groups and individuals to force change when the big parties do not win majorities. Generally this leads to better government, not worse.

One cannot judge easily which major party has the stronger urge to get things right, to do the right thing, to be concerned about appearances and to be a jealous steward of public resources. The fact is, neither seems to care much. Politicians think they understand the publics cynicism and contempt. But they seem to think it does not matter much because both parties are equally guilty. I expect that independents and the Greens will do better this year, possibly holding the combined vote of Labor and Liberal to under 55%.

Labor is doing its best to help them in this task. Albanese has done all he can to remind people that the Labor Party has become a creature of organised gambling, of the commercial media industry, and lobbyists for infrastructure and Big Australia projects. Labor co-operates with the Coalition to keep the independents at bay, primarily by giving itself ever-increasing sums from the public purse, and depriving the little guys, those less able to compete. Albanese showed his will in the matter from the beginning by denying independents the old share of staff. He made it seem a virtue with public money, but in days after he has perpetuated the inequalities while bolstering his own staffing entitlements. His extra staff have not improved his political nous. By contrast, reduced staff inhibits the capacity of Independents to be across the important issues.

Abuses such as these treat voters as mugs. Labor does not seem to be embarrassed by its little (as it sees it) villainies. But they could become the issue if the Teals hammer integrity in government and the need to hold the balance of power. They have the perfect formula for giving Labor a great big kick in the bum.