Crikey

Commentator Norman Abjorensen notes in today’s Crikey edition, that Prime Minister Rudd’s (can we please stop calling him Kevin) robust stand on ministerial standards, performance and accountability is all very well, but:

It is not good enough that the head of government remains the umpire, and it is an area in which parliament should take the lead not just on ministerial standards but on the whole range of parliamentary standards with public hearings and regular reports.

And surely that’s the point. Rudd might look for the moment like a man boldly constructing a new Westminster from the dark satanic rubble of the ancien regime, but the test will come. Sometime, someone in Team Rudd will test the bounds of the Code of Kevin Conduct … how will the Prime Minister act then? Will it be with calm, possibly fatal authority? Or will his will be tempered by self interest and self defence? We shouldn’t have to ask. The next part of the job is to hand such matters of judgment to an independent body. Then we would truly have reform, and the beginnings of a new confidence in parliamentary probity.