Hey Albo, read this! This is something, as Prime Minister, you need to know about. It’s called ministerial responsibility – one of the foundations of our Westminster system of government.
Let me spell it out for you. Ministers have the responsibility to oversee executive action within their portfolios. Because government is now so extensive, we can’t expect them to do this on their own, so we furnish them with departments, lavishly endowed with hordes of over-paid bureaucrats, to carry out important work like commissioning studies and so on. We can’t expect the Minister to make every decision, so we allow him to delegate his decision-making responsibility to various underlings. These delegations are accompanied by guidelines that spell out the conditions under which the delegate can exercise his discretion, and when the matter must be referred up the chain, even as far as the Minister, for a final decision. Are you with me so far, Albo? Feel free to ask me to slow down if necessary.
Just to be clear, these delegations are made to lighten the Minister’s workload, not to protect him from making a dumb or even a wrong decision. Let me put it another way – and please excuse the intended irony in this particular case – delegating a decision is not a ‘get out of jail free card’ for, e.g., the Minister for Immigration. A public servant is expected to give frank and free advice, but when he makes an administrative decision, he is implementing government policy. That is the policy of his Minister. If a wrong decision is made, the Minister need not get the blame for the decision itself, but he does own its outcome. More often than not, it will be up to him to sort out both the practical and political fallout but, if the matter is minor and easily rectified, he need not suffer any personal retribution. He will probably ‘lose some bark’ as the saying goes, but life will go on.
But if a wrong decision, whether made by the Minister or his delegate, has a catastrophic outcome then the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility will demand that the Minister himself suffer some personal consequences. That might be just a public rebuke from you, his putative leader, Albo.
But it might be serious enough to call for his resignation, regardless of whether or not the decision was made personally by him. And if he is not willing to resign, you, Albo, may be called upon to show some real leadership and sack him.
Which brings me to the case of Mrs Ninette Simons. Her savage beating, allegedly at the hands of a detainee who was excused his ankle bracelet and given bail despite the magistrate’s misgivings, is certainly a serious matter with catastrophic consequences, not the least for Mrs Simons. The specific identity of the alleged attacker is immaterial. Had he been equipped with his ankle bracelet he would immediately have been able to confirm his innocence. And police could have continued their search for the real third perpetrator.
A factor in whether or not the Minister gets off Scot-Free from a delegate’s bad decision, hinges on whether or not this was a decision that should have been delegated in the first place. Immigration Minister Giles was given the powers he needed to deal with the fallout from the premature release of over 100 illegal refugees, many of whom had been convicted of serious crimes, including rape and murder. Minister Giles pledged to keep the community safe. You would think that his workload was not so onerous that it would preclude him from taking personal oversight of the management of a mere 150 or so of the more serious offenders. That he would think this such a serious matter that he dare not delegate these cases to an underling. Wouldn’t you think, Albo, that that shows a serious lack of judgement, primarily in keeping his commitment to keeping people safe? Or even, at a level that might resonate more with you, to avoiding unpalatable political fallout?
You might argue, Albo, that Minister Giles should be given some latitude in relation to just one error of judgement. And you might have a case there. But Minister Giles has been out to lunch on this whole issue for well over a year as it worked its way through the High Court. His errors of judgment are now legion.
Albo, recently you told us that these decisions are made by delegates to ensure their ‘integrity’. The Oxford Dictionary defines integrity, in this context, as:
The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
Are you suggesting Minister Giles is incapable of being honest in making such decisions?
And finally, Albo, here are some questions you might like to put to Minister Giles. Did the delegate who made this decision depart from the guidelines attached to his delegation? If so, has he been disciplined? And if not, why should you Minister Giles, continue as Minister?
