Federal anti-corruption body will manacle political vision: Barnaby Joyce

If we neuter the capacity of ministers to act as ministers, we diminish the power of cabinet government. Going to the office of your elected member of parliament with a request would become pointless because the power would reside in another building far away in Canberra – and not Parliament House. Any deviation from bureaucratic edict could be deemed corruption, so the primacy of the decision-making shifts from the parliament of the people to the bureaucracy of the government.

The government itself becomes a titular role that is no longer advised by the bureaucracy but is instructed by it. Real power moves to a closed club of senior bureaucrats.

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Yes Minister is humorous because of the covert power Sir Humphrey Appleby has over Jim Hacker, the elected politician. For many in politics, however, it is less comedy than documentary. Ministers, in some instances lazy or inept, would be even less inclined to go against the brief sent up from the department if they feared being hauled before an anti-corruption body.

And if we move to anything that resembles the NSW ICAC – from which we witnessed an eviscerating, salacious expose´ into the personal life of Gladys Berejiklian – then we will usurp not only the proper process of democracy but of jurisprudence, such as by curtailing the laws of evidence, reversing the onus of proof and essentially stepping away from the development of hundreds of years of common law.

I have said to aspiring politicians that in local politics there is a dull candle of observation, in state politics it is a torch but in federal politics it is a massive spotlight. Politics at a federal level is prime-time viewing.

But if we manacle political vision by removing discretion and wish instead for beige automatism, or if we believe yet another policeman putting a lock on our door will finally stop crime, then we have fallen for the trap that takes power away from the person we voted for and gives it to the person we will never meet.

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