Mr. Rudd is correct. But how out of date with the modern ways of working.

Parliament is now responsible not the minister, he/she is responsible to the PM. If the electors dislike what is happening then they throw the government out
Oh excepting sexual or marital peccadillos which may have consequences interesting as they are headlines, repeated, sales improved,the electorate informed!

The Government meanwhile using fear or cupidity as its bait and the pliant media as outlet which when these are combined with the majority disinterest, laziness of the Majority, (rules) interested in their own bailiwick can, for as long as the economy can be painted or believed to be by the majority, continue in office.

No morality here Mr Rudd - reality!
The present Government avow Christian principles as do you but if you wanty office a compromise is necessary. I suggest you taske lessons from a coach in media manipulation.

Why all the hoo-har and waste of taxpayers money on a matter which would have been ignored if Saddam Hussein had just charged the AWB an import duty.

"If ministers were able to argue that they can only be responsible for the matters about which they have actual knowledge, then responsible government is dead."

Duh! Where have you been for the last ten years of Howards reign?

Seiv X, Tampa, V.Solon & co, AWB etc, this government has perfected the art of avoiding responsibility by incompetence. Plausible deniability coupled with lazy and servile journalism (which sweeps all down the memory hole) is the rule, not some new trend.

From the Age 2003. Nothings changed.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/20/1061368353643.html

"Wilson Tuckey is down, but not out. Once again the Government has opted for toughing it out rather than upholding tough ministerial standards.

Tuckey becomes the 14th minister under fire for alleged flouting of the ministerial code of conduct but only a handful have been forced to resign - and they were all in the first two years of the Government's first term.

Since then the code was re-written lowering the bar for ministerial standards and the limbo defence introduced - "it's wrong, but not a hanging offence". Wilson Tuckey has survived as a minister - although even some of his own colleagues are wondering why.

The Prime Minister described Tuckey's actions - in writing on ministerial letterhead to the South Australian police minister to have traffic charges against his son dropped - as "foolish and wrong".

The Government's chief parliamentary tactician Tony Abbott went even further. Tuckey had "offended against ordinary standards that we expect in this place". He had embarrassed his colleagues, Abbott said. But Tuckey had not committed a crime and therefore his actions were not a "hanging offence", Abbott concluded.

The Prime Minister used the very same words last year when he decided not to sack another minister, Helen Coonan, when she was found to have used ministerial letterhead to press a personal insurance case.

In the process the 27-page ministerial code of conduct governing many aspects of ministerial duty has been reduced to a single simple rule -do not commit a crime.

Small wonder that people are more disenchanted with the political process than ever."

It looks like a minister has to be convicted of a crime before Howard will sack them.

Makes 20 in my count that should have been sacked if Howard's once much vaunted ministerial code of conduct was still in effect.

Well the lawyers did very well out of the Cole Report.If you want to do business with corrupt third world economies,you have to play by their rules,or watch our farmers starve.All this moral high ground hand ringing means nothing.
Many contractors who deal with Councils in this country have to pay some sort of a sweatener to a bureaucrat to keep a contract.Perhaps we should look at corruption in our own local back yards before passing judgement.

Arjay equates his unsubstantiated claims of contract sweeteners to councillors with $290mil channeled directly to an administration supposedly building weapons of mass destruction - he must work in military intelligence!

If the ACTU had paid Saddam that money, Howards brownshirts would be lynching unionists in batches (a few more years yet lads).