When you’re in the politics game, you can expect to have more or less every facet of your life and doings be opened up for scrutiny. That’s the double-edged sword of representing the public – fulfilling a desire for public service, but simultaneously hanging your career on a knife’s edge. One screw up and you’re in trouble.
So then it becomes quite legitimately baffling when people – actual grown adults – who hold political positions do things that put them even in the same ballpark of construed corruption or conflict of interest.
Enter, Tourism Minister Andrew Robb, who despite holding that portfolio, seems to have gone ahead and poured personal money into three Sydney restaurants.
That, in and of itself, is totally fine – there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that politicians can’t have business interests outside of the political world, after all. But shit starts getting a little murky when you learn that one of those restaurants, Boathouse Palm Beach, is currently being promoted by Tourism Australia as part of a $40million Goverment-funded campaign called Restaurant Australia which is aimed at 17 major international markets.
More to that, the scheme is one being promoted by Andrew Robb directly.
Robb’s stake in the company is held through a private company called Ram Consultancy, meaning his money isn’t directly tied to the restaurant – essentially, a little bit of financial trickery to provide plausible distance in the event of conflict of interest allegations. But the problem is that Ministerial Standards – and all ethical considerations as a politician – state that under no circumstances can public money be used to promote private interests.
The fact that Robb himself vehemently claims that he signed off on the business on his Register of Interests, and the fact that Tony Abbott, George Brandis, and Warren Truss approved the holdings is kind of irrelevant at this stage.
A spokesman for Tourism Australia stated that “The Boathouse was one of 1800 Australian businesses which responded to our industry ‘rally cry’ to sign up to this campaign. They shouldn’t be penalised for taking up a free opportunity to showcase themselves and their food and wine offering to the world.“
And he’s absolutely right, the business itself shouldn’t be punished. It’s just that maybe Andrew Robb should consider selling his stake in the restaurant to completely avoid the conflict of interest – particularly if he continues to travel the world promoting the Tourism Australia program.
Tom Haverford had to sell his stake in the Snakehole Lounge because of a conflict of interest through his work at the City of Pawnee Parks Department. Surely it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that Robb should follow suit.
By all means, I’m not saying that he shouldn’t have private business interests. It’s just that maybe those private business interests shouldn’t be a restaurant that’s being promoted by the department of which he is the Federal Minister for.
All I’m saying is that in the cutthroat political game, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Photo: Pool via Getty Images.
via SMH.
