Page 101 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec19-Jan20

DECEMBER 2019 – JANUARY 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
DEFENCE BUSINESS
VIEW FROM CANBERRA 101
THE POLITICAL
ROLLER COASTER
THAT WAS 2019
When former Defence Minister Christopher Pyne hosted pre-departure drinks with members of the defence media, he received no parting gift on grounds that journalists surely hadn’t seen the last of him. And so it has turned out.
A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT | CANBERRA
NO SOONER had the ex-minister departed Canberra than he bobbed up again, first with consultancy firm EY and then with his own firm GC Advisory with his former chief of staff Adam Howard.
And quick as lightning, he was the subject of not one but two inquiries, both looking into whether his new activities conflicted with the ministerial code of conduct and its pro- hibition on outgoing cabinet members having anything to do with their former portfolio areas for 18 months.
First off, the PM called on the head of his department Dr Martin Parkinson to inquire. He promptly concluded there was no problem.
That wasn’t good enough for the Senate which launched its own inquiry by the Labor and minor party dominated Finance and Public Administration References Committee. That concluded that there should be further investigation.
This wasn’t just directed at Christopher Pyne. Former for- eign minister Julie Bishop was also in the cross hairs for join- ing the board of international development group Palladium.
Your correspondent would be most surprised if all this goes too much further. So welcome to the private sector for- mer ministers.
With the federal election called for mid-year, both Pyne and Bishop opted to end long political careers. Had he decid- ed to stick around, Pyne would almost certainly still be de- fence minister and Melissa Price the defence industry min- ister but then hardly anyone thought the coalition could win.
On that basis, Prime Minister Scott Morrison may have figured he would never have to deliver on a pair of announce- ments, on new mine warfare vessels and self-propelled artillery.
Otherwise defence scarcely rated a mention during the election campaign, just like every other election campaign dating back to the dawn of the war on terror.
However, the campaign did feature one (temporary) setback for the defence debate in parliament and that was the departure of Jim Molan, former Army Major General, Iraq veteran and thoughtful and forthright commentator on defence matters. Jim Molan's political career has featured sequences of events
which would have taxed the imagination of a movie scriptwrit- er. He stood for the Liberals for the Senate in NSW in 2016, scoring more than 10,000 votes but being so far down the ticket, in seventh spot, he didn’t come close to being elected.
But then came the dual citizenship row, with the High Court disqualifying Nationals Senator Fiona Nash.
She was all set to be replaced by the next in line, Liberal candidate Hollie Hughes (sixth on the ticket) but then the High Court ruled she too was ineligible as she sat on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, deemed an office of profit under the crown.
And so Jim was off to Canberra for about 18 months. Having made his mark, you’d think the NSW Liberal Party would want him to stay but no and he was placed on the unwinnable fourth spot on the Senate ticket for the May 2019 election.
Undeterred, he launched an unofficial campaign to get elect- ed, attracting a spectacular 137,325, three times the number of votes cast for any other Senate candidate of any party in NSW.
But as most Senate votes are for party groupings cast above the line and distributed according to the desires of the particular party, he still wasn’t elected. But not for long, as Liberal Arthur Sinodinos quit to become Ambassador in Washington, creating a casual Senate vacancy. With the backing of Scott Morrison, Molan was selected to fill the spot and was sworn back in in late November.
Anyone that determined to take on the thankless job of a federal politician, and also that lucky, deserves a go. He has until mid-2022 when Sinodinos’ original term is up. Welcome back Jim.
So what else has been going on in Defence in 2019 – really not that much.
With Christopher Pyne departed, Linda Reynolds became Australia’s second female defence minister and Melissa Price the second female defence industry minister.
Pyne was always likely to be a difficult act to follow and in the six months since his exit, neither minister has exactly sparkled, or for that matter, put a foot wrong; steady as she goes. ■
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