Four years ago during a cricket test in South Africa, television cameras caught Australian fieldsman Cameron Bancroft rubbing the ball with something in his pocket that turned out to be a strip of sandpaper. In the inquiry that followed, it turned out that this was a plan hatched by the Australian vice-captain David Warner to try and rough up one side of the ball to get it to reverse-swing and thereby gain a competitive advantage for his team. The outcome of this action which was contrary to the laws of the game was that Warner, Bancroft and Australian captain Steve Smith were banned from international and state level cricket for a year. Darren Lehmann, the Australian coach at the time, also resigned from his post shortly after the bans were handed down.
Also four years ago, the Banking Royal Commission among other things found that National Australia Bank had continued charging fees to dead superannuation clients. After some initial resistance, the Chief Executive Officer Andrew Thorburn and Chairman Ken Henry eventually tendered their resignations.
In 2020, the headmaster of the Melbourne private catholic school St Kevin's, together with the head of sport, resigned from their posts when it emerged that they had provided character references for an external athletics coach who was subsequently convicted for "grooming" an underage student at the school.
No-one suggested that any of Lehmann or the people from NAB or St Kevin's condoned or in some cases even knew about the matters that led to their resignations. However, they nonetheless understood that as the people in leadership positions, the buck stopped with them and to appease their stakeholders and enable their organisations to move forward from what had happened, they needed to fall on their swords and resign.
On the other hand, there is a stark contrast to what happens in politics. Consider this - in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Victorian government refuses military assistance from the Federal government for its hotel quarantine program, and instead hires a private security firm. It quickly becomes apparent that the firm is ill-equipped for the job, and so while the rest of the country emerges from the initial lockdown and remains largely COVID-free for the rest of 2020, Victoria's programme leaks like a sieve and the state is plunged into a 4 month lockdown. Businesses fail, children miss out on months of schooling, state debt starts to escalate at an alarming rate and worst of all, 800 deaths happened that could have been prevented but for State government hubris.
When the news breaks about the problems with the quarantine program, the Premier goes on the news and promises to be accountable for his government's actions. However in spite of calls for his resignation as a result of presiding over the most serious administrative cock-up in Victoria's history, he remains in his post. A few months later when an inquiry into the disaster took place, he claimed not to recall who made the decision to engage the private firm and instead of taking responsibility for it himself, he blamed it on the health minister who of course then had to resign.
Not exactly how "accountability" is defined in the Oxford Dictionary, but no matter, one thinks - if he won't do the honourable and appropriate thing and resign himself, then he'll get his come-uppance at the next election.
Of course though, that's not how things played out yesterday, with the Victorian government being returned with more or less the same majority as 2018. As someone who was brought up understanding the need to take responsibility for one's actions, and who has only ever worked in organisations where malfeasance or incompetence had serious consequences for those concerned, I find this incredibly frustrating and saddening. Because if we don't hold political leaders to account in the same way that we do leaders in other fields, then the country is heading towards a very baleful place.
The pandemic cock-ups are one thing, but in re-electing the Andrews government people also seem to have forgotten or are willing to overlook a whole host of other concerning matters that have gone on in the last 8 years - misappropriating public money for political ends; signing illegal agreements with a hostile foreign power in China; serial lying from both the Premier and senior ministers; multiple IBAC investigations including one involving the Premier himself; launching recklessly into mind-blowingly expensive infrastructure projects of dubious economic benefit; and the concentration of power in the Premier's office at the expense of the due process of the Westminster system of government to name but a few.
People might argue that the Liberal party opposition didn't present a good alternative and maybe that's the case. However as we see all the time in business, sport and other areas outside politics, when leadership changes, organisations find a way to survive, move on and occasionally, thrive. Certainly Cricket Australia , NAB or St Kevin's don't seem any worse off as a result of the changes they made.
However, for better or worse, Victorians elected not to go down that path, and I fear we will be much the worse for it. Having got away with everything he has over the past 8 years with no electoral blowback, how emboldened will the Premier be now to lie, break the rules and deflect scrutiny to his own ends?
I say this because I've seen this script play out before with a long term government. Growing up in Queensland, the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government engaged in all manner of ghastly behaviour before finally being thrown out after 20 years and then having multiple ministers and senior public servants put in jail.
I just hope that if the voters won't hold the Andrews government to account, then there is a young Tony Fitzgerald clone currently working his way up through the Victorian legal ranks who ultimately will.
