Too often government ministers are made scapegoats. This applies to three federal ministers at the moment: Peter Garrett, the Minister for the Environment; Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Communications; and Bill Shorten, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities. Too often criticism of ministers neglects the wider context and fails to recognise the responsibility of the broader community.
It is legitimate to pin individual responsibility on ministers even to the extent of calling for their resignation. They must be held accountable for their own actions and those of their department. Yet the wider context includes the balance between collective and individual ministerial responsibility. After all Garrett is just a junior minister and Shorten is merely a parliamentary secretary.
But even recognising the Cabinet context is not enough. Ministers are being made scapegoats, not just for Cabinet decisions but for the deeper failings of the community as a whole.
Shorten bore the brunt of criticism in a recent ABC Four Corners program for government failure to adequately fund support for the disabled. The program documented the terrible demands made on families and the lack of resources available to charities to assist carers through the provision of residential facilities.
But the failure of government provision is the responsibility not of any one government but of us all. We are individually and collectively responsible. Governments will act when they are pushed hard or when they judge that the community demands action. The community is not yet sending such signals about the disabled and their carers. Instead we fund the welfare sector out of our spare change. Shorten is just an easy target.
Conroy has been accused for cutting $250 million from the licence fees of the commercial free to air television companies. In particular he has been criticised for meeting privately with Channel 7 owner Kerry Stokes. Tony Abbott accused him of electoral corruption despite enjoying a similar meeting with News Ltd magnate Rupert Murdoch at much the same time.
Yet Conroy's real failing is that he is willing to meet with any major stakeholder in the communications industry. Name a major sporting event and he has been a guest in a corporate box. He loves sporting freebies.
The whole communications industry deserves the criticism. Business as usual is for the top end of town to waste shareholder and client dollars on conspicuous consumption and extravagant political lobbying. That is a scandal of at least equal proportions to any of Conroy's sins.
And