Public Sector Informant: Lessons on trust in government remain unlearned

In 2006, Meredith Edwards authored a report from her Corporate Governance Australian Research on Appointments to Public Sector Boards in Australia. The paper was part of a major project - Corporate Governance in the Public Sector: An Evaluation of its Tensions, Gaps and Potential. The project provided the first comprehensive theoretical and empirical work on corporate governance in the Commonwealth public sector. It was designed to enhance communication and participation in governance across government, industry, and the community by improving corporate governance literacy and making information publicly available.

Opening the paper, she identified how governments in the United Kingdom and Canada had felt the need to enhance public confidence in the integrity of the political processes around public sector appointments. They had established transparent processes with a high degree of independence, with attention to ensuring merit-based appointments. Until that point, the Australian government had not shown any interest in reform of appointment processes to its boards. Recognising that relatively little was known about the appointment processes followed in relation to public sector boards of the Australian government, Edwards' report highlighted how little was known about the appointment processes in Australia. Her comprehensive analysis highlighted how independence, transparency and accountability are key to preserving trust in our governing institutions.

Other reports around specific institutions, designed to enhance independence in government appointments, have highlighted this factor as an ongoing issue around trust in our public authorities. In 2018, the Hon Ian Callinan AC QC, former Justice of the High Court of Australia, completed a statutory review of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The establishment of the AAT in 1975 with general jurisdiction to review a large range of government administrative decisions reflected advanced thinking and an appreciation of the way administrative decision-making intrudes into every aspect of society. The decisions reach into the lives of all citizens, and indeed non-citizens resident in Australia, affected by government power. The creation of an independent tribunal to review those decisions recognised that such wide and significant decision-making should be made with a high level of fairness. This process of providing independent merits review provides a structural framework to ensure and enhance trust in government by those affected by the decisions.

Callinan's report highlighted a breakdown in some of the principles ensuring the independence and fairness and trust in that body. He identified how some members and former members criticised "political appointments" of tribunal members. There have been appointments to the AAT of people who have served in state and federal parliaments or who have worked in various capacities for members of Parliament. While acknowledging that political engagement, either as a politician or an employee of a politician, is no more a disqualification for office than employment as a public servant, the perception of decision makers not being independent of the government whose decision are being reviewed, is key to the trust of those affected by the decisions. Callinan recommended all further appointments, re-appointments or renewals of appointment to the membership of the AAT should be lawyers, admitted or qualified for admission to a Supreme Court of a state or territory or the High Court of Australia. This would ensure appreciation of the key rule of law principles underlying the independence of the tribunal. His possible exception was for accountants to be appointed to the taxation and commercial division of the AAT.

Whether it be on government boards or tribunals, each with important roles to play in ensuring trust in government allocation of resources, or government decision making, the past 16 years following Meredith Edwards 2006 report and continuing since Ian Callinan's 2018 report, have not seen the embrace of the recommendations of these expert reviews (nor many other expert reviews during that period) to alleviate the breakdown of trust in our political institutions. The independence and diversity of the public service itself, is another element of the public's diminishing trust in our political system. Meredith Edwards was also the lead author of Not yet 50/50: Barriers to the progress of senior women in the Australian Public Service. The research had been sponsored by the ANZSOG Institute for Governance at the University of Canberra, and six Commonwealth departments, as part of a 2010 broader project -'Celebrating the Contribution of Women to Public Sector Excellence'. Members of the institute were concerned about patterns in the data on the representation of women in the senior echelons of the public service. This report became the base to the establishment of the 50/50 by 2030 Foundation at the University of Canberra, and Meredith Edwards' work, and many other former public servants continue to work to ensure women from a diversity of backgrounds are equally represented in key decision making and leadership positions. We need women leaders in all sectors - on public boards, tribunals, heads of governments departments, from a range of backgrounds and life experiences, to ensure public policy is not blind to the different lived experiences and needs of our population. If we don't demand this of our leaders, it will continue to undermine the trust of the citizenry affected by those very policies and administrative decisions made under them. Integrity and independence in our decision makers, and a commitment to diversity, is key to ensuring trust in our systems of governance and to the future health of our democracy

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