The prime minister’s department contacted the head of the agriculture department, Dr Paul Grimes, “a number of times” after he requested an extraordinary Senate committee hearing in order to provide “highly pertinent” information about a long-running saga over changes to the official Hansard record of answers given by his minister, Barnaby Joyce.
At the heart of the controversy is Joyce’s insistence to parliament that corrections to the Hansard record of an incorrect answer he gave regarding drought support loans on 20 October had been made by his staff, without his knowledge, and that he had asked for the changes to be reversed when he became aware that they had been made.
The opposition agriculture spokesman, Joel Fitzgibbon, has been questioning whether Joyce did know about, or request, the changes – an allegation which, if proven, would mean Joyce had committed the sackable offence of misleading the House of Representatives.
Guardian Australia revealed the full text of a letter sent by Grimes to the committee chair, Senator Bill Heffernan, on 2 March in which Grimes said he had “highly pertinent” information about freedom of information requests by Fitzgibbon for information and documents relating to the process of changing the Hansard. He said the information related to documents not provided as a result of those requests.
But when the committee reconvened last Wednesday as a direct result of Grimes’s request – with a much larger turnout of Coalition senators than normal – Grimes did not provide significant new evidence. Some of the committee’s questions were taken on notice, meaning written answers will be provided by mid-April. Grimes then went on unexpected leave on Friday, with staff given no date for his return to work.
Guardian Australia asked the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet whether there had been any contact with Grimes after he wrote the 2 March letter. A spokesperson for the department replied that “the department has had a number of contacts with Dr Grimes” and clarified that those contacts were after 2 March.
Fitzgibbon called on Tony Abbott to explain why his department was calling Grimes.
“The parliament and the community deserve reassurance that the Prime Minister’s Department was not attempting to influence Dr Grime’s testimony before the committee,” Fitzgibbon said.
In the letter to the committee chair, obtained by Guardian Australia, Grimes wrote that he had suspected at least one document had not been provided as a result of the FOI request and that he also had “further relevant information”.
“Subsequent actions (in particular, the tabling of the document by the minister in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, 24 February) and my further inquiries within the department, including new information my officers had not previously provided to me and a telephone call with the minister’s chief of staff, have confirmed my concerns to have been correct,” Grimes wrote.
“Without my intervention I considered there was great danger of the committee being inadvertently misled as to the existence of such a document, which it now seems was never released under FOI.
“I have further relevant information that would, I believe, be highly pertinent to the committee’s consideration of the broad context in which I considered that the further evidence I provided was necessary.
“This includes specific information relating to the original alterations made to Hansard and the multiple actions I took personally at the time to seek rectification, including a personal meeting with the minister before the alterations became public.”
A spokesman for Joyce said on Monday that “personal leave arrangements are not the minister’s business. They are not the journos’ either. The minister has a strong working relationship with his department”.
The Department of Agriculture said that “the secretary, Paul Grimes, is currently on leave. The department does not comment on an individual’s leave arrangements”. Grimes declined to comment.
Tony Abbott’s statement on ministerial standards provides that, “ministers are expected to be honest in the conduct of public office and take all reasonable steps to ensure that they do not mislead the public or the parliament. It is a minister’s personal responsibility to ensure that any error or misconception in relation to such a matter is corrected or clarified, as soon as practicable and in a manner appropriate to the issues and interests involved.”
Grimes is a long-serving and respected public servant. He was previously the secretary of the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.
Timeline of events
20 October 2014 Barnaby Joyce answers original question on drought support loans during question time.
22 October 2014 Joyce provides “additional information” to his original answer, but does not correct Hansard.
27 October 2014 Joel Fitzgibbon asks Joyce about the differences between his answer and what was recorded in Hansard.
27 October 2014 (after question time) Joyce emails letter to Hansard asking for the changes to be removed from the record of his original question on 20 October 2014. He returns to the parliament to say his staff changed Hansard without his knowledge. “On 20 October 2014 I understand a request for minor edits was made to Hansard by my staff without my knowledge. My staff have been counselled. Consistent with standing orders, I have asked that the changes requested by my office be removed from the Hansard before the Hansard is finalised.”
