The government's pre-election blizzard of bureaucratic appointments shows it's trying to stack agencies with preferred candidates for fear it might lose, Labor says.
Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said on Saturday this was not how a grown-up government should be run.
In a flurry of announcements this week, the government announced more than 100 appointments to different government agencies, with 79 alone to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
This included some very senior positions including the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia and Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
Mr Dreyfus said many of these appointments did not take effect until after the election and could have waited.
"The fact they have been announced now shows the government desperately trying to stack government agencies with preferred candidates for fear it might lose," he said in a statement.
Mr Dreyfus said Labor was not consulted on any of the 103 appointments, some of them former coalition MPs, Liberal staffers or party members.
Treasurer Scott Morrison said there were always things to be done before going into an election campaign.
He said he was particularly pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Philip Lowe as governor of the Reserve Bank and Reserve Bank board member, Professor Ian Harper.
As well, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims was reappointed.
"These are important commitments to ensure we have continuity of government as we go into an election period," he told reporters in Sydney.
"We are always getting on with the job of government."
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