Shouts from the desert

With two Federal Ministers gone in two weeks, each for infractions that are, in the scheme of Howard Government misfeasance, trifling in nature, the Government must be having second thoughts about their choice to put accountability in issue. There have certainly been Howard Government Ministers who have committed much greater breaches of the trust of public office than Campbell and Santoro &emdash; the only reason the latter two are gone is that it comes at a time when the Government has tried to hold the leader of the Opposition to a standard so high that it is doubtful anybody could meet it.

I wonder if this would have happened if Amanda Vanstone was still in the Cabinet. I imagine that if she were, then when this was being brought up she would have piped up saying "Do we really want to put accountability on the agenda. Think of what that would mean for us." There is an advantage to having somebody around who is not afraid to rock the boat.