MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
GOVERNMENT LOOKS AFTER THEIR OWN WITH AAT APPOINTMENTS
If Australians needed any more evidence after the events of today that this government is only in it for themselves Attorney-General Christian Porter has announced a staggering 86 appointments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) after Parliament rose, full of Liberal mates.
The government has a shameful record on stacking the AAT with Liberal donors, former MPs, former staffers and mates but it has outdone itself today.
Within hours of today's announcement, we had already identified what appears to be 14 former state and federal Liberal/National MPs or staffers on the list of new appointments:
- Former Liberal Senator Stephen Parry, appointed for a seven year term
- Former Nationals MP De-Anne Kelly
- Former Liberal MP Robert Baldwin
- Former South Australian state Liberal MP Steven Griffiths
- Former West Australian Liberal MP Joseph Francis
- Former Malcolm Turnbull adviser Tony Barry
- Former Alexander Downer adviser Phoebe Dunn
- Former Jeff Kennett Chief of Staff John Griffin
- Former adviser to West Australian Liberal Minister Stephen Barton
- Former Chief of Staff to West Australian Liberal Minister Dawn Fitzgerald
- Former West Australian Liberal Senate candidate Michael Sutherland, who called fracking activists cockroaches
- Queensland LNP law and order adviser Dominic Katter
- Former Chief of Staff to a West Australian Liberal Premier Ian Fletcher
Full-time Senior AAT members are paid over $380,000 a year and even junior members are paid at least $190,000 a handsome reward for having the right friends in the right places.
This comes in a week in which we discovered Mathias Cormann accidentally got a free flight from the CEO of Helloworld, Federal Liberal Treasurer Andrew Burnes. Not to mention serious allegations that Australian Ambassador to the USA Joe Hockey set up a meeting with Helloworld as a return for some kind of favour.
Labor will clean up this mess. Last month Labor announced we would restore a transparent merits based policy to judicial appointments, and apply a similar system to the AAT for the first time.
Labor will restore integrity to Parliament through our National Integrity Commission, which we will legislate within 12 months of government.
This government are only in it for themselves, and their mates. Labor stands for transparency, integrity, and accountability. We have our priorities right.
THURSDAY, 21 FEBRUARY 2019
