Labor, independent and Greens senators have demanded Phil Gaetjens appear at a Senate inquiry hearing into the government’s attempt to keep the national cabinet secret despite a federal court judge ruling it was not a cabinet and therefore not entitled to secrecy.
The secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet was scheduled to appear at the hearing but late on Friday his name was removed from the program and replaced by more junior members of the department.
Committee chair Liberal Senator Claire Chandler said a letter from acting Secretary of the PM&C Stephanie Foster on Friday did not specify why Gaetjens was unable to appear, but inferred it was because he was travelling with the prime minister. Labor Senator Tim Ayres said that was unacceptable.
“Mr Gaetjens is the only person who has first-hand knowledge of the national cabinet,” he said. “Indeed he is a principal architect of the bill that is being put before the Parliament.”
The COAG Legislation Amendment Bill includes provisions that would “protect from disclosure the deliberations and decisions of the cabinet and its committees”.
The provisions would apply to the “deliberations and decisions of the committee of cabinet known as the national cabinet”.
The bill was introduced earlier this month after Federal Court judge Richard White ruled in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) that the national cabinet was not a cabinet, despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s claims, and therefore not privy to cabinet-in-confidence.
That decision was a victory for crossbench Senator Rex Patrick, who had taken the government to the tribunal after being denied minutes of national cabinet meetings on the basis of cabinet confidentiality. Gaetjens was a respondent in the AAT case that ultimately led to the bill.
“That of itself should be sufficient for Mr Gaetjens appearing at the committee,” Ayres said.
Ayres demanded the inquiry know the whereabouts of Gaetjens and why he could not attend: “The PM arrived back in Australia late last night. Either Mr Gaetjens is travelling with the PM in which case he’s here quarantining in Canberra and available to appear, or he’s catching a commercial flight back.
“There is absolutely no reason why the committee could not hear evidence from all the witnesses who are scheduled today, and make time for Mr Gaetjens to appear, either this afternoon if he’s in the country or later in the week.
“It’s either cowardice or hubris. I want to know what arrangements we’re going to make to make sure that this secretary gives the evidence that he’s required.”
Greens Senator Larissa Waters said removing Gaetjens from the agenda with little explanation was emblematic of the government’s inability to provide the public with full transparency.
Patrick agreed the committee needed to hear from Gaetjens given the department had failed to provide primary evidence to the AAT about why national cabinet deserved to be kept secret.
Ayres demanded the committee break during the hearing to establish the exact whereabouts of Gaetjens.
“I understand he might not want to appear,” Ayres said. “But we should get to the bottom of this if we want to do our job.”
Accountability groups have been scathing of the bill, telling the inquiry on Monday that it would cloak government decision-making in secrecy.
“This legislation seeks to provide a blanket exemption that would prevent freedom of information requests against any documents related to or prepared for the purposes of national cabinet,” said Oliver Ray, a strategic litigation solicitor at the Grata Fund. “It will see secrecy increase to the detriment of Australia’s democracy.”
The government is due to face the hearing this afternoon.
According to the federal parliament’s website:
” Acts constituting breaches of privilege and contempts”
“By virtue of section 49 of the Constitution, the House has the ability to treat as a contempt: … any act or omission which obstructs or impedes … [it] … in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer … in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results … even though there is no precedent of the offence.”
Section 4 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act limits this to conduct “that amounts, or is intended or likely to amount, to an improper interference with the free exercise by a House or committee of its authority or functions, or with the free performance by a member of the member’s duties as a member.”
The current government has a long and consistent record of undermining or ignoring parliament and refusing to answer to it, which is a direct attack on Parliament’s core function of holding the executive to account. Gaetjens’ avoidance of this committee is a prime example. It would be entirely appropriate and an excellent precedent if Parliament decided this has already gone too far and it will not be tolerated. Gaetjens should be formally summoned and if he does not appear he should be charged with contempt. The same thing should happen if he appears but does not co-operate. In the past the penalties on the rare occasions anyone has been found in contempt have been trivial but this would be a good time for Parliament to discover it has some teeth.
What would be the point in having Gaetjens along? He has never been able to complete any task set by his boss due to unforseen or emergent circumstances or because he has never been told, said, seen, read or done anything relevant to an issue in question. His office, and his Committee hearing appearances, have all the characteristics of galactic black holes. The take away is that he is not a servant of Parliament or the people of Australia but only a disciple of Smirk.
If you are right, and you may well be, then the point would be to get that on record and beyond dispute. This would serve some purpose because it would remove any remaining credibility from Morrison’s tactic of hiding behind those notorious inquiries.
How is anything going to go ‘on the record’ when Scovid still has a one seat majority in the House? Who is going to give the vote the majority of Parliament it needs to pass?
Fair point. This is inherent in the Westminster system, where the governing party or coalition by definition controls a majority in the lower house. Whether it is a flaw or a feature is a matter of opinion. The US system keeps the executive and legislature separate, so the former often lacks a majority in the legislature. How well that works is clear enough, but at least it normally produces more robust examination of the workings of the exective than is ever seen here. (It has recently broken down because of the take-over of the Senate by partisan fanatics exploiting its strong unrepresentative bias to small states and the insane filibuster convention, but otherwise the point stands.) If our parliamentarians cared a little more about parliament and a little less about party and personal advancement through seeking patronage our system would be vastly improved. The dominance of parties has made parliament almost useless, which is exactly the way the parties’ paymasters like it.
This is Morrison all over.It’s just the way he is and the way he operates. He was sacked from the Tourism Australia gig for this type of behavior. Bypassed the Minister, kept vital information from her and lied to a Senate committee about a report that he said had been done and was available but mysteriously could never be found.
THE PENTECOSTAL did the same shady thing with tourism NZ earlier in his career. He whiteanted a preselected person with some very shady tactics after retiring as the national president of the liberals.
Just another gutless freak of a human being in the government.
The majority of Australians would know nothing about this, and most would not care due to the lack of MSM coverage.
Which is why the Media Monopoly (Murdoch/Nine) must be demolished ASAP..
Won’t happen, the misled enthusiasm here and elsewhere to promote independents and minor parties as our saviours in a march from two party tyranny, (which is inaccurate as we have a 3 party system, one of which is a very minor party), and that ensures the media monopoly’s future!
In fact it was a minor party that gave the media monopoly free rein recently, led by the man who removed penalty rates in SA to ease the burden of business, Nick Xenophon and his party of fellow show ponies. And yes Rex Stirling has been acting up a bit lately, but he will fall into line in the end.
There is the usual excellent article by ABC RN in their 2015 Rear Vision segment –
The history of media regulation in Australia
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-history-of-media-ownership-in-australia/6831206
Deals with foreign ownership limits that were scrapped under Howard and changed the cross-media ownership rules to allow ownership of two out of three media types, the Fink inquiry, the Convergence Review and Labor’s attempt to improve the notorious APC’s abusive self regulation of the print media. Very very informative.