Australia no longer an apostle, or exemplar, of good government

The OECD is also an academy and apostle of good government and good public administration. Clean public administration, open and accountable and subject to checks and balances, including integrity commissions. These are all things that the Morrison government, with the particular support of the hard-right Western Australian faction that Mathias Cormann has led, is opposed to, in both principle and practice.

As minister for finance, Cormann was the chief steward of public spending, and not only in aggregates but in controls over process, propriety and legality. As the sports rorts affair showed, he has failed Australians in that job, and OECD members will be wanting to assure themselves that his supervision…