Australian ministers have an office at Parliament House and a ministerial / electorate office elsewhere. Treasurer Swan has an office at Parliament House, a ministerial office at Eagle Street Brisbane, and an electorate office at Nundah. He also has a suite of offices at Treasury, although these only get used for a few days prior to the budget. In fact it can be quite expensive when a minister changes, as the ministerial office will also generally move, since the tradition now seems that ministers spend most of their time at their ministerial office in their own city.
This is a contrast to other administrations, including many of our States, where the minister is co-located with his or her department. The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer is based at HM Treasury, similarly for the other UK ministers. The US Secretary of the Treasury is in the Treasury building in Washington; the US Secretary of State in the State building in Washington.
In fact, the Australian taxpayer is spending quite a lot of money indulging our ministers who wish to have multiple offices that are not static and to not live mainly in Canberra. So, for example, there was a major upgrade to a ministerial office in Adelaide for Defence minister Hill (2001-2006) including special extra thick doors etc to be rated to take high level military secrets – this suite of offices is now rarely used. This seems rather inefficient – a permanent Minister of Defence office would allow all of the bells and whistles to be installed in the one location.
Even in Parliament House, though, ministers move around, as did Wayne Swan when he moved to be deputy prime minister and took Julia Gillard’s former parliamentary office.
There are advantages and disadvantages of the Australian arrangement. The fact that ministers are located together in Parliament House might encourage communication among party colleagues – but that is principally during Parliamentary sitting periods (about 16 weeks out of 52 weeks). At other times ministers can be rather remote, both from their Cabinet colleagues and their department. Indeed, the Australian arrangement might lead to a preference for politics over good policy.
Our arrangement makes it (relatively) difficult for the minister to influence his or her department through the natural build-up of loyalty from co-location. In Peter Costello’s time, this meant that the left-leaning department became isolated – the control of the Secretary became relatively stronger. Under the Howard Government, the public service went its own way while the ministry went in another direction, and there were attempts to bring the public service along, but many of these failed. Rather than rectifying this situation, the Howard Government found itself relying more on external advice and its own ministerial staff. The vast resource of the Australian Public Service was underused – effectively used to deliver and administer programs rather than develop programs. Then, too, when problems of administration became apparent, it was frequently too late to do anything about it. If the relevant minister had been co-located with the department, there would have been a better chance of detecting the problem early and having ministerial buy-in to make the requisite changes for the program to get back on track.
I think this is a significant risk for a Coalition government. It is one of the reasons that the public service is able to quietly go its own way. When a minister is co-located there is certainly a risk of the minister ‘going native’. But on the other hand, a strong minister is in a much better position to influence the department and get a better sense of the relative qualities of the various public servants.
For Labor governments, it probably doesn’t matter too much – overall the public service leans that way anyhow.
Let’s not fool ourselves about ‘frank and fearless advice’ though. That may be the benefit of being a secretary, but for the average public servant they find themselves mouthing the views of their secretary, not the minister. ‘Frank and fearless’ rarely means arguing against the secretary in front of a minister.
On balance, I think it would be preferable for ministers to be located with their departments. There should be one and only one Treasurer’s office, located at Treasury, and a smaller office at Parliament House for use during sitting period. And so forth.
What do you think?
This is a no-brainer.
Ministers should have their offices in Canberra, whether in Parliament House or, preferably, the respective dept. A country with such a relatively small tax base can hardly afford to cater to the whims of every parliamentarian who occupies a ministry.
Relatively small tax base? Careful of that cultural cringe there…
Collocation has its downsides. The MO staff and the PS get very close. The boundary between advisers and PS can get blurred. It is less Westminster than tradition would expect. On the other hand if the Minister doesn’t get to know their department beyond the DG they could end up a bit isolated from what can be a great resource.
While collocation makes it easier to get to know the department, it isn’t necessary for that to happen.
I can remember two particularly outstanding Ministers I had when I worked for the APS. One from each side of politics. Neither were collocated with the Department, but the point is they would engage. if they wanted to know something a bout a brief, they would ring the drafter, be friendly, make sure it was clear that their thoughts mattered, even if it was a lowly ASO. Visit the place every now and again and have a chat. And the department loved them for it.
Others treated the APS like shit, and I am thinking particularly of one that is still a Minister now.
The problem for Coalition governments, particularly when they first get in, is they tend to regard the public service as the enemy camp. In some departments this might be even true, but the pattern of ‘us and them’ can get entrenched.
So even if collocated, it takes some time for a coalition government to engage with the public service in any sort of frank discussion. This is true regardless of whether it is Canberra or a state or territory government. And they suffer for it.
One point about collocation: the Ministers will still have a parliament house office for when parliament is sitting (which would be used less), an office in their department and their electorate office. So collocation would not necessarily result in savings.
I don’t think collocation would be a good idea.
I saw the UK system in action when I spent four years in the UK civil service during the Blair/Brown days- from my experience it makes the Civil service way too close to the government and reduces independent advice (despite your qualms Samuel, there is still some of that in the current Aust public service -and even though it isn’t perfect, there would be far less independent advice under the system you favour).
If it was to be adopted you would also need to ensure that ministerial staff were kept separate from the public service – otherwise you run a greater risk of publc servants working to ministerial staffers rather than to Ministers
I spent some time (many years ago) in a Ministry where the Minister and his staff were co-located.
However, there was a big wall between the two, and the door connecting them never opened. There was no physical contact at all – the Minister and his staffers never wandered over to see what was going on. And of course it was verboten for us plebs to visit the dark side.
Communication effectiveness – zero. Might as well have been located in different states.
Well mate the current crop of federals should sit in the corner, facing the wall.
Apart from their offices in their local constituency, then dedicated offices in Parliament House Canberra.
I reckon we have too many”minister” Abolish climate change ,energy ,education,health,etc .,these are all State matters ,then foreign affairs ,much too big ,reduce embassies to London,NewYork,Dehli ,Singapore,Beijing and Tokyo with 8staff in each,
.Privatise as much as possible of remaining government functions,make parliament elected annually ,criminalise political funding.let mPs serve 3terms then not be allowed to hold office again for life,with no super pensions or perks,Reduce all PS pensions to median OAPensionthat will save lots of taxpayer money!
“Where do our Ministers sit?”
Most of them tend to sit on their speaking orifice, which fundamentally muffles what they have to say.
Can’t see anything wrong with that, so let’s preserve the status quo!
I stand to second Borisgodunov. Well said Sir!
Entropy has touched on this above, and I agree that too close a physical relationship between the Minister and his/her office and the department, with the inevitable increase in personal contacts between advisers and public servants, is likely to encourage opinion shopping, with avisers ringing round all the public servants they have met in the coffee shop or in the lift until they get the advice they want to hear.
Unelss it’s on minor or technical isues, there should be only one contact point betwen the department and the Minister and that’s the Secretary, who should have (and is certainly paid to have) the overall picture. Opinion shopping is an issue even when Ministers and their advisers are located away from the department. Co-location can only encourage it. It’s much harder to piss off some suave (or bullying) male or female when they tackle youi in person.
be fair: the house of commons is much larger as are usual house of common’s majorities. ministers do not have to be nearby for divisions.
the division bells ring for two minutes in Canberra and 8 minutes in the commons.
Joe Ashton MP remembered a case from the dying days of James Callaghan’s government:
The perfect chair.