on Ashby. The second of them, which you have not been able to explain other than with the vague term “to consider his employment status, was designed to threaten him with dismissal”. The Secretary of the Attorney- General’s Department, Mr Roger Wilkins rejected that proposition commenting that “all I am saying is that there is obviously a lot of politics in this. Insofar as you are asking an official what the train of reasoning and thinking was, that was not it”.
AUSTRALIA
be struck out summarily was “so deficient from the point of view of legal principle and so plainly preposterous that the only interpretation one could fairly draw, particularly in view of the other application filed on the same day, was to politically protect the Attorney-General and to politically protect the government by exercising unwarranted pressure against a bona fide litigant”. Mr Wilkins disputed this stating that “I do not think that is a fair thing to say to a range of officials who have been involved in this, working as professional public servants. You are basically implying that we are all part of some sort of political conspiracy. I do not think that is true at all. It was based on advice from the AGS and from senior counsel”. The Senate Finance and
Hon. Nicola Roxon, MP Senator Brandis focused on
the involvement in the case by the Attorney-General Hon. Nicola Roxon, MP. Senator Brandis commented that “we have heard about the deep involvement of the Attorney-General in this matter. The Attorney-General herself
spoke of herself last night as being the person who would be giving the instructions in the case. If there is deep political involvement in this case, the deep political involvement was to use every device at the Commonwealth’s disposal, with its almost bottomless resources, and in callous disregard of the model litigant rules to protect the Attorney-General’s position”. Again, Mr Wilkins rejected the propositions put forward by Senator Brandis. Senator Brandis commented
that Mr Wilkins’ explanation as to why the Commonwealth could argue that the case could
Public Administration Legislation Committee scrutinized the new Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) over serious a security breach in Parliament House. In August an intruder
invaded a Prime Ministerial press conference because of a security rostering error which led to a key access point between the public and private areas of Parliament House being unattended. Senator Scott Ryan asked the new Secretary of DPS, Ms Carol Mills, about the incident. Ms Mills advised that she had commissioned a review of security at a cost of $30,000 to be conducted by Ms Carolyn Walsh. This sparked interest
by Sen. the Hon. Michael Ronaldson who has previously raised concerns about DPS employment practices. Senator Ronaldson commented that “the last expert we had in this area was the husband of one of the former employees. He was in charge of security but had absolutely no expertise at all. It was nepotism of the worst kind. We have been
316 | The Parliamentarian | 2012: Issue Four Sen. the Hon. Eric Abetz
evident from day one that the problem was that the personnel who should have been situated outside a door were not situated outside a door. That is a security issue, but it is actually a rostering arrangement, a departmental arrangement about how staff are allocated.” Senator Ronaldson asked Ms Mills how long she has known Ms Walsh. Ms Mills responded that “I reiterate that I have confidence in the skill of Ms Walsh to identify the causes of the problem on that day and to contribute to any further potential work that might be required, but obviously, dependent on that, I would bring in appropriately skilled people, depending on the nature of the work we may wish to undertake. You have
going through this for two years now and we have had nepotism after nepotism. We have had a completely dysfunctional department and I want to make darn sure that we are not just back on the merry-go-round with another group of old mates who are getting jobs. I want you, please, to take on notice Ms Walsh’s expertise in relation to these areas and come back to the committee with that. I asked what the cost was. It was $30,000, was it?” Ms Mills responded that the
focus of the review is the rostering arrangements. She commented that “this was
an investigation into the causes of a rostering problem. It was very
my assurance that my absolute commitment is to quality. I am determined in this department to bring the highest possible quality standards to the Parliament, and I will bring in the people with the appropriate skills to do that, whether I have known them previously or not”. The Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Committee again scrutinized Fair Work Australia (FWA) over its handling of its investigation into the Health Services Union. Mr Craig Thomson, MP, the Member for Dobell in New South Wales was the former Secretary of the Health Services Union (HSU) before being elected to Parliament in 2007. He is being investigated for alleged inappropriate use of his HSU corporate credit card and other expenditure. Sen. the Hon. Eric Abetz
asked the CEO Ms Bernadette O’Neil “what is the cost, to date, borne by the Australian taxpayer in relation to the pursuit of this Thomson issue?” Ms O’Neil reported that
“the costs as at 11 October in relation to the two investigations as a total—over the entirety of the investigations from their commencement in 2009—are $1.3 million. That does not include the costs of the litigation that has been initiated in respect of the No. 1 branch investigation or the costs of the proceedings that I filed in the Federal Court earlier this week”. Under further questioning
from Senator Abetz, Ms O’Neil clarified that this cost was for the external legal support and did not take account of the internal costs of the FWA. In addition, the FWA commissioned KPMG at a cost of$430 000to review the FWA’s report on the HSU. The HSU was not able to advise Senator Abetz of the anticipated costs of prosecuting the case against Mr Thomson.