Lessons from the Children Overboard Affair
The re-emergence of the children overboard affair on the political landscape, has highlighted the lack of accountability that exists, in the relationship between ministers and their staff. Last week, former ministerial staffer Mike Scrafton said that he personally told the Prime Minister three days before the 2001 Federal election, that claims that refugee children were thrown from Siev 4, were completely false. John Howard has continued to deny receiving any such information. However, Stephen Bartos, a Visiting Fellow in the ANU’s Asia-Pacific School of Economics and Government, and a former Deputy Secretary in the Department of Finance and Administration, believes that the affair highlights the lack of real accountability that ministerial staff face – a situation which is at times exploited by ministers.