Finance Minister Katy Gallagher was questioned about her use of parliamentary privilege on a couple of fronts. File Photo: Michelle Kroll.
The Coalition is demanding answers about political flyers in public service departments. Labor wants to know why Peter Dutton bought up bank shares the day before the government bailed them out. Linda Reynolds would like an apology from Katy Gallagher over Brittany Higgins.
Tuesday (25 February) was an interesting day in Senate Estimates.
The Australian Public Service Commission had to explain to Liberal senators Jane Hume and James McGrath why anti-Dutton flyers had been left lying around the common areas of at least one (unnamed) government department.
Authorised by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, separate flyers ask: “Can you afford a pay cut?” and “Can you afford to risk Dutton?”
Isn’t the APS meant to be apolitical? That’s what the Coalition senators wanted to know.
APS officials appearing before the hearing could only offer up references to the rule banning APS employees from engaging in party political activity at work.
But without knowing in what department/s the flyers (which were tabled at the hearing) were found, they couldn’t say much more.
“It’s just a pure piece of political advertising,” Senator Hume said.
She and Senator McGrath also jumped on Finance Minister Katy Gallagher’s use of estimates – and parliamentary privilege – to say Mr Dutton had some “genuine questions to answer” over his buy-up of bank shares during the Global Financial Crisis.
A News Corp report said Mr Dutton had declared new shares in NAB, Westpac and CommBank one day before the Rudd government boosted their value by bailing them out.
The report raises questions about whether Mr Dutton was privy to information about the bailout beforehand.
Dutton blamed the news on Labor’s dirt unit and insisted that everything was done according to the rules.
So when Senator Gallagher said the shares shopping was “highly unusual”, the Coalition senators in the estimates hearing described it as “grubby” to make such suggestions under the protection of parliamentary privilege.
They dared her to repeat the comments outside of the chamber.
Senator Gallagher had another interesting exchange during estimates hearings.
It, too, was about parliamentary privilege, but this one was with Liberal senator and former defence minister Linda Reynolds over the questioning of her years earlier about the Bruce Lehrmann rape allegations in her office.
Senator Reynolds will not be contesting this year’s federal election and took the opportunity in her last appearances at Senate Estimates this week to ask for an apology from Senator Gallagher over how she and other Labor senators, while in Opposition, had pursued the then minister over Ms Higgins’ allegations.
Senator Reynolds said Labor’s questions over what might or might not have happened in her ministerial office were overly harsh, had misused parliamentary privilege, and “wrought damage” to her [Senator Reynolds] and her family.
So, she asked Senator Gallagher for an apology.
She got a qualified one – but maybe not really.
“I am sorry that you have been hurt by all of this,” Senator Gallagher told Senator Reynolds during the hearing.
“I’ve gone back and had a look at the questions I’ve asked and I believe the questions I’ve asked of you when you were a minister and accountable for what happened in your office were reasonable.
“I consider these things deeply.”
Senator Reynolds then chimed in with: “That’s a no?”
Senator Gallagher was quick to make it clear that it wasn’t a no.
“That’s not a no,” she said.
But then again, it’s not an actual formal apology, either.
“I would believe that other senators in a similar circumstance would ask exactly the same questions,” the minister said.
“But did I seek to cause harm to you or anyone else? No.
“I asked questions that I think most people expect would have been asked with such serious allegations about what has happened in this building.”
Senator Reynolds has sued Ms Higgins for defamation.
Ms Higgins alleged she was raped by fellow staffer Bruce Lehrmann in Senator Reynolds’ ministerial suite in March 2019 and has criticised the then-minister’s handling of the situation.
Mr Lehrmann denied the allegation and his criminal trial was derailed over juror misconduct, with no findings against him.
A subsequent Federal Court defamation case Mr Lehrmann launched against the Ten Network, however, found that “on the balance of probabilities” he did rape Ms Higgins.
Mr Lehrmann is appealing that verdict.
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