Thanks for playing
Time to go for tonight. Thank you for your company – apologies I didn’t get near the comments thread today. Let’s hope for calmer waters tomorrow. Let’s not laugh as we hope. That would be indecorous.
Today, Tuesday:
-
Tony Abbott woke to two presents: a not too bad Newspoll in the circumstances; and another big leak from within the inner sanctum designed to inflict fresh internal mayhem. The leak prompted a restorative breakfast television interview and a session with old mate Alan Jones. There was the prime minister in his bunker again, gesturing out. Toot the horn. Break out the Mr Whippy van, Jones suggested. Ok Alan, the prime minister said.
- A senate estimates committee in its wisdom then elected to subject the president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, to a nine hour star chamber which was meant to work optically speaking as a short, sharp, satisfying and comprehensive takedown of Triggs – who had wickedly conspired to produce a blatantly partisan report about kids in detention.
- Instead, Triggs produced the slightly startling revelation that a third party (the secretary of the AGD) had suggested she might move from the commission to another government position. Non-government senators wondered consequently about the criminal code and whether such an offer may have constituted either a bribe or an inducement. Things got in a right tangle. The male senators looked a bit short tempered and inclined to patronising and speaking over the female witness in equal turn. To anyone who doesn’t harbour a conspiracy theory about the scourge of Big Rights – it all looked pretty unpleasant. It looked a bit like the stitch up Triggs was accused of perpetrating with her report that detailed the practical consequences of bipartisan immigration policies which allow children who have committed no crime to be detained if they arrive through unauthorised channels by boat.
There was more, but that’s the essence of the grim business. I’ll be here tomorrow early and often. I hope you’ll join me then.
Updated
I think we can call that a tough day at the office.
More lovely from Bowers.
Gillian Triggs, departing after a nine hour inquisition.
Poor Mr Bowers – so much after the fact to share his question time pictures, but better late than never.
Cliev love.
I know nothing about jobs canvassed by the attorney general.
It’s a matter of public record that the attorney is unhappy with the Human Rights Commission.
The estimates committee in its wisdom has decided to call time for now on the Human Rights Commission. But the inquisition isn’t finished. They will come back for a spillover day.
Meanies, you people. Mean mean mean.
@Lisabiartch @mpbowers @judbell43 @murpharoo @GuardianAus pic.twitter.com/hgwAnt9lxa
— Smiffy (@iborgward) February 24, 2015
Just while this estimates break persists let’s note a couple of points lest sanity snap altogether. Two points only.
- The president of the Human Rights Commission is being chastised for being partisan for inquiring into policies that are basically bipartisan policies – both major parties pursue an almost identical posture when it comes to the treatment and the detention of unauthorised boat arrivals.
- Now the president is, in essence, being blamed for inflicting reputational damage on the Human Rights Commission by continuing to occupy a position which is a statutory position – at arms length from politics – a position she is perfectly entitled to occupy.
Just while MacDonald is in the neighbourhood he agrees with the proposition that the prime minister shouldn’t employ a chief of staff who is married to the Liberal party director. You know, the incendiary proposition that was the subject of this morning’s leak to The Age.
MacDonald:
I don’t think it works. It just isn’t comfortable.
While the estimates hearing is having a tea break, the chairman of the committee has swung by the Sky studio.
David Speers has asked Ian MacDonald whether it is appropriate that he run a hearing into a report that he hasn’t actually read.
MacDonald:
I’ve got plenty of things to read.
Liberal senator Barry O’Sullivan wants to begin at the beginning.
Triggs is clearly exhausted.
Over seven hours I have repeated and repeated the various factors that resulted in the decision in December. I don’t think I can add to the record.
This inquisition is truly bizarre, disproportionate, and appalling. You can take that as a comment.
Gillian Triggs is invited to respond. She’s quite keen to respond. She was not considering her position, first point. She’s very happy to defend her own integrity and the integrity of the commission. She met once with a Labor minister during the caretaker period – Tony Burke, as she outlined earlier today, at his request about arrangements for offshore detention. Not about her report about kids in detention. That’s it. End of story.
MacDonald then cuts her off.
George Brandis in the hearing now is verging into Woodward and Bernstein territory. He says he had two sources indicating to him that Triggs (independently of any government considerations) was considering her position. One was Moriarty. (Sorry that was the Wong joke. I’ll desist immediately.) One was Moraitis. He says the commission was also, in essence, leaking against the president. He says numerous commission sources (who contacted the attorney-general on the condition of anonymity) told him that Triggs was considering resigning in order to protect the reputation of the commission. Therefore Brandis decided to act. He wanted to convey his sentiments to Triggs himself but as we’ve flagged, he had to cancel a scheduled meeting with her. So he dispatched the secretary. Where do we go from here? Well, the attorney hopes the president will put the interests of the commission first. He’d like the commission to have a better relationship with the Abbott government and focus on issues of more concern to mainstream Australians.
Ian MacDonald thought he might throw Penny Wong out of the hearing. The non government senators think he might not throw Penny Wong out of the hearing. While that hovers in the zone of indecision, isn’t this a wonderful picture from question time?
Phillip Ruddock #backbenchMP after #QT @murpharoo @GuardianAus http://t.co/CzfUJ2bR2s pic.twitter.com/F7bDUr0Vot
— Mike Bowers (@mpbowers) February 24, 2015
My view of history. Down the back.
Q: Do you often lose notes?
Penny Wong is back with the AGD secretary Chris Moraitis. She’s intrigued by evidence he gave earlier, that he took notes of the two conversations he had with the attorney general about Professor Triggs, but those notes have been subsequently lost. Wong evidently thinks a departmental head not keeping file notes after significant conversation is a little tardy.
Updated
With so much time and money being spent on children’s welfare, how can anyone call them forgotten children? (This is the estimates committee chairman Ian MacDonald, objecting to the title of the Human Rights Commission report, “forgotten children”.)
Triggs:
I’m not sure I understand your question.
Updated
Question time is a wrap. I will gather some pictures in a moment and go back to the Triggs hearing – sparing you further channel surfing.
House.
Tanya Plibersek to Julie Bishop.
Q: On 3 March in 2012 the minister said “there is really been no justification for the benefit that will accrue to Australia by pursuing a security council seat”. Given the foreign minister has travelled to New York to attend the security council eight times and the security council has been critical to dealing with the MH17 disaster, Ebola and combatting IS, does the minister still think winning a security council seat was of no benefit to Australia?
Bishop to Plibersek.
That was then sister, this is now.
At the time in 2012 we were concerned that the Labor government had so skewed our foreign policy priorities and resources and indeed our aid budget in pursuit of a seat on the security council, we raised our concerns.
In advance of the 2013 election, we made it quite clear that should the Abbott government win the election, we would serve with distinction on the UN security council and I pay tribute ... and I pay tribute to the Labor government for pursuing it at the time.
Updated
Estimates.
Labor’s Jacinta Collins to Chris Moraitis:
Q: How it did not occur to you that taking that course of action would be regarded as an inducement?
Moraitis:
I didn’t take it as an inducement.
It was an explanation of the attorney’s perspective on the chairperson.
We know George is cranky with the Human Rights Commission. George.
Labor’s Mark Dreyfus to Julie Bishop.
Q: My question is to the foreign minister representing the attorney-general. I refer to evidence at Senate estimates today from the secretary of the attorney general’s department that he was specifically authorised by the attorney general to offer the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission a senior international legal role. What was this role? What consultation occurred with other senior members of the government and was this role offered with the authority of the prime minister?
Julie Bishop:
Madam Speaker, it is a matter of public record that the attorney general has deep concerns about the directions and the priorities of the Human Rights Commission on Professor Triggs’ watch.
As to specific details of what somebody said to somebody else at some time in the past, I can only take advice and come back to the House.
Updated
In the other place – Triggs estimates.
Chris Moraitis.
I did not use the word resignation, ever.
Moriaitis is asked by Green senator Sarah Hanson Young whether he is aware of the criminal code. Did he think the conveyed feedback and implication of a job offer could be characterised as a bribe?
No senator.
Leaks.
The prime minister. Striking a blow against tawdry politics.
Madam Speaker, what we have seen from members opposite today is a complete fixation with Canberra insider beltway gossip.
Madam Speaker, they are welcome to all this tawdry politics but what the Australian people want is a government which is focused on the people of Australia.
Updated
Madam Speaker has just binned another Labor question about leaks. Out of order. Shorten protests that the question was framed using words the prime minister invoked in the chamber in 2010 – how can it offend? It’s out of order, Bishop says.
Somewhat bravely, given media reports in recent days, the defence minister Kevin Andrews is invited to reflect on the role of Australian troops in Iraq. He duly reflects.
Then Labor’s Jenny Macklin.
Q: My question is to the prime minister. I refer to the recent stream of leaks against the prime minister. Did the prime minister go against the advice of his then social services minister by deciding to cut the indexation of the pension?
There is debate about whether this question is out of order. Macklin rephrases, dropping the reference to leaks.
Tony Abbott, tarring with the same brush, and stating a procedural norm, all in one.
Madam Speaker, decisions of the Expenditure Review Committee are unanimous.
Mr Bowers has sent me art from the chamber – here’s a lovely shot of Tony Abbott entering the Reps chamber for question time – a shadow of himself on the shiny floor.
I see Bowers art, and raise him with poetry.
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today, I wish, I wish he’d go away ...
(To be clear I don’t wish he’d go away. I think it was William Hughes Mearns.)
Updated
Shorten is up now on leaks. The prime minister responds by saying this question proves that Labor just doesn’t care about national security.
Abbott:
This government has gone out of its way to include the opposition with briefings on national security matters, with briefings on Australian Defence Force matters. We have gone out of our way to include the opposition. We really have, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker, to his credit, I think the leader of the opposition does want to be an Australian first and party politician second when it comes to national security.
But not today, Madam Speaker. Not this day, Madam Speaker.
Updated
A Dorothy Dixer again to the justice minister Michael Keenan about why its important to give agencies metatdata. He notes that agencies already collect metadata and will go on collecting it whether or not this new legislation passes. Which doesn’t seem the strongest pitch for the new policy. Just quietly.
I can note in passing that the prime minister is not aware of anything that’s occurred between his government and Gillian Triggs but he is very aware of what has been said in estimates. Down to the commas.
Thrice unaware
A third go from Shorten.
Q: I refer to the prime minister’s last answer where he said that the president of the Human Rights Commission had lost the confidence of the government. If that is the case, why were you willing to offer her another job?
Tony Abbott:
Well, Madam Speaker, I simply repeat that I am not aware of what’s been canvassed in Senate estimates and I’m not aware what has been canvassed between the president of the Human Rights Commission and officials.
I simply am not aware.
Updated
Back over in the estimates hearing, Chris Moraitis was just asked again specifically whether Triggs’ resignation was put to her as an option.
Moraitis:
That was my take on the options available ... my understanding is you could not have the two roles at the same time.
Updated
The prime minister knows nothing, repeat, nothing. Apart from the fact he’s not happy with Gillian Triggs.
Tony Abbott:
I don’t presume to be across what might or might not have been said in Senate estimates today. I don’t claim to be across what may or may not have been canvassed between the president of the Human Rights Commission, the attorney or any other member of this government.
Madam Speaker, I don’t know what matters have been canvassed with Professor Triggs
The prime minister has declined to address the substance of that question. he doesn’t know what might have happened elsewhere.
Now, Madam Speaker, it’s absolutely crystal clear this inquiry by the president of the Human Rights Commission is a political stitch-up. It’s a political stitch-up and, Madam Speaker, this government has lost confidence in the president of the Human Rights Commission.
Madam Speaker, I don’t know what matters have been canvassed with Professor Triggs.
All I know, Madam Speaker, she was asked by Labor “Do you understand it to be an inducement?” She said “I prefer not to use that term”. Madam Speaker, if she would rather not use that term, members opposite should not either.
Question time
Labor is pursuing the same line of inquiry in the House.
Bill Shorten, to the prime minister.
Q: Was the prime minister or his office aware that the resignation of the president of the Human Rights Commission was being sought on the authority of the attorney-general and was the prime minister or his office aware that a specific role was being offered to the president of the Human Rights Commission on the condition that she resign?
Tony Abbott:
Well, Madam Speaker, it is true that the government has lost confidence in the president of the Human Rights Commission.
The government has lost confidence in the president of the Human Rights Commission ...
"Sounds like a bribe"
Brandis has offered Penny Wong a private briefing on the role that was floated in the conversation with Gillian Triggs. Wong declares she won’t be a party to this process. What process, Brandis inquiries. A process of moving a statutory officer on from her position with the offer of another role, Wong notes.
No, no no, senator, Brandis says. Nothing like that happened.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young says:
Sounds like a bribe.
MacDonald asks Hanson Young to withdraw and apologise.
I won’t be withdrawing.
MacDonald.
You are accusing them of bribery.
There was a role for Gillian Triggs but I can't tell you what it was
I’m going to have a terrible crush here shortly with the Triggs hearing and question time but we will muddle through blogans, bloganistas. Yes we can.
The Triggs hearing has resumed. Labor’s Penny Wong is back in the chair, as is the secretary of AGD, Chris Moraitis.
Wong wants to know whether Triggs was offered a specific role during the conversation in which he conveyed Brandis’ lack of confidence in her continuing as Human Rights Commission president. Moraitis says yes there was a role floated, and he’d like to share the role but he’s been told he cannot.
Moraitis.
I’ve been told its quite sensitive.
Updated
Stuff I missed in my own office. Lenore Taylor has a very interesting scoop about metadata.
George Brandis privately warned Tony Abbott that politicising the debate over the Coalition’s controversial metadata legislation was “playing with fire” because the government needed Labor’s support to pass it. The attorney general delivered the blunt message in a recent cabinet meeting, Guardian Australia has learned.
(This would be the metadata proposal that the prime minister has been pursuing well .. vigorously .. over the last few weeks.) Just in passing, I thought the attorney-general was somewhat pointed in observing during this morning’s ‘out there’ estimates hearing that his invitation to the prime minister’s speech in January had arrived late. I didn’t note it on the way through. There were issues of substance that required my full attention. But reading Lenore’s story reminded me that Brandis had noted he was called to watch Abbott’s January speech right at the last minute. Just a note. Means nothing. Just a little ripple on a pond.
(I don’t know either. Just quietly.) Stuff I missed in estimates, thanks muchly to AAP.
Joe Ludwig is obviously not a MasterChef fan, having admitted in a Senate hearing he did not know what a Thermomix was. The Labor stalwart used a Senate hearing on Tuesday to question Government House officials about a tender for a host of new kitchen appliances for the official residences of the governor general, Sir Peter Cosgrove. On the list – among the stick blenders, food processors, a KitchenAid mixer, a freezer, a deep fryer, and a pasta machine – was a Thermomix, which has featured prominently on MasterChef. The governor general’s official secretary, Mark Fraser, said the tender was part of a routine management matter to maintain proper, functioning kitchens. “You’re seeking four stick blenders, two food processors, a – and you’re going to have to help me with this – a Thermomix?” Ludwig asked Fraser. “I don’t know what a Thermomix is,” Ludwig said.
While I’ve been preoccupied with estimates the Coalition party room has enjoyed its regular Tuesday meeting. Thanks to James Massola from Fairfax Media, who has filed an update.
Lively. Very lively.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott faced a “cavalcade of complaints” in Tuesday’s Liberal party room meeting, including repeated questioning from WA MP Don Randall about why former chief government whip Philip Ruddock was axed. Mr Abbott was also confronted by South Australian MPs Andrew Southcott and Rowan Ramsey about the future submarine project, with Mr Ramsey warning the Prime Minister he would be breaking an election promise “if the hulls aren’t welded” in South Australia. And Liberal MPs Craig Laundy and Andrew Laming raised concerns about attack on the Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs and on the issue of children in detention.
Boyz own wizdoms
That inquiry is now on a lunch break, which gives me a moment to take stock of an extraordinary morning.
Politics, this lunchtime:
- The day dawned with a damaging leak about a fracture within the Liberal party organisation which was intended to wound either the prime minister, his chief of staff Peta Credlin and the party’s federal director Brian Loughnane – or possibly all three. Sunrise saw the prime minister describing the leak as a storm in a tea cup and Alan Jones advising the prime minister to break out the Mr Whippy truck to better spruik his far reaching and wildly popular vision for the country.
- While Jones was providing his advice, the foreign minister Julie Bishop was telling the ABC that the prime minister didn’t really mean to cause a diplomatic incident with Indonesia (when he linked aid money to clemency for the two men facing excution for drug offences) – and in any case she’d sorted it out.
- We then moved on to a ritualised excoriation of the Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs. Triggs returned some fire by pointing out that yes, she’d been asked to resign by proxy (George Brandis had sent his secretary to deliver the news that he lacked confidence in her as commission president) – and the secretary had mentioned not quite in passing that another job might be found in her area of expertise, in international law. No that wasn’t quite an inducement, the commission president thought. It was just a highly inappropriate offer given she enjoyed a statutory appointment to protect her and her agency from unwarranted political interference. Secretary Moraitis thought he was just conveying a message – and reasoned he’d been asked by Triggs to find out what Brandis thought of her. (Triggs recalled that trajectory somewhat differently.)
- The estimates hearing played out in a bizarre and buffoonish kindergarten setting of boyz versus girlz – with the Liberal senator Barry O’Sullivan opining at one point that the committee chairman Ian Macdonald (who hadn’t actually read the report that was the subject of the morning’s discussion because he’d heard it was partisan) would be glad to hear a man’s voice. (These women. Banging on constantly.)
Such is the current state of enlightenment in Canberra.
Feeeeel the progress people.
Updated
O’Sullivan would like to know if Professor Triggs would accept that offering different dates during different estimates hearings concerning the origins of the children in detention inquiry might have fed the negative publicity and some conspriacy theories?
Labor’s Jacinta Collins, interjecting.
No I think an unprecedented witch hunt did.
Triggs doesn’t think that fed the negative publicity. She thinks people criticising the commission – while the children in detention report wasn’t actually in the public domain – played a role in the negative publicity.
Barry O’Sullivan.
Q: Did you meet with (Labor’s) Mr Burke or Mr Bowen after the election was called?
Triggs:
I did meet Mr Burke (then minister for immigration) during the caretaker period, at his invitation – and it was done to brief me and my staff on their (Labor’s) plans for offshore processing. That is not inconsistent with the caretaker protocol.
Q: At no time in the caretaker period did you meet with Mr Bowen and discuss the propsects of holding an inquiry?
That is absolutely true.
Professor Triggs seems to have to explain to her inquistor that inquiries involve past facts.
Ah, here’s the man’s voice back. Barry O’Sullivan. Phew, huh?
The attorney-general has convened a brief seminar on the commission’s role. We do not have a quadripartite system: executive, parliament, judiciary and the Human Rights Commission, the attorney notes. That is a ludicrous overstatement of the commission’s function. It’s not a court.
It’s an agency with a review function.
Brandis is telling the committee he formed a negative view about Triggs after evidence she gave at senate estimates last November. He says colleagues were also disturbed, and many contacted him to share these feelings.
Ok: so the secretary thought she was inquiring after herself and her status – the Human Rights Commission president thought she was asking why the commission wasn’t being defended by anyone in the government.
Triggs says she contacted Moraitis to check or sound out Brandis’ views because there had been a barrage of media reports in The Australian negative about the commission.
She says the inquiry to Moraitis wasn’t about her status personally – but more why was the government not defending the commission against these negative reports?
Triggs:
I was very concerned to have some sense from the attorney about how the commission was travelling.
Moraitis says there were two conversations in January.
One where Triggs was seeking to ascertain Brandis’ views about her standing at the commission.
Another involved the attorney. George Brandis called the secretary in January and raised the issue of the Human Rights Commission – had he had any discussions or did he have views?
The secretary told Brandis during this conversation that Triggs had contacted him to seek guidance about her standing at the commission. Brandis said he’d think that over and come back to him.
Then Moraitis took a second call in early February. February 2.
Brandis told the secretary in this conversation that he’d not had a meeting with Triggs. A meeting had been in the schedule but the meeting hadn’t happened. (Brandis clarifies he cancelled the meeting with Triggs in order to attend a speech by the prime minister in late January.)
The secretary undertook in this second phone call to convey Brandis’ views to Triggs. This view was the attorney-general had lost confidence in Triggs as president at the Human Rights Commission.
Q: It was a live propsect that a resignation would be sought?
My conclusion was that would be one option.
Q: Did you believe he wanted her to resign?
That was an option I understood.
Wong wants to get to the bottom of the overlapping but slightly different accounts of the conversations the secretary had had with Triggs. Moraitis insists that Triggs asked him to ascertain the views of Brandis.
Mr Moriarty.
This is Penny Wong, back in the chair.
I’m sorry, too much Arthur Conan Doyle.
(She’s done the Moriarty reference twice now. Sherlock fans pump their little fists aloft.)
Updated
Shorter Moraitis: I told Gillian Triggs that my boss, the attorney general, had lost confidence in her (but only because she asked me to find out) and I mentioned there could be another legal position if she thought she might leave – but I didn’t ask her to resign. Hard to say when I’ve seen a public servant look more uncomfortable than just then. Not in recent memory.
Updated
The secretary of Attorney General’s Department, Chris Moraitis, has just given evidence about the conversation with Triggs in which he conveyed the attorney-general’s views.
- He reported that he’s had three meetings with president Triggs, and at least one phone call.
- The secretary says Triggs during these discussions asked him to check the attorney’s view about her status at the commission. He confirmed that he conveyed Brandis (negative) view of her role at the Human Rights Commission.
- But he says he did this only because Triggs initiated the inquiry in the sense that she asked him to check what George Brandis thought.
- The secretary says that he thought he was doing her a courtesy by flying to Sydney for the conversation.
- Moriatis says he conveyed to her the message that the attorney had lost confidence in her as Human Rights Commission president.
- But as the government had a high regard for her legal skills, then the government was prepared to consider positively a senior legal role.
Moriatis:
I never sought her resignation.
Brandis confirms his own view.
I had lost confidence in Professor Triggs as the head of the human rights commission.
The attorney-general says he has formed a view about partiality. Professor Triggs made a catastrophic error of judgment, the attorney says. Brandis says the commission must be purer than pure, like Caesar’s wife. He’s reached the position that Triggs must consider her position.
Then this.
I am a supporter of the Human Rights Commission.
Updated
MacDonald notes in passing he has not bothered reading the report which is the subject of all the fuss.
Penny Wong notes MacDonald is turning this into a circus. A really appalling circus. That’s me, not Penny Wong.
Triggs is coming to the end of her patience here.
You said we did nothing. That is a profound mis-statement.
This riposte is to chairman Ian MacDonald, who has just asked the commission why it did nothing before this inquiry. The witness is furious about that.
Greens senator Penny Wright has also had enough. To MacDonald:
There is serious question about your partiality in chairing. I think you are seriously compromising the dignity of the committee. I want to put that on the record.
Here’s the man’s voice I’d like to hear in senate estimates just quietly: respectful, issues focussed, forensic. Been painfully absent thus far.
This is serious. I’ll be quite interested to see what lawyers make of Triggs testimony this morning.
But there is much chortling going on down there. Much manly, unseemly, depply inappropriate chortling.
Liberal senator Barry O’Sullivan just interjected to Ian MacDonald:
I thought you might like to hear a man’s voice.
(God help us. Seriously.)
Penny Wong is persisting in the counter offer.
Q: Were the two linked in the conversation? This is very serious.
(It is indeed, very serious.)
Triggs:
Oh yes.
Q: Your resignation and the offer of another position?
Triggs:
There’s no doubt in my mind that the two were connected. I thought it was a disgraceful proposal.
Q: Did you understand it to be an inducement?
Triggs:
I’d prefer not to use that term.
(It has a precise legal meaning)
In a layman’s sense it was a basis for motivation.
Q: Have you had any conversation with the attorney about this matter?
Triggs:
No.
Gillian Triggs:
It was the first time in my career that anyone has ever asked for my resignation.
Penny Wong:
Q: Were you shocked by this proposition?
Gillian Triggs:
I was deeply shocked.
Triggs is telling the committee the secretary of the Attorney General’s Department suggested to her a new position would be found if she would vacate her spot at the Human Rights Commission.
Triggs:
It was definitely said to me that an offer would be made for me to provide work for the government in areas of my expertise in international law.
(This is amazing. Truly.)
Updated
I have a five year statutory position ... designed to avoid political interference
The Labor senator Penny Wong is back on the resignation request, which Triggs confirmed in evidence just before. The meeting happened in Sydney on February 3. Triggs says she was not advised about the purpose of the meeting in advance. She’d met the secretary on January 29. Triggs says she was therefore surprised to get a request to see him again so soon.
The meeting took about an hour. Wong asks Triggs to outline what was said. She bats this back to Brandis, who is at the table.
Wong persists with Triggs.
Gillian Triggs:
He (the secretary) said he’d been asked to deliver the message from the attorney that he required my resignation. I said what is the reason for this request? I believe he had no details for the basis for it.
I gave him my answer. I have a five year statutory position ... which is designed to avoid political interference in the exercise of my tasks.
Updated
Liberal senator Barry O’Sullivan is back on the process for the inquiry. He’s trying to get to the bottom of conversations between Triggs and David Dick, who is head of policy at the Human Rights Commission. Did Mr Dick consult anyone in the commission prior to him determining whether the review would be upgraded to an inquiry? She says Mr Dick gave advice to all the commissioners about the use of the commissioner’s powers.
O’Sullivan:
Q: Let me set the time trigger.
(I really wish he would.)
O’Sullivan wants to know whether Mr Dick consulted her before the review was upgraded.
Triggs:
Not that I recall.
O’Sullivan immediately begins talking over the witness. Triggs notes that she’d like to be able to respond to questions in a calm and courteous environment. As I noted before, no-one is going to get exactly what they want here.
Q: The trigger to take a review and turn it into a fully blown inquiry was promoted by the policy approach by the new government which was the policy of Operation Sovereign Borders?
Triggs:
No, that is not an accurate statement.
Not October, apologies, the resignation request was about a month ago.
Triggs confirms the attorney general deployed his secretary to ask for her resignation
The Labor senator Jacinta Collins has been pursuing meetings Triggs has had with the attorney general and the secretary of the attorney general’s department. There was a meeting in October, with the secretary. (I’ll need to check that date, apologies, I missed it on the first reference.)
Q: What was the purpose of that meeting?
Triggs:
To convey a request from the attorney.
Q: What was the nature of that request?
Triggs:
The nature of the request was to ask for my resignation.
It would seem reasonable to pursue that a bit further, but MacDonald has called time on Collins.
Updated
In terms of the timing for the inquiry, this is what Professor Triggs said in her opening statement.
I shall try to be as clear as possible. The decision to hold an inquiry was one that evolved gradually over time and reflected many factors; of overarching importance were the high numbers of children held in detention, numbers that fluctuated considerably over many months – other factors were the increasing periods of time for which the children were being held, the forthcoming election in September when information would not be available, the ongoing planning process throughout 2013 that envisaged a review of the last 10 years detention policy, and finally, the need to ensure the commission had the necessary resources to conduct an inquiry.
Good governance of the commission requires annual planning. We are not able to drop all current projects to start an inquiry without advance planning. The commission confirmed its work plan for 2013-14 on 26 June 2013. The program of work envisaged: a ‘snapshot’ report on the state of the immigration detention system (completed September 2013); a revamp of our web materials and fact sheets (completed by late 2013); a ‘10 year review’ of the situation of children in detention to commence only once the above activities were completed and subject to resources.
On 12 December 2013, the commission formally approved an updated project plan for the 10 year review that proposed it take the form of a full inquiry with powers to compel the production of evidence. The long planned review – now an inquiry – was all the more important in light of the worsening condition of the children as their period of detention lengthened. The first official notification that the commission was considering undertaking a 10 year review was provided to minister Morrison and the secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection on 19 and 20 November 2013 respectively. The exact form the review would take was not discussed. The commission notified the attorney-general, as well as the Department of Immigration and Border Protection of the inquiry on 22 January 2014 and provided them with the proposed terms of reference for the inquiry.
Updated
No pressure or anything.
Updated
The Liberal senator Barry O’Sullivan thinks he’s in a Law and Order episode. Professor Triggs thinks she’s in an estimates committee. It’s pretty clear that neither are going to get what they want out of this experience – he not being Jack McCoy, she not in any ordinary estimates process.
O’Sullivan is deeply interested in how the decision making process unfolded within the Human Rights Commission. Triggs is trying to explain that the decision was iterative. It wasn’t until December 2013 that a final decision (to launch a full inquiry) was made by all the commissioners, she says.
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Well that’s fairly extraordinary. Liberal senator Barry O’Sullivan has sought a copy of the commission’s draft work plan dating from last April. The commission has supplied the estimates committee with a redacted copy of the April draft. O’Sullivan wants the full document. The Human Rights Commission wants to take that on notice.
The attorney general, George Brandis, steps in.
I’ll obtain a copy of the document and I’ll provide it to you today.
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Triggs has outlined in some detail the commission’s thinking and planning concerning its recent report about children in detention – the report characterised by the prime minister as a blatantly partisan exercise. She says she briefed immigration ministers in the Abbott government about the commission’s intentions regarding the inquiry in January 2014. She did not brief ministers from the former government. As for the content of the report, Triggs would encourage senators to read it and make their own judgments.
The report speaks for itself.
The Human Rights Commission president, Gillian Triggs, is making her opening statement. She notes that the commission’s work concerning immigration detention does not always find favour with governments of the day.
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Funny little push and shove between the attorney general, George Brandis, and the chairman of the legal estimates committee, Liberal senator Ian MacDonald. Brandis would like an undertaking that Asio will be heard today. The new director general is inclined to give an update on security matters. MacDonald says he’s made a few efforts to schedule Asio but they’ve been required at the national security committee and elsewhere. He’d like to get to them today but that doesn’t look that likely. Take that, George.
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The Human Rights Commission is about to make an appearance in estimates. Given recent events, I’ll tune in there for a bit.
Melissa Parke unhappy about metadata
The Labor backbencher Melissa Parke has used a speech in parliament to highlight the importance of press freedom. She’s spoken out again against laws which her party supported last year which criminalised the reporting of special intelligence operations, and she’s also fired a shot across the bows of the metadata proposal – the policy the prime minister wants passed sooner rather than later.
Melissa Parke:
Unfortunately, as I noted in my speeches on 9 February and last year on 4 September ... attacks on media freedom are not only coming from terrorists and undemocratic governments; here in Australia, our government is becoming increasingly less transparent and accountable.
The motion before us includes that the House ‘notes that telling the truth is not terrorism and journalism is not a crime’.
However, we now have anti-terror laws that include potential jail terms of 10 years for journalists who reveal details of special intelligence operations – and the proposed data retention regime would ensure that police and intelligence agencies would have a large source of information with which to hunt down whistleblowers and the journalists to whom they have provided public interest information.
Labor’s deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, on whether being married presents a conflict of interest.
I don’t think the fact that she (Peta Credlin) is married to the federal director is anything for us to have a view on. People are perfectly able to be professional at work and carry out roles that might be complimentary or in conflict. I think what the leaked emails show is Tony Abbott has a real problem with his party, that his backbench are revolting, his frontbench are now revolting, you hear stories about ministers who have said they would have changed their view if they had the opportunity to vote a different way now on a spill motion. Seven of them who say they would vote a different way on a spill motion.
These emails and the substance of them isn’t important. The fact they are being leaked is important.
Well, just because, really.
I needed it. You needed it.
Happy anniversary to my beautiful wife of 41 years, Columba. pic.twitter.com/70yJ0riIhn
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) February 23, 2015
I also need to reference Newspoll. Tony Abbott will be pleased with today’s bounce notwithstanding the fact Labor remains in an election-winning position. Here’s Phillip Hudson in the Australian.
In two-party terms, based on preference flows from the 2013 election, the Coalition has risen from a five-year low of 43% to 47%, the largest single fortnightly gain in its 18 months in power. Despite the clawback, the opposition remains in a commanding two-party-preferred, election-winning position of 53 to 47%. A fortnight ago, Labor enjoyed a 57 to 43% lead.
My colleague Daniel Hurst notes in his news wrap that the Coalition’s two-party-preferred position is similar to the 46% to 54% split recorded in Newspoll in December. “The Coalition registered diabolical polling of 43% to 57% at the height of the leadership showdown in early February – but has since reversed that decline,” Daniel says.
Rightly or wrongly, the prime minister will bank one key message from this survey – upping the ante on national security can still work politically. This has been very much a moot point for Abbott up until now, he’s been in the “tin hat” space for some months with no tangible political dividend.
But of course he’s turned up the volume considerably since the leadership spill debate – wading right in to what Alan Jones characterised this morning as “things Australians want to hear” – bad people are taking us for a ride, the perpetrators always get more sympathy than the victim, the Islamic community is not doing enough to combat extremism. These messages are what people say in focus groups, and then politics repeats the messages back to us. Isn’t empathy wonderful?
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I’m sorry for that whiplash inducing start – nothing to do sometimes other than go with it until there’s a moment to take stock. Let’s do that now, just in case you are pre-coffee and all this seems incomprehensible.
I’ve referenced The Age story in the first post which has prompted this morning’s clean up efforts. My colleague Shalailah Medhora has picked up the news this morning.
Two letters from the party’s federal treasurer, Philip Higginson, were made public overnight. The treasurer’s complaints go (among other things) to the fact that two of Tony Abbott’s closest advisers are married. As Shalailah reports, one letter, which foreshadows Higginson’s resignation, said:
How this party ever let a husband and wife team into those two key roles where collegiate competitive tension is mandatory and private consultations between colleagues to see that each side is served well is a complete mystery. The persons in our party’s history that allowed it to occur should hang their heads in collective shame. The federal director has a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the organisation at all times, repeat, at all times. How can this possibly happen when the COS [chief of staff] to the prime minister is his wife?
(You’ve heard Abbott’s response to that this morning. Credlin and Loughnane have been married a long time, in these roles a long time, why the sudden hand wringing? Well a couple of things. The hand wringing is not that sudden. There has been internal back biting about that for some time. There is also a vicious campaign on to unseat Credlin from her job as the prime minister’s chief of staff. You may have noticed that. It’s not clear, however, that the target of this particular leak is Credlin. Ultimately of course, the target is the prime minister. That’s the one constant in all the over-egged hype around Credlin – she’s just a proxy for him. People vent fury about her because it’s safer than venting fury about the prime minister. He’s the boss. The buck stops with him.)
It was seen as unhelpful in Indonesia: Bishop on Abbott's intervention
Q: The Fairfax newspapers are reporting that seven ministers who voted for Mr Abbott weeks ago are due to move on him now?
Bishop:
I’m not aware of that. They haven’t spoken to me.
Bishop is asked about Abbott’s recent comments linking aid to Indonesia and clemency for the two men facing excution for drugs offences. Her answer makes it quite plain that the prime minister blundered on the diplomacy. Waders and wood chippers everywhere.
Q: What’s the latest with the two Australians on death row in Bali. It was widely thought the prime minister linking the humanitarian aid to the clemency bid was unhelpful?
It was seen in that way in Indonesia.
I spoke to the vice president to make it quite clear that the prime minister did not intend to link it in an unhelpful way. What he was pointed out was Australia has been a friend of Indonesia, we are there when Indonesia needs us.
The vice president accepted the way that is the way it was to be taken.
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It’s Julie Bishop’s turn to get out with the waders and the wood chipper. The foreign minister is on the ABC now.
Both Brian Loughnane and Peta Credlin have been a professional team for some time. Obviously things are in a challenging situation at present and so it seems that people are pointing the finger at those who, in the past, were being lauded for their efforts.
Q: Is it true Peta Credlin has stepped back from the micro managing role?
These are matters for the prime minister. As I said previously, the prime minister will structure his office in a way that works well for him. He will surround himself with people that he trusts and who he can work with, just as I do in my office and every other minister does. I’m not going to start telling the prime minister how he should run his office, nor do I expect him to tell me how I should run mine.
Q: Clearly there are people inside trying to bring the prime minister down?
And the prime minister is focused on governing for Australia. Yesterday he delivered an important national security statement that indicated what we had done to meet the national security threat and what still had to be done.
Good morning everyone and welcome to the morning after the storm in Canberra. When I woke up very early this morning I found my neighbour’s shed roof on my front lawn. Tony Abbott woke up to find Karl Stefanovic and Alan Jones in his earpiece. He’s clearing debris of a different kind.
Today, we will need to start at a sprint. Over the past hour or so, the prime minister has calmly, methodically and purposefully told Karl on the Nine Network that despite the growing mess strewn all about the place, everything is A-ok.
Abbott says he visited a number of marginal electorates last week and won spontaneous applause when he informed people the Coalition was getting on with the job. Karl isn’t that interested. He wants to know whether or how the prime minister is keeping his feet given all buffeting westerlies. Abbott either is sanguine or pretends to be sanguine.
Sooner or later people will get sick of the internals.
Well maybe, opines Karl. But what about Peta Credlin, is she safe?
Karl references the latest damaging leak which hit the Age last night of a brawl in the prime minister’s inner circle “with the party’s federal treasurer threatening to resign over transparency issues and alleged conflicts of interest involving the prime minister’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, and her husband, federal director Brian Loughnane.”
Abbott:
I stand by my team. I stand by my staff. I have full confidence in the party president and the party’s federal director.
The prime minister says he’s aware of that particular storm in a tea cup, but he can’t really fathom what all the fuss is about. If the party’s federal treasurer wants to resign after signing off the party’s accounts, well, that’s up to him.
Jones for his part told his listeners at 7.18am that Tony Abbott is a misunderstood genius. If it all gets too much and Tony departs the stage, Australia will be the loser, Jones notes.
Jones notes in passing that he, Alan Jones, is no hero. He’s just for Australia and the prime minister is for Australia. Presumably that’s why they understand each other. Fascinating really, I wish this would go on a bit longer. Ah yes, there’s the prime minister after ten or so minutes on hold. He doesn’t have much on afterall.
Morning Alan.
Q: How to you react to this hand grenade thrown on your path?
This is just one of those things Alan.
The prime minister says there is nothing to see here. Peta Credlin and Brian Loughnane have been about forever so why is this only a problem now? There is no problem. There are other problems, and the government is getting on with fixing them.
What about this nonsense in the Australian at the weekend, Alan huffed. Well it’s just nonsense Alan and I’m not going to be distracted by it Alan, says Tony. What about the Islamic Council of Victoria, complaining about the tone of your speech yesterday on security? (Alan is quite outraged that these people are resisting “what the Australian people want to hear” but he’s bravely holding it together.)
Abbott:
I just want everyone who is part of this country to subscribe to our democratic freedoms. I am pleased that more and more Islamic leaders are coming out and saying Islam is a religion of peace. I hope the Council of Victoria will get with the program.
Alan would just like to see a bit of Mr Whippy about his protege. Drive around the neighbourhoods with the bells ringing. Blow that trumpet Tony. Blow it, man. Tony is trying but it is hard to get a word in.
You all must blow your trumpets also. The Politics Live thread is open for your business and you can toot in our direction on the Twits @murpharoo and @mpbowers
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