If Scott Morrison was trying to use the pandemic as a cover to increase government secrecy, it’s starting to blow up in his face.
Staff from the prime minister’s department copped an absolute roasting in a Senate inquiry yesterday over a proposed bill that would shield national cabinet from scrutiny and exempt it from freedom of information laws. This is despite it being found to not be a cabinet under constitutional law, and therefore not entitled to cabinet confidentiality.
Legal experts blasted the proposal as an affront to democracy, with constitutional law professor Anne Twomey saying the government was trying to legislate something that was simply not true.
“It’s frankly bizarre legislation,” she said. “I mean, why would you assert something that’s not true? Why would you say, in legislation, that a cat is a dog or vice versa?”
Dr Jacoba Brasch QC, president of the Law Council of Australia, went further, asking on RN Breakfast whether it would mean Annabel Crabb’s cooking show Kitchen Cabinet should be kept secret, given it had the word “cabinet” in it.
The drama is entirely of Morrison’s making and it is having quite the Streisand effect. Far from keeping government documents under wraps, it’s drawing more attention to his obsession with secrecy and the extreme lengths he is willing to go to to keep the public in the dark.
A legal fiction
The government’s war on national cabinet started innocently enough as an attempt to rebrand the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) at the beginning of the pandemic. But the word cabinet has a specific meaning under Australian constitutional law, and it certainly doesn’t mean a gathering of premiers from all political parties.
A Federal Court judge has ruled that that’s the case. But instead of changing the name, Morrison introduced legislation to override the decision.
PM&C staff fumbled yesterday as they tried to explain how the legislation would work given Justice Richard White had ruled in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) that the national cabinet was not a cabinet, and not entitled to cabinet confidentiality.
It was made worse when the very architect of the bill, and the only member of the PM’s department who actually attends every national cabinet meeting, secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Phil Gaetjens did not show up to the inquiry, despite earlier being listed on the program.
Far-reaching consequences
Legal experts say Morrison’s attempt to keep national cabinet shrouded in secrecy could have serious implications for democracy, especially if it means a government can just rename any body a “cabinet” and make it privy to cabinet-in-confidence.
Brasch says the bill, if passed, would set a dangerous precedent: “What if we had all the health ministers around the state, or all the education ministers around the country, suddenly being deemed as a national cabinet?”
Australian Human Rights Commission president Professor emeritus Rosalind Croucher says the bill was an attempt to use the COVID crisis as an excuse to limit scrutiny over government.
“It’s important that emergency situations do not become a broad justification for unnecessary increases in executive power to the detriment of democracy,” she said.
The move has also come at great expense to the taxpayer. The government has spent untold sums on lawyers to fight the challenge in the AAT brought on by crossbench Senator Rex Patrick.
The bill is symptomatic of a government intent on using the pandemic as cover to bolster powers to keep matters of the public interest secret, as well as create powers to curtail transparency. But so far the blowback may indicate it has finally gone too far.
“… so far the blowback may indicate it has finally gone too far.”
Hope so. But although there is blowback, is there any indication the government gives damn? Has it shown any sign of backing down? And is there any blowback from any quarter it cares about, such as Murdoch and his minions, or its fossil fuel friends? A bunch of academics saying this is bad is exactly the sort of blowback the Morrison gang is delighted to ignore.
Indeed- all they have to do is smirk about latte sipping elites. AUKUS makes this look like very small potatoes on the secrecy, complete contempt for democracy and accountability front and it looks like the great Australian public are all for AUKUS. We loves us a bit of fasc…authoritarianism.
Certainly a valid point. The general public will not care, nor will they be especially concerned about a drift to greater secrecy on the part of the government. They expect politicians to be self-interested and dishonest and this kind of behaviour by Morrison falls into this set of beliefs. In addition, most voters won’t know what the National Cabinet is, so for them it is a non-issue, especially in the face of dealing day-to-day with COVID. The big problem Australia faces is how to encourage people to take a critical and informed approach to the larger world around them.
Sorry, Gregory, but I definitely have never expected politicians to be self-interested and dishonest.
Quite the contrary, until here in Australia lately. It disgusts me that this current lot’s corruption is
“accepted”. By whom may I ask, would it be by those who by nature are self-serving and dishonest?
Is that what Australians have become? If so, God help us all.
Yes, the Smirk!
The gloating “I’ve got a secret Smirko!”
The man who has been so successful at maintaining all his wonderful secret deals away from the people who are paying for them as well as his salary and perks too.
We bin a $90,000,000,000 deal with the French, by text, to actually supply submarines.
So that, a Crosby Textor moment can be sprung on the world as “USUKAS” in the form of two beaming bodiless heads next to the President of the US announcing a deal to think about our country possibly, maybe gaining access to someone’s nuclear submarines at an unknown cost on an unknown time frame whilst our current submarines need a major re-fit to make them last a few years longer.
Hell, yes it is time that Geatjens and all his ilk fronted up and told the truth about “all sorts of things not yet told”.
Where are our freedom loving, vaccine hesitant, concerned citizens who are worried about deep state secrecy?
Oh, sorry. What’s that? They’re not interested in the real one, just the fake one.
You got it! In fact they are part of the fake one
“It’s important that emergency situations do not become a broad justification for unnecessary increases in executive power to the detriment of democracy,” she said. Horse, stable, bolted?!
Another election win will mean the horse is gone forever.
Surely at SOME stage the people will revolt….?
Too busy fighting imaginary wars I’m afraid, Beth.
I won’t give up my slight optimism! 🙂
There is no convention that Morrison and his sleazy sidekicks, the Nats, will not trash to stay in power. If the law’s an impediment – change it. If the Constitution’s an impediment – ignore it. If the courts and tribunals throw up obstacles – stack them with your mates. Thank you Rupert, words are not enough to thank you for what you’ve given us.
I like your post. It goes to the heart of things. So called “Conservatives” prepared as you say to wreck anything in the pursuit of power.
The government must be petrified of what voters will learn about.
If they can limit electoral eligibility to Pentecostalists all will be well.
If only thinkers like you could be multiplied x many thousands David, this nation would stand a chance against that happening. Why more can’t seem to is beyond me.
That’s likely part of the intention with the proposed bill (or was it just another Morrison announcement with no purpose or action?) to restrict the rights of all but religious bosses.
That’s essentially what happened in the US with various methods to disenfranchise left leaning voters from the electoral process (with both the quality of the Democrats’ candidates and the availability of polling booths in left leaning areas in Republican controlled states). We have to make sure it doesn’t happen here – that we have compulsory voting and an AEC that runs elections will help defend democracy, but we must do our bit too.
Unfortunately, it’s not just the penties who see the man standing at the front of the seated room as the major source of truth in the room to which we are to absorb then pollinate the world with the seeds of our learning.
Occasionally the seated are asked to stand and give praise. This raises a sense of power in togetherness, a fleeting equalness.
I see too much church in Federal, State and local Governments and NFPs right across the board. Everytime a Government rep says “not your business” when it’s not about war, I hear “we are playing with society and are playing to win”. Trust us, pappa knows best. Yikes!
Such as the Thales bribes and the French
https://www.thejuicemedia.com/honest-government-ad-aukus—/
Prior to recent standards of Cabinet accountability, even PM and Cabinet Ministers required to uphold Australian Law. Clearly that standard is now questionable? No more or less an abomination that Australian governance apparently excludes protection of Australian Democracy? Surely every politician regardless of affiliation, party or independent, must resort to full Parliamentary scrutiny. From Prime Minister down?
That’s what happens when you elect a prime minister with no moral or social standards.