There are both particular and general lessons to be learnt from the case of Senator Arthur Sinodinos, who served as chief of staff to former prime minister John Howard for almost a decade after a career mostly spent as a public servant in the Department of Treasury.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
After that he entered business and party organisation politics in NSW before winning a casual vacancy in the Senate in 2011. He has stepped aside as assistant treasurer awaiting his appearance before the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Sydney.
The particular lessons concern Sinodinos' reputation and future career. Whatever the outcome of the ICAC hearings, it would appear that his reputation, at least for common sense and perspicacity and probably for good judgment, has taken a battering. What this means for his career in the Abbott government is anyone's guess, but even if he survives for the moment it is likely that the handbrake has been applied to any future promotions to the senior ministry. He has blotted his copybook in a big way.
The general lessons are about insider politics and the career paths of party insiders such as senior staffers and party secretaries in particular. It is inescapable that once again this controversy, like the previous case of Senator Fiona Nash and her chief of staff, has opened up to public view the incredibly self-interested world of insider politics.
After Sinodinos left the heart of the Howard government he embarked on a trajectory in business and the Liberal Party organisation that always looked as though it would lead him back to Canberra and the Commonwealth Parliament. He appears to have wanted to broaden his experience and to make money before he made a comeback.
His credentials meant that he was attractive to both business and the party. He quickly began to wear two hats, party office-holding and business lobbying, in a classic case of what Prime Minister Tony Abbott has since set out to stamp out in the Liberal Party.
Sinodinos was recruited for his likely political clout and what has been called with no overstatement his ''impeccable Liberal credentials''. Whether he was worth his big salary may be revealed by ICAC, but he quickly began to move in murky political/business circles inhabited by both Labor and Liberal figures.
The career paths into Parliament of senior ministerial staffers and party secretaries are worth a look. It is one of the frequently travelled roads. There are several in Parliament at the moment and there have been others in the recent past. More end up in the Senate than the House of Representatives because it is easier for the party hierarchies to place them there. Labor's Mark Arbib and Sam Dastyari, former NSW party secretaries, are cases in point. The Liberals' Senator Nick Minchin was another.
Not all take the Sinodinos path, but there are similar cases on both sides of politics. The present Minister for Trade and member for Goldstein (Victoria), Andrew Robb, and Labor's member for Brand (Western Australia) and former minister, Gary Gray, come to mind.
Robb had a long career in rural politics before becoming chief of staff to the Liberal opposition leader in 1989-90 and federal director of the Liberal Party from 1990 to 1997. He directed John Howard's successful election campaign in 1996.
He, too, broadened his experience by holding positions as a business executive in Sydney, including with Kerry Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, before entering Parliament in 2004. PBL was into gaming, since spun off into Crown, another big employer of party insiders, and media. His political contacts were an important part of his attractiveness for these positions.
Labor's Gary Gray has had a not dissimilar career. He was national secretary of the Labor Party from 1993 to 2000, running Labor federal election campaigns. Before that he had been national organiser from 1986. When he left his party position to return to Perth with a political career among his longer-
term options, he joined the big Woodside Energy group to work in senior jobs in corporate affairs. Gray's political contacts were put to good use. After six years he became the member for Brand in 2007 and held various ministerial positions in the Rudd and Gillard governments.
Senior party insiders such as Sinodinos, Robb and Gray make more money working for big companies in the private sector than they did as advisers and as they have as backbenchers and ministers. Their political credentials are held in high esteem by business.
Some other senior party advisers, such as Robb's successor, Lynton Crosby, and Sinodinos' predecessor, Grahame Morris, don't make it into Parliament but have similar lucrative positions in the private sector. There are plenty of Labor equivalents. What is clear is that these positions may not all be about lobbying and/or corporate affairs but they certainly have a strong lobbying component.
Party insiders going back to former NSW Liberal state secretary Senator John Carrick, have served the Australian Parliament and government well, in his case as minister for education. The parliamentary mix is better for having a number of such individuals. They tend, like Sinodinos and Robb, to be backroom types rather than flamboyant, in-your-face campaigning types. We need that type of individual in our ministries as we have plenty of the others.
Party insiders are usually better for a spell in the fresh air out of the political world, though some manage quite well without it.
But it is noticeable, given the skills and connections that they already have, that people such as Sinodinos don't stray very far from politics even when they go into business.
John Warhurst is an emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University.
John.Warhurst@anu.edu.au
