MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
THE WHEELS ARE FALLING OFF PORTER'S ELECTION BUS WITH NEW JOBS FOR MATES SCANDAL
As the wheels fall off the Morrison Government, scandal after scandal is showing hard-working Australians that this desperate government is only in it for themselves and their mates.
Last week Australians were appalled to see another string of Morrison Government scandals, including the Helloworld chumgate scandal, Peter Dutton's department awarding a $423 million taxpayer contract to a company called Paladin to look after Australia's offshore detention centres despite Paladin being registered to a beach shack on Kangaroo Island, and two Morrison Government ministers undermining a criminal investigation involving their own staff by refusing to provide witness statements to the Australian Federal Police.
And yet on Thursday, shortly after Parliament had risen, the Attorney-General Christian Porter quietly announced a staggering 86 appointments and reappointments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) a list full of Liberal mates, including a number of the Attorney-Generals own former State Liberal colleagues and staffers.
Full-time Senior AAT members are paid over $380,000 a year and even junior members are paid at least $190,000.
The new appointments included failed Liberal Senate candidate, Michael Sutherland, who called fracking activists cockroaches and long-time staffer, William Frost, whose most recent job was working in Christian Porters office.
Now it has been reported in The West Australian that another of the new AAT appointees, former Western Australian MP, Joseph Francis, was given the plum six-figure-salary posting after overseeing a loan to Christian Porter of a complimentary campaign bus in 2018.
The response to these latest revelations by the Attorney-General and the Liberal Party does not stack up. They claim that the bus company, the Australian Transit Group, has a commercial arrangement with the WA Liberal Party to eventually sell it the buses. Its probably like Senator Cormann eventually paying the travel company headed by the Liberal Party's treasurer for the trip he and his family took to Singapore when he was caught by a journalist.
But neither the Liberal Party nor Christian Porter has been able to say how much the Liberals will pay for the buses or whether this commercial arrangement was in place before the buses were loaned to the Liberal Party last year.
Was this arrangement agreed between the Liberal Party and Australian Transit Group before or after The West Australian started asking questions? Is there a written agreement or was this supposed arrangement based on a wink, a nudge and a handshake? Will the Liberal Party be buying these buses at market rates or mates rates? Australians deserve answers.
This latest scandal is yet another demonstration of how this government is only in it for themselves and those they owe favours to.
Australians have had enough of it.
Labor is committed to establishing a National Integrity Commission with all the powers of a standing Royal Commission, charged with stamping out corruption in government and the public sector.
And Labor is committed to re-establishing a transparent, merits based system for appointment of both judges and AAT members.
Labor stands for transparency, integrity, and accountability. We have our priorities right.
MONDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2019
