Prime Minister Scott Morrison's order for government agencies to publish the gifts received by their bosses was hailed as an end to decades of bureaucracy secrecy.
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Since arriving in October, new rules have required more transparency from agencies about the gifts going to the public service - and who's giving them.
Dinners, food hampers, alcohol and event tickets dominate the registers of gifts published quarterly by the largest government departments and agencies under the Australian Public Service's new rules.
The gifts, received by officials in the course of their work, reach up to more than $5500 in value. Under the transparency scheme, agency heads must publish any gift or benefit accepted and valued more than $100.
The most expensive items on the registers include travel costs in February reaching $5500 each for two executive level Health Department officials, paid by the Agency for Care Effectiveness in Singapore's Ministry of Health.
Singapore had approached the department asking for assistance with price negotiations and setting up a risk share agreement team within the agency.
Consultancy firm McKinsey in October gave a master class in transforming organisational culture valued $2400 to a Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet senior official.
The department's gift register says McKinsey had previously provided business advisory services for the major review of the public service last year.
Other higher value items on the bureaucracy's registers are seven show tickets valued about $1000 in total. They were an unsolicited gift mailed in January by the Foreign Affairs Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government to the Home Affairs Department's Shanghai Office.
Tax Office commissioner Chris Jordan in November received from Saudi Arabia's tax agency three nights' accommodation valued at $1000 while he attended and spoke at a global tax policy and compliance conference with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Monetary Fund and global revenue authorities. The event was hosted by Saudi Arabia, the nation chairing the G20 this year.
If this information is there to make publicly available, then you have to ask the question, why would you keep it secret?
- Emeritus Professor Richard Mulgan
Government accountability researchers and experts say the registers reflect nothing unusual or controversial about the public service's interaction with its clients and customers.
Some gifts - $200 in coffee, $250 in Domino's pizza vouchers, and $400 in food and snacks - arrived at welfare agency Services Australia as community recognition for its work processing JobSeeker claims during the COVID-19 economic crash. Staff shared the pizza vouchers among colleagues, and donated the non-perishable food.
Monash University senior law lecturer Yee-Fui Ng, who researches and writes about government accountability, says gift register items disclosed so far show simply that the public service has dealings with foreign governments, corporations, industry groups and law firms, and receives gifts from them.
Nonetheless, the public is better off knowing about them through the new transparency scheme, she says.
"If the gifts were not made public, it would be impossible for the public to ascertain what benefits were provided to agency heads in their official duties," Dr Ng says.
"It is possible to make a freedom of information request, but unclear whether departments would resist such requests on various grounds and exemptions. Thus a proactive disclosure scheme is preferable."
Australian National University emeritus professor Richard Mulgan, an expert in government accountability, says the transparency of public gift registers keeps the public service on its toes.
The fact that registers published by the largest departments and agencies have so far revealed nothing particularly questionable may show the system is working, he says.
"This is a general step in the right direction."
Senior bureaucrats - especially agency heads - should disclose gifts publicly because they make large decisions about public spending on contracts with the private sector, Professor Mulgan says.
"If this information is there to make publicly available, then you have to ask the question, why would you keep it secret?," he says.
"When you ask that question, I can't think of a good reason for keeping it confidential.
"That's always the question we should be asking about access to information. The default position should be that it's available."
Opening up?
The federal bureaucracy's intransigence on freedom of information requests may have helped bring about the public gift registers in the first place.
Newscorp newspapers, which among other media had faced barriers to FOI requests for the public service's internal gift registers, claimed some of the credit when Mr Morrison announced the new transparency rules in October.
An Australian National Audit Office report in 2018 had urged a government-wide policy on gifts and said publishing a register of them online would improve transparency.
Until media pressure, the government had apparently not acted on the audit office's advice.
The federal public service's approach had previously been fragmented. Its agencies had gift policies, but rules varied, the national audit report said.
Gifts and benefits rules introduced in October provided central guidelines to the federal agencies.
They outline that agency heads must not accept gifts and benefits that might reasonably be seen to compromise their integrity.
"In determining whether a gift or benefit should be accepted, the agency head should take into account a range of factors, including the type and significance of the gift or benefit, whether it gives rise to a real or perceived conflict of interest, and whether it is part of an exchange of gifts between official representatives of governments," the guidance says.
The rules give agency heads 28 days to report items they've received. It is not mandatory for agencies to disclose publicly the gifts received by less senior bureaucrats.
The public service commission's guidance says there is only a "strong expectation" that they do.
Many of the largest agencies have reported at least some of the gifts of bureaucrats less senior than secretaries and chief executives since October.
Dr Ng says a compulsory requirement to publish the gifts of all federal public servants would better achieve transparency and accountability.
"A 'strong expectation' is insufficient to encourage fulsome disclosure by all staff," she says.
"It is a major limitation to direct the scheme only to agency heads, as there are many other senior public servants who make important statutory and policy decisions."
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The Australian Public Service Commission says the approach is consistent with agency heads being responsible for their agencies, including for accountability and transparency at their organisations.
A commission spokesperson says there has been strong APS engagement with the guidance since it was released in October, leading to large numbers of registers being published.
"The guidance and the quarterly reporting periods have improved accountability and transparency in the APS by ensuring greater consistency in agencies' approach to accepting and declaring gifts and benefits," the spokesperson says.
Large numbers of the public service's agencies published their registers for the January, March and June reporting periods, the APS commission says, including all departments.
COVID-19 may have affected the numbers of agencies publishing registers in March.