Accountability for government action and inaction has always been central to the study of government in political science and public administration. In Westminster systems such as Australia’s, the heart of academic and media discussion lies in the issue of ministerial accountability. Traditionally the idea behind the Westminster system is that whilst civil servants advise and administer policy, their public face is their minister, who promotes policy and defends department action in parliament and in public. Naturally this directs public attention to ministers and to the processes by which ministers and, through them, public servants are held to account. The manner...

As recounted in the opening chapter, ministerial responsibility is primarily understood and studied as a formal accountability process with the emphasis largely on individual ministerial accountability and the occasional resignation. This preoccupation with individual responsibility reflects a British obsession with the behaviour of the particular minister (Dowding and Kang 1998; Woodhouse 1994) or a scepticism of the observance of collective responsibility, especially when governments disintegrate—the so-called ‘myth/fallacy’ argument (see Dell 1980; Weller 1985). There is generally less attention paid to the dimensions of collective ministerial responsibility and the politics of maintaining cohesion, other than the seminal acknowledgment by...

Why did Barry Jones not become a cabinet minister while Gareth Evans did? Was it a difference in ability, social skill or political judgment? Was it inevitable that Peter McGauran, Martin Ferguson and David Kemp would become cabinet ministers while their brothers, Julian, Laurie and Rod respectively, would not? This chapter contends that there are reasons some individuals make it to cabinet and some do not, and these differences are detectable at an early stage of an individual’s career and are far more important in determining who will be a cabinet minister than the often cited ‘representational’ factors such as...

This chapter draws upon research into the working lives of a particular cohort of Australian federal politicians—those elected on 10 December 1977.¹ They were interviewed twice in 1978—on arrival in Canberra and again at the end of that year—for a monograph on their experience of acculturation to parliament and to representative politics (Walter 1979). All but two were interviewed again between 2005 and 2009 when their parliamentary careers were over. The sequence provides an unusual opportunity for longitudinal comparison of attitudes, aspirations and beliefs of a cohort at the beginning of their political careers, and again in...

For many commentators, parliament’s role in holding governments to account is the subject of laments for a better past and a central element in claims of a decline of parliament and of a democratic deficit (for a recent review, see the discussion in Flinders and Kelso 2011). The claim that parliament’s role has been undermined has a number of dimensions. The primary one centres on the rise of organised and disciplined parties. In the parliamentary ‘golden age’ of the nineteenth century, with little in the way of disciplined parties, the executive could only maintain parliament’s confidence by being constantly accountable...

Ministers leave office for all sorts of reasons. The most dramatic exits are those that are forced. We define a forced exit as one that happens at a time not of the prime minister’s choosing. The prime minister might demand a resignation because of some scandal, but she did not want that scandal to emerge and compel her to ask for the minister’s resignation. A forced resignation can also occur when a minister resigns because they disagree with government policy, because of a personality clash or simply as part of a strategic ploy to enhance his or her own leadership...

Typifying the media commentary surrounding ministerial resignations, politics is often reported like a sporting contest. During Liberal Prime Minister John Howard’s first term of office, the use and misuse of politicians’ travel entitlements—which the media quickly dubbed ‘travel rorts’—became the theme of a series of scandals. Transport Minister, John Sharp, voluntarily amended his travel claims and repaid almost $9000, but did not publicly disclose this information; neither did the Administrative Services Minister, David Jull, who oversaw the amendment and repayment. The Coalition initially closedranks, emphasising Sharp’s ‘good bloke factor’ and the voluntary nature of the rectifications, as they...

The policy debacle that was the Rudd Labor Government’s Home Insulation Program (HIP) cannot be disputed.¹ First, four young Australians died installing insulation in homes before the program was cancelled on 22 April 2010. Further, about $1 billion (approximately 40 per cent) of the $2.45 billion cancelled scheme was, in the end, used to cover its costs, including safety and quality inspections for about 200 000 homes fitted with ceiling batts or foil (Berkovic 2010f). As of 10 December 2010, the number of fire incidents attributed to the HIP since May 2009 had reached 202, including 165 attended by fire...

Ministerial responsibility remains a key constitutional convention in Australia, as in all Westminster-derived systems. But its role continues to be contentious and disputed. Is it effective as an instrument of public accountability? Is it an outmoded principle that promises accountability but, in practice, allows both ministers and their officials to evade public scrutiny? Answers to these questions are elusive, in part because the actual requirements of the conventions of ministerial responsibility are a matter of dispute. Without agreement on what ministerial responsibility requires of ministers, one cannot expect to reach any straight forward conclusions about whether ministerial responsibility is doing...