End to secret gifts for top bureaucrats

AFTER decades of secrecy, the nation’s top bureaucrats will be forced to disclose every gift they accept above the value of $100.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison intervened after a News Corp investigation into the lengths some government departments take to hide who is showering their top executives and staff with gifts.

From January 31, every agency and government department head must disclose the gifts they receive in a public register online.

Dinners, tickets to sporting events and the theatre, gift baskets, gift cards, Christmas party invitations, flowers, bottles of wine and sponsored or discounted travel worth $100 or more must be disclosed on the registers, which will be published four times a year.

“This is about transparency and integrity,” Mr Morrison said. “Members of Parliament and senators are already required to make these declarations, I felt this should be the case for public officials, too.”

The Prime Minister ordered a new set of guidelines for gifts and benefits, drafted by Public Service Commissioner Peter Woolcott at his direction, to be in place from next year.

Under the guidelines, senior agency heads, including departmental secretaries, must not accept gifts and benefits which might be seen to compromise their integrity.

They must update their registers, which have previously only been kept internally, within 28 days of receiving a gift or benefit. It’s also the first time there has been a single, consistent gift-and-benefits policy across the public service.

News Corp revealed last month that only the Home Affairs department was planning to publish its gift register from next year. Thirteen other departments were ignoring a recommendation from the Auditor-General that every department should publish its register online.

An investigation involving Freedom of Information requests for several departments’ registers uncovered a widespread culture of secrecy.

The Health Department initially tried to charge a fee of more than $2300 to disclose its documents under FOI and only waived the cost after News Corp appealed that it was in the public interest.

It then redacted the documents to hide the name of every individual, company or group who had provided gifts, travel or hospitality, ranging from a $4 coffee to an overseas trip costing up to $13,000.