The robodebt royal commission has provided rare insight into how Australian politicians seek to avoid accountability by using talking points to spin media coverage.
Christian Porter admitted at a hearing on Thursday he had little personal insight into robodebt and relied heavily on talking points supplied by others when he responded to media criticism in a series of interviews in late 2016 and early 2017.
At the time, Porter — who was the social services minister in Malcolm Turnbull’s ministry — was filling in for Alan Tudge as human services minister while Tudge was on leave.
Criticism of the robodebt program was escalating in the press at the time.
“There were lots of things in those talking points, that through this process and information from my lawyers, provided to me through this process, I now understand were inaccurate or untrue,” he said.
“I placed enormous reliance, I must say, on … those talking points.”
The commission has previously heard Tudge’s former media advisor Rachelle Miller explain how media requests were handled internally.
“[Tudge] became quickly aware that the prime minister was unhappy with, you know, the sort of escalating media issue around this,” she said earlier in the week.
“And minister Porter — at the time when minister Tudge was away, we were trying to sort of decline as many media opportunities as we could, obviously because the main minister was away.”
Miller explained the strategy was aimed at “containing” the story and avoiding as many critical interviews as possible.
Meanwhile the “friendly” right-wing media was used to plant stories that would make the Coalition look good, Miller said.
“In the kind of, you know, left-wing Canberra circles, it appeared to be quite a crisis,” she said.
“But we were getting feedback from the Prime Minister’s Office that actually this was playing quite well in marginal seats, western Sydney, that type of thing.”
Miller said ministers even took care not to steal media “glory” from each other when preparing for media interviews.
“Minister Tudge was very cautious about doing anything that might offend minister Porter, but at the same time he was often reluctant to let minister Porter take all of the media glory,” she said.
Porter became the first out of four ex-Coalition ministers to take responsibility for the robodebt failure during his hearing on Thursday.
“I do. I look back on this and I see myself through the correspondence getting quite close at points to taking the next step of inquiry,” he said.
“I didn’t do that. I wish now that I had, but I also see the reasons that I didn’t.”
Porter: idiot or liar … or both
Definitely both. An idiot too smart by half who thought he was much smarter than the rest of us and could fool us easily – most of the Murdoch media think the same way.
But the ultimate criminal responsibility rests squarely with a succession of cabinet members who conspired to prioritise revenue over human welfare for base ideological reasons, and ignore obvious illegality..
Yep, it’s a Dunning-Kruger shaped dumpster fire. Because that’s what neoliberalism is – an ideology for people who are just smart enough to pretend to themselves they have it all figured out.
All this lawyerball about the legality, while the horrific degree of unfairness is absolutely incontrovertible, and The Law continues to purport to be at least partly based on fairness, AND these are the ratbags who MAKE the law.
Wood for the trees.
agree x1,000 at “an idiot too smart by half”
Don’t overlook the malcoiffed Ms Campbell.
But, but, but wasn’t Porter the great debater? Had to rely totally on PS provided talking points?
He did not really rely on the talking points. They said what he wanted to hear so he did not challenge them.
He is also a lawyer, as are Tudge and Turnbull – so why the need for legal advice from others?
You do not need to be a top notch lawyer to know that income averaging was illegal – the centrelink rules as defined by the law were, and are, quite simple.
As people who had trained to be lawyers, they should have known that they needed to obtain legal advice from people who were qualified in the field of law in question.
The law is a huge edifice, complicated and consisting of a multitude of specialities. It’s like medicine: any competent GP knows that once they’ve diagnosed a gut complaint they need to send the patient off to the gastroenterologist. A GP who declares that they “know everything about medicine” isn’t a GP I’d be trusting, and neither would I trust a lawyer who “is confident in their knowledge of all aspects of the law”.
Even lawyers who didn’t practise in the area knew it was suspicious and referred clients to those with expertise in the area. It was not something so esoteric that lawyers knew nothing about it
As a lawyer,Porter was trained and experienced in sifting and analysing information.
He got the talking points, and raised no questions, just ran with it… because it suited him and LNP prejudices and positioning. His time later as Attorney General was blighted by bad choices eg. Prosecuting witness K and Bernard Collaery, or delaying the anti-corruption legislation and finally presenting a draft that was thoroughly criticised and failed to proceed.
No. All you need is primary school maths.
Of the 19 members of the cabinet that approved the income averaging and transferred the onus of proof to benefit recipients, 9 held law degrees and a couple had studied accounting and taxation, and none of them could do basic arithmetic.
I’d agree with that. The rules have to be straight forward so beneficiaries are able to comply with them. For unemployment benefits, for example, the income always has been assessed, and should be declared in the fortnight in which it is earned derived or received. They cannot have it both ways. They are either incompetent, lying, or a bit of both. Either way, they are not fit to govern.
But even then Centrelink set their reporting periods on purpose so that they wouldn’t be able to match income periods. Just to make it more difficult.
You don’t even have to be a lawyer; you only have to be moderately (I would suggest primary school level) trained in arithmetic to see that income averaging in those circumstances is unfair.
Not so much great, as mass.
I watched about an hour of Porter’s performance. Most of the time I despaired, but there were two hilarious moments.
The first was when Holmes looked at Porter in utter bewilderment and said something like, “You didn’t take a very lawyerly approach. You know, refer to the Act”.
Then towards the end he painted himself as the great white hero who almost figured out what was going on. I would have loved to have seen Holmes’ face when he said that (twice if I recall correctly).
On a point of order, Your Honour…………..
WHO PROVIDED THESE TALKING POINTS?
Some faceless staffer (effectively telling their Minister what to say………..)
The resident Fascist Commisar?
Tony Abbott?
Little Johnny Eyebrows????
First Dog on the Moon could probably draw you a reasonable guess at the lying nasty party’s Bullfact Sheet Generator 9000
Haven’t you ever watched Yes, Minister? Obviously, he was intentionally ignorant of incriminating details – the only thing he wanted in his brain was the cover story.
The Robodebt inquiry demonstrates how Morrison was able to have himself sworn in to multiple ministries. We have now had a series of Coalition former Ministers tell us basically that they had no idea what was going on in their portfolios, weren’t competent as managers and as a result can’t be expected to be held responsible for the misery their minions inflicted on their behalf.
Given the example of Robodebt, shouldn’t we be sending the debt collectors after them to recover the difference between a backbencher’s salary and the ministerial salary they claimed under false pretences? These people are basically telling us that we can’t hold them responsible for any harm done because they were always unfit to hold the office and knew so at the time.
If someone isn’t sure how much Porter, Tudge and Rushton were overpaid from public revenues, apparently the ATO has all the details.
Everyone who reads this should be punching the air with a “FFFK YEAH” and then popping out to buy a pitchfork.
They all love punching down, openly and loudly, then claim no direct responsibility either for their words or deeds. The latest offering from the most senior law official in the land – he leans on ‘talking points’ for his defense (cue, blame someone else lower down the pecking order).
The buck starts here…
– Where?
– Here. Look into this microscope
In a minor breath of fresh air a former minister admitted some degree of responsibility for what happened. But we should not lose sight of the machinations of the public servants involved.
Yeah, nah.
“I do. I look back on this and I see myself through the correspondence getting quite close at points to taking the next step of inquiry,” he said. Doesn’t sound to me like accepting any responsibility. More like – I almost got it right.
This is the man who then became Attorney-General.
No longer being a member of parliament, Porter has less to lose than other spineless scoundrels like Morrison, Tudge and Robert. He could be using their seething discomfort to make himself look (slightly, relatively) good, just for once.
Like all good underlings in a corrupt system, they take their cue from above. A fish rots from the head.