Gladys Berejiklian’s friends, sympathetic followers and sundry political flunkies are unhappy the ICAC found she engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” – but consider for a moment the counterfactual: What message would have been sent if she had been cleared?

Instead of being up another step on the ladder towards better government, to expecting higher standards of our politicians, anything less than the ICAC’s verdict would have set back the cause of ridding Australian politics of deeply embedded “they all do it” corruption.

It seems that would suit Peter Dutton fine, but I’ll come to that.

Steadily evolving

What the electorate lets its politicians get away with has been steadily evolving. And it has further to evolve.

In the case of the Rum Rebellion state, from the notoriously corrupt Askin premiership (complete with paper bags of criminal money), we evolved to the Wran premiership of at least turning a blind eye to criminal activity when it suited, to the Greiner premiership of actually trying to do something about it – establishing the ICAC.

But that initial drive was coming off a low base of infamously criminal corruption, from a police force run by crooked cops through to planning decisions following the money.

We have steadily moved on as a society to now expect our politicians will not use the Treasury, our money, for their own political ends, to do favours for mates and to repay debts.

That process has elevated what is “acceptable” from the negative of “stuff that’s not illegal” to the positive of “acting ethically for the benefit of the community”.

Caught on the wrong side

Gladys Berejiklian didn’t understand that progression. She was caught on the wrong side of the “pork barrel” euphemism.

Never mind the ICAC’s exhaustive (and, yes, overly long) investigation and consideration of the Glad & Daz Show, Ms Berejiklian was condemned by her own words when forced to fess up to the earlier scandal of a $250 million slush fund for councils in Liberal electorates ahead of the 2019 election.

Before the smoking gun was found – copies of shredded documents – the Berejiklian government was all “nothing to see here and certainly nothing that I saw”.

But when a search of the Premier’s IT system found the briefing notes for Ms Berejiklian, it got worse. The Premier effectively said: ‘Oh well, it’s not illegal so too bad, you can all get stuffed.’

No, not illegal – but unethical.

That confession was part of the extraordinary unfolding of 2020 that started with the Bridget McKenzie/Scott Morrison #sportsrorts scandal and led to a major evolution in acceptable political behaviour.

Scott Morrison and Bridget McKenzie were under pressure over the ‘sports rorts’. Photo: AAP

With the help of spreadsheet sleuth Vince O’Grady, The New Daily exposed a steady stream of rorting of federal grants – several billion dollars worth.

The Morrison government’s lack of integrity became one of the triggers for the rise of the Teals. We weren’t going to take it any more.

There’s no going back from here, or so we should hope. That’s why Gladys Berejiklian cannot be excused.

And why Peter Dutton has rushed to defend her.

No change

He leads a party that remains full of politicians who refuse to acknowledge the evolution, who pretend they did nothing wrong and want to continue their old ways.

When confronted with the near-incredible #carparks scandal in 2021, then finance minister Simon Birmingham justified it with:
“The Australian people had their chance and voted the Morrison government back in.”

He didn’t actually raise a middle digit to the electorate – well, not that I saw – but he may as well have.

Peter Dutton, Simon Birmingham and the rest in the Coalition’s leadership team were either active participants in or happily waved through an unprecedented level of taxpayers’ money for their political ends.

The daddy of all the rorts, the community development grants scheme, was specifically designed to enable government members to splash dosh on pet projects (i.e. electorates) without any interference from public servants or the Auditor-General.

Mr Dutton’s problem is that if he admits Ms Berejiklian failed to meet ethical standards, he and nearly all his federal colleagues also failed.

The federal equivalent of the NSW ICAC officially starts work today. It should be very busy.