Two scandals continue to bubble away that reflect poorly on Richard Marles, the deputy prime minister and, as head of the Defence portfolio, both the biggest spending minister and most important manufacturing figure in the government. Neither, however, looks set to damage him.
Marles has led a charmed life over the past two parliamentary terms. He is only Labor’s deputy leader because, due to Anthony Albanese’s ascendancy, the deputy leader couldn’t be from the Left faction or from NSW. He has sailed through numerous problems in his portfolio that would have bogged down other ministers.
One is AUKUS, a project ill-conceived, poorly implemented and never adequately explained to taxpayers, who will be forced to fork out $400 billion over coming decades for submarines that may never arrive to perform tasks no-one has ever properly described. But AUKUS is backed by News Corp, media Sinophobes and the Defence establishment, and is provided a chorus of reflexive support aimed at drowning out fundamental criticisms of the project. It’s easy being AUKUS minister when the media acts as your combined echo chamber and attack dog on critics.
Another is the steady drip of auditor-general reports illustrating that Marles’ department is at best hopelessly unable to conduct major procurement exercises, or is at worst corrupt. On Marles’ watch alone, there have been six heavily critical reports of Defence by the Australian National Audit Office. Many of these reports cover the Defence’s conduct under the Coalition, but they nonetheless indicate that the department simply cannot conduct major project procurement, or manage its key assets, or deliver services to its personnel with the efficiency, effectiveness and ethics that taxpayers should expect.
Marles has adopted a pose of studied indifference as each new report has dripped out. For those reports relating to the department under his watch, the evidence is that things have been getting worse, not better.
The most recent of these was the remarkable revelations of Defence’s overly close relationship with European arms company Thales, and the department’s deliberate misleading of its ministers in relation to renewing a billion-dollar contract with the organisation. Marles’ response was steeped in denial, claiming in June, “I don’t think that there is a systemic issue within Defence in relation to the way in which Defence contracts are managed.”
When a minister doesn’t think his own department misleading ministers is a problem, there’s something gravely wrong with both.
Marles then took the extraordinary step in July of endorsing Thales as “a very important company in terms of the contribution that they provide to the Australian Defence Force … a very important company for Australian defence capability.” By that stage, Thales was under investigation in Europe for bribery.
His misjudgment in endorsing Thales was exposed last week when another investigation into Thales was revealed — this time a joint Anglo-French investigation of the company, possibly over an arms deal with Indonesia. Nor is that investigation the only thing hanging over Thales and its defender Marles, with the auditor-general yet to release the second part of her investigation of Defence’s management of munitions contracts.
Another explanation for why Marles is in denial about problems in Defence and possible corruption in Thales is that his office has failed to keep him across the scandals blossoming on his patch. After all, there are clearly significant problems in Marles’ office.
If there is even limited truth to the claims of Jo Tarnawsky, Marles’ chief of staff who is now suing the government, the pictures she paints of Marles and the top tier of the Labor government are disturbing indeed. Tarnawsky is not a traditional Labor staffer but a veteran bureaucrat with experience in senior vice-regal and diplomatic roles. This may account for why, as she claims, she was allegedly frozen out and bullied by the Prime Minister’s Office within a year of her appointment, then allegedly abandoned by Marles, who she says decided earlier this year that he no longer wanted her as his chief of staff, but then left her in well-remunerated limbo.
Yes, there are two sides to every story and interpersonal disputes within workplaces can get complicated very quickly. But the apparent decision by Marles simply to leave Tarnawsky in her job but without any role is remarkable and another example of his lack of judgment.
Tarnawsky’s legal action has attracted media coverage, sure, but the Coalition figures, from Scott Morrison on down, who were rightly pilloried for their shocking mishandling of workplace sexual assault, harassment and bullying issues during the past Parliament might be looking at the lack of uproar over Tarnawsky’s case and wondering why, exactly, Labor is getting off with so little attention.
Another example, perhaps, of the charmed life of a very mediocre minister. And all the funnier given the Canberra scuttlebutt is that Marles thinks he can knock off Albanese and become prime minister. That would truly be a case of having risen without a trace.
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