I've had a lot of experience with the United Nations. That place needs a big cleanout

Bureaucracies are frequently set up as independent. That sounds great. However it actually means "answerable to nobody, unless we screw up in an undeniably mega fashion".

In short: accountable to no one.

Setting something up independent from government seems to have some sort of appeal to voters. It's odd to want to set something up as independent from the people you elect. It means the set up body isn't answerable to your chosen officials, nor to you.

The mega bureaucracy we all have to live with is the United Nations. It's a law unto itself. And it's a hoarder's house. My own experience of the UN was in three parts.

First, as minister responsible for the federal police, I took Christmas lunch when I went to support our peacekeepers in Timor-Leste. The federal police were there when it really hit the fan, as opposed to military who swung in to help clean up. On a tour around we passed the UN compound. The car park was full of smart, shiny, green four-wheel drive vehicles with flash UN logos. The problem was they were for bureaucrats in Dili. Literally 9-to-5 in the car park. The peacekeeping teams weren't provided with that luxury. But then they weren't UN bureaucrats.

Second, was as immigration minister. The former Dutch prime minister and then UNHCR commissioner Rudd Lubbers was in Canberra to tell us and the Australian media how terrible, in his view, we were.

Oddly, the UN didn't seem to care that people smugglers were running a business in competition with them, but only to help those asylum seekers who could pay up. A sort of help-for-the-richest scheme which meant every person they got to our shores took a place that would have gone to some poor person waiting in a UN camp. After meeting with me, he must have changed his mind. No insults were flung.

That may have had something to do with seeking an explanation from him as to why we shouldn't out the UN as being partisan. They had removed figures from their UNHCR data which used to, and would if included, show Australia to be the second or third largest taker of refugees for permanent resettlement globally.

He first acted incredulous, then denied it was intentional, then claimed it had been fixed and when confronted with the reality that it hadn't, pretended to be sorry. ( As if anything like that happens because of a computer glitch!) It was embarrassing to watch. When he resigned I felt sorry for whoever had lodged a sexual harassment complaint against him.

Antonio Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal took his place. At a meeting with him in Geneva, he was unfashionably late and it looked very much like the male "I'm very important" syndrome. Maybe I'm cynical. He then appeared, ebullient, and delighted to make Australia an "opportunity" to become a member of the "much bigger donors' club."

This from an agency where we were not only one of their biggest financial supporters, we were also among the top three countries taking in people for permanent resettlement. But we were also the country they didn't support in the fight against criminal people smugglers! Why in those circumstances would we give them more?

He hadn't considered the reality. He went on to become the Secretary-General. Twenty or more years clinging to the greasy pole.

Third was dealing with some of the UN agencies in Rome. Did I mention that a great swathe of UN agencies are in places like Rome? Then there's New York, Washington, Geneva. Of course smaller agencies and offices are around the world in less salubrious places.

The guy who headed the Food and Agriculture Organisation was a wily African who was determined that I should understand how hard he'd worked to build the agency by joining up more African countries. Guess who they'd vote for in the next leadership contest? The woman who headed the World Food Programme was a greasy pole climber from way back. That goes without saying for all agency heads. Her first order of business with me, after running very late because she spotted an old friend in the lobby, was to offer me a photograph with her in front of the UN and WFP flags. As if anyone wanted or needed that. I still regret not telling her to shove it.

The UN does a lot of fabulous work. But there's a tremendous amount of waste. A top layer of bureaucrats that run things, but don't do anything. They scratch each others backs to get either promotion or their country's preferred candidate or resolution up. It's old-fashioned horse trading. Joe Citizen's view doesn't get a look in. It's a closed shop.

These guys speak as though citizens of the world elected them when in fact it's just other bureaucrats who've given them their jobs. The mother of all greasy poles is at the UN

How else can you explain the UN not outright condemning those at UNWRA for their involvement in the horrific attacks on Israel? Why haven't they had a root-and-branch investigation and clean out? And not just of the UNWRA. The whole hoarder's house needs a good flushing.

A vice-chancellor once said the bigger his university council the better. Why? It's easy to divide and separate a larger number and set themselves against each other on any proposal you don't want. Imagine being in the UN with all the opportunity for divide and conquer. It's a bureaucrat's dream.They just aren't accountable. They want your money. They don't want to account for it.

I did human rights law before it was trendy. As a consequence of topping the class (there were only about nine of us), I was given a place at a small seminar with Gough Whitlam and Sir John Bray, both Labor idols.

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Bray asked Whitlam if we had signed up to a convention on road safety (there's a high death toll globally) and it had clauses pertaining to the use of, say, traffic-light frequency, would that mean Adelaide traffic lights would need to follow that convention? Seemingly delighted Whitlam beamed: "Yes, it would" as his answer. Bray replied that that was exactly why the UN needed close monitoring. After all how can one international document on road safety be effectively applicable in so many different circumstances.

The UN might be OK as a guiding light, but as a broad-based setter of rules across the globe, it needs to stick to the basics that are indeed universal. Right now it seems to think it's the world's saviour. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Getting the world to come together on so many issues is vital. We need and effective and functioning UN Sadly so much of it just isn't. Even sadder the big donors don't appear to have the mettle to demand change. It is in the world's interest that they find the guts to do it.