Employment Minister Michaelia Cash shouldn’t be a minister currently. She appointed Nigel Hadgkiss, whom she knew was the subject of well-founded claims that he’d broken the law, to head the Australian Building and Construction Commission last December. She’s tried to argue that somehow she didn’t, that he was appointed by some legislative magic and not her, and that it was OK anyway because they were only allegations made by the CFMEU.
As it turned out, even a cursory check of what Hadgkiss had done would have revealed how utterly inappropriate it was for him to be appointed to lead the new body. Cash should have resigned along with Hadgkiss.
Moreover, we’ve seen a steady diminution in the concept of ministerial responsibility going back decades under both parties — it started when Labor’s Bob Collins refused to resign over the Keating government’s pay-TV debacle, and things have steadily worsened since then. In recent months, the Attorney-General George Brandis, apart from being responsible for a long string of stuff-ups, clearly misled the Senate and yet was able to keep his job.
All that said, if, as she says, Cash was genuinely misled by her staffer David De Garis about whether he had alerted media outlets about the impending raid by the Australian Federal Police on the Australian Workers’ Union, then it’s not a sacking offence. There’s much to be critical of in how Cash handled this debacle, but a minister can’t be responsible for staffers who deliberately choose to mislead them.
If evidence emerges that Cash is not quite as innocent in the scandal as she indicates, or that she or the government encourage a culture in which staff will lie when politically convenient, that will be a very different matter. But for the moment, Cash can hardly be held responsible for a staff member who misleads his minister and, even worse, lets the Prime Minister be misled as well.
Well no she is innocent until proven guilty, but does anyone seriously think she didn’t give the green light to this leak happening?
All the bagging she’s getting is well deserved. Tit for tat. May sound childish but she needs knocking down off her high horse. Such a rude, nasty and soulless creature is she.
In the ministerial advisor world it’s called “plausible deniability”. Staffers deliberately don’t tell their bosses certain things (and ministers don’t ask) so that they cannot be accused of misleading parliament.
Who would not deny that she is plausible?
Come back Epimenides, all is forgiven.
Surely it would be more than his job is worth for deGaris to have gone ahead and notified media off his own bat – thereby signalling to the nation that the government is using the AFP for its own political ends. Cash’s version is implausible to say the very least.
Look out for the deGaris name standing in a safe NLP seat in the near future
In the meantime, a sinecure at the IPA or Menzies House.
any truth in the rumour that deGaris has been offered a lucrative position with gina rinehart mining ?
Not sure which shower you came down in Bernard but if you believe this you should join Bevan Sheilds in the naughty corner for dereliction of basic journalistic practice!