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The opposition has accused Trade Minister Don Farrell of hypocrisy after he appointed his political ally and former senate colleague, Chris Ketter, to an overseas diplomatic and trade post in the United States instead of the public servant nominated as the preferred candidate.
Labor MPs closed ranks on Thursday to defend Farrell’s decision to appoint Ketter, but the opposition’s trade spokesman Kevin Hogan compared the appointment of “his mate to a plum US posting over a preferred candidate” to the controversial appointment of former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro as a state trade commissioner.
Former Labor senator Chris Ketter, pictured in 2017, will be the new consul-general in San Francisco.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Ketter’s appointment as Australia’s consul-general and senior trade and investment commissioner in San Francisco was quietly announced on July 7, along with new consuls-general in the United Arab Emirates and Germany.
His appointment was made over Austrade official Kirstyn Thomson, who had been named as the “preferred candidate” for the job by a three-person recruitment panel according to The Australian, even though the public servant was head of the Americas investment desk within Austrade. Ketter had reportedly not formally applied for the job.
Farrell, the minister, instead chose to appoint Ketter – which ministers have the discretion to do – and Thomson has since been told she will take up a senior role in the Austrade office in Singapore.
Ketter’s appointment has prompted questions about Labor’s commitment to move away from handing jobs to political allies and back towards senior public servants.
None of the Greens nor members of the crossbench, including the teal independent MPs who have campaigned hard on political integrity raised the matter of the Ketter appointment in parliament on Thursday.
Don Farrell said the usual processes had been followed with Ketter’s appointment.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Farrell told the Senate on Thursday that he had followed “all of the usual processes that apply in terms of selection of people that represent us in these missions overseas. I am very comfortable with the appointment of Mr Ketter”.
“The government, when they are making these sorts of appointments, considers a number of factors where there is clear advantage to be represented by people who have had distinguished careers beyond the public service such as business people and parliamentarians. I note that was frequently done by the former government,” he said.
Farrell added that Thomson had applied for a number of positions within Austrade and that “she’s about to represent Australia in Singapore, I’m confident she will do a terrific job in that regard”.
Opposition trade spokesman Kevin Hogan.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
But Hogan said Labor had been highly critical of the appointment of Barilaro, the retired NSW Nationals leader, to a trade envoy role that had initially been offered to a senior public servant. Barilaro resigned from the posting before it started.
“Mr Farrell has appointed his mate and factional Shoppies union ally with no experience in trade or investment and who didn’t even apply,” he said.
“Austrade ran a proper process and put forward a preferred candidate, a high-ranking official with two decades experience in trade, but Farrell dumped her to appoint his mate Chris Ketter to the San Francisco post.”
Ketter served as a senator for six years before he began working as a staffer to now-deputy prime minister Richard Marles. He was a senior official in the Queensland branch of the influential and socially conservative Shop Distributive and Allied workers union, widely known as the Shoppies, for decades.
Farrell, who is nicknamed the godfather, is also a former senior official in that union and is politically close to Ketter. The SDA provides Farrell with his power base in his home state of South Australia and across the country through a factional alignment of “small states” Right faction MPs and senators.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Assistant Education Minister Anthony Chisholm, also both Queenslanders, defended Ketter’s appointment and stressed he was experienced across areas of government including defence and technology.
“His experience aligns really well with our objectives in the part of the world,” Chalmers said.
“From time to time, governments of both persuasions over a number of years will appoint people who have a range of experience including political experience.”
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.
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