Comments on: What is ‘ministerial responsibility’?

By: Boris

Boris — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:06:33 +0000

” If Howard’s not going to discipline these people for their misdeeds and the Australian electorate doesn’t get the chance to (because these people are elected by the same blue-bloods regardless of what the country does) reprimand them, where’s the incentive to act responsibly?”

The incentive to act responsibly is two-fold: the desire to be promoted and not to be sacked at the next reshuffle (or replaced as ruling party candidtae at the next election). And the desire for the party to win the next election so that the minister in question, even if guaranteed seat in parliament, remains a minister rather than a shadow minister.

This is also an answer to those who worry about a long (3 year) wait. I would argue that it is fiction. Ministers whose faults may lead to shift in public opinion risk being removed much sooner if PM perceives the damage.

By: Sacha

Sacha — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 03:13:42 +0000

I recall that George Bush said that the 2004 Presidential election was his “accountability moment”.

While elections are “accountability moments”, it’s a pretty coarse form of accountability, in which all the person’s/government’s actions are held accountability once every three or four years.

Informally, there’s accountability between elections through the media, an effective opposition, or perhaps the courts, but it’s still pretty sparse.

(Slightly tangentially, I currently think that parliamentary systems are better than presidential systems of government as parliamentary systems can demand much greater accountability from ministers. Second parliamentary chambers are very useful for this reason too.)

By: Rajat Sood

Rajat Sood — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:19:29 +0000

I could add to Andrew’s response to Matt that even corporatised GBEs that operate in open markets do not face the same incentives as privately-owned businesses. GBEs’ managers’ incentives are to underprice and overinvest to retain/expand market share and justify their existence. Profitability only matters if they make huge and politically embarrassing losses. This might all be good for consumers in the short term, but taxpayers and the citizenry get screwed over time because public funds are deployed inefficiently. I think if opponents of privatisation actually spent a day in the offices of the government bureaucracies that are meant to scrutunise GBEs, they would realise how little data matters and how much politics matters in their interactions.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:40:18 +0000

Matt - Some of the data may be the same, but public enterprises do not get the crucial financial feedback - what people are prepared to pay for their services. And they have weak incentives to act on what feedback they get, because they usually have captive markets and their funding is set by political lobbying rather than performance.

If you are a parent for example, what is a more effective mechanism for getting a better school for your kid - simply moving him/her to a better one or spending years trying to campaign for better public schools, which many people have been doing for as long as I can remember to little obvious effect?

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:16:32 +0000

Andrew - ha ha! It all comes full circle! But surely the metrics that both the state and the private sector use to analyse performance really aren’t all that different? Surveys, testing, participation in programmes, dollars spent, numbers in and out the door - it’s much of a muchness, really.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:19:26 +0000

Anne - The government is in ‘caretaker’ mode so nothing new happens during a campaign. All these spending promises are for the future, after appropriate legislation is passed.

By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:18:31 +0000

So much damage is carried out in remaining weeks of elections.Once a date is announced no more contracts should be signed or deals made.The obscene amount Mr Howard has spent trying to make himself look as though he has served the people well & will give even more.What an insult to the Australian people,in my opinion we also need another major party.Liberal and Labor are to much alike,the people need a party that actually care about our country & people.

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:51:17 +0000

I don’t think that ministers should be held responsible for things they cannot reasonably control, but if you’re going to give them the right to hire and fire public servants you can’t then turn around and say they have no control over those public servant’s doings.

Far more sinister than dodging responsibility for the public servants’ actions, though, is the way that this government in particular has gone out of its way to use advisers as a barrier between themselves and the public servants - precisely in order to avoid accountability. Following the PM’s lead, they make it very clear what they do and don’t want to know.

Having Minister’s unaccountable for their adviser’s actions has created some really perverse incentives around what the public service will and will not tell a Minister’s office and what advisers will and will not tell the Minister. As a public servant, I can tell you that it would be a very career-limiting move if you were to directly tell some Ministers something they’d rather not be on record as knowing.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:22:08 +0000

Matt - And this is one reason why classical liberals prefer as much as possible be carried out in the market, where there is constant and fine-tuned feedback, rather than by the state, where you have to bundle all your concerns into a couple of votes (H of R and Senate) once every 3 years.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:26:06 +0000

Boris, I agree that elections are the ultimate mechanism, but 2-3 years does seem an awful long time to wait. A lot of damage could be done in that period. In a corporate context, would shareholders be satisfied waiting until the next board elections to turf out a board which failed to sack an underperforming CEO?