Ex-Ministers: Jobs After Government

Following news of jobs obtained by two ex-Howard government ministers, debate has taken place recently about possible conflicts of interest and favourable treatment by government ministers about to leave Parliament.

ReithThe debate centres around the possibility or appearance of impropriety by ministers who obtain employment with business organisations or lobby groups with which they had dealings when they were members of the government.

In government, ministers are subject to a Code of Conduct which requires that they “do not by their conduct undermine public confidence in them or the government”. Amongst other things, ministers are required to resign directorships in public companies and to divest themselves of financial interests in businesses associated with their portfolio responsibilities. [Read more…]


Quotes From The 2001 Federal Election

This page provides a collection of extended quotations gathered during the 2001 Federal Election campaign.

The quotes cover the campaign period and the election’s aftermath.


How A Single-Issue Party Held Onto Power

We shall never know for certain that the Tampa would have been, by itself, sufficient to ensure the Howard Government a third term or whether it was the combination of the Tampa “crisis” and September 11 that the Howard Government required. What we do know, however, is that when the now retired Defence Minister, Peter Reith, suggested that al-Qaeda terrorists might be found among the Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers on the leaky vessels travelling to Australia, a politically decisive connection between border control and the terrorist threat to Australia was conjured in the public’s mind. [Read more…]