Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We could have a semantic argument about whether the Attorney-General has answered the question or not, but I am happy to rephrase the question. Under standing order 74(5)(c), I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's failure to provide an explanation.

The questions on notice that I asked, to which the Attorney-General has failed to give an explanation, relate to the scandalous appointments made by this Attorney-General to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on election eve this year. It is yet another in a long series of stuff-ups from probably the most accident-prone Attorney-General that this country has ever seen. Of course, there is such a long list of stuff-ups but I will remind the Senate of some of them. This Attorney-General has on at least two occasions misled this chamber, first of all with his statements in relation to the letters from the man responsible for the Lindt Cafe siege, Man Monis, and secondly more recently this Attorney-General has misled the Senate, and been found to have done so by a Senate committee, in relation to his behaviour concerning the Solicitor-General. That, of course, related to the Attorney-General's attempt to restrict the independence of the Solicitor-General and the Attorney-General's false claims to have consulted the Solicitor-General in the making of that direction.

On at least two occasions this Attorney-General has misled the Senate. We all know that the punishment for that, admitted by none other than this Prime Minister, is that this Attorney-General should resign. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for this Attorney-General to show this Senate the respect that it deserves by tendering his resignation.

This Attorney-General has also had the rare achievement of having been censured by the Senate in relation to the disgraceful conduct by him and other coalition senators in relation to the President of the Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs. I know that very soon we will have yet another show trial of Professor Triggs convened for coalition senators to do their dirty work again.

But what I am mainly talking about today is another stuff-up from this accident prone Attorney-General, and that is in relation to his scandalous appointments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal just before this year's federal election. I asked a number of questions on notice around the time of Senate estimates this year to the Attorney-General concerning media reports about appointments that he had made to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal which, just coincidently, seem to favour a number of former LNP or Liberal Party donors, staffers, candidates and members of parliament. It did seem, when you looked through the list of appointments that were made by the Attorney-General to the AAT just before this year's election, that having an LNP or Liberal Party card or having been a staffer, a member of parliament or a donor was a pre-requisite—certainly a great advantage—in getting yourself appointed to the AAT by this Attorney-General. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for answers from the Attorney-General to some fairly basic questions about whether he had ever met with those appointees or had met or spoken to senior LNP officials about those appointments. It seems that the Attorney-General has not yet had the opportunity to get around to answering those very questions.

I think it is important to give the Senate a little bit of history about these appointments, because I am aware that not everyone was a member of that Senate committee as I was and is not necessarily familiar with the process and what occurred. A number of things emerged from that Senate estimates hearing, the first of which is that, when it comes to appointments to be made to the AAT, in 2015 the Attorney-General was party to a new protocol which set out the process which should be followed in relation to appointments to the AAT. The idea, when you look at that protocol, is that there should be a process of cooperation between the president of the AAT and the Attorney-General before an appointment is made. Reviewing this protocol: it is a very good process, it is a very transparent process, that allows the president of the AAT to have input into what appointments are required and who are the appropriate people to be appointed. Of course, it does leave the final recommendation to the Attorney-General, and the final decision to cabinet, as is appropriate.

In essence, the steps that this protocol sets out for appointments to the AAT require the president of the AAT to supply the Attorney-General with an indication of what the tribunal's needs will be in terms of new appointments and reappointments. The Attorney-General indicates which positions do not require public advertisement because the Attorney-General has determined suitable people to fill those appointments—and we will come back to that. But it is very clear that, in general, what should occur in relation to appointments to the AAT is that the Attorney-General should seek an expression of interest for those appointments by public advertisement. The purpose of that, as is the case with many government appointments, is to give the widest possible number of people who are qualified for these roles the opportunity to indicate an interest and to ensure that Australia is calling on its best minds, whoever they may support politically, to take up these very important and very highly paid roles.

The protocol says that 'the secretary of the Attorney-General's Department will establish a selection committee that will include the president of the AAT, or their nominee; a representative of the Attorney-General; and the secretary of the department, or the secretary's nominee'. Again, that is a very fair, transparent and rigorous selection process, as you would expect for highly paid important public sector positions like members of the AAT. Only at the end of that process—at the end of the president providing the A-G with their assessment of what appointments are needed, at the end of going through an EOI process to cast a very wide net as to possible appointees, at the end of setting up a selection committee which interviews and vets people—is the Attorney-General to recommend appointments for cabinet's consideration. As I said, that is a very transparent and fair process and one that I commend to the Senate.

Unfortunately, what we learnt at Senate estimates this year was that the Attorney-General flagrantly ignored his own protocol, his own fair and transparent process for coming up with appointments to the AAT. And not only that; it was very clear from the evidence presented at that Senate estimates committee that the Attorney-General not only did not follow that protocol but completely subverted the process in order to get his own mates and mates of the LNP or the Liberal Party into these very well remunerated and responsible positions. Again, I think it is important to remember that these appointments did not come at any moment in time; they were made one day before this year's election was called. I am not sure whether that was because the Attorney-General was concerned about the government's chances at the election and felt a desperate need to get mates of the LNP and the Liberal Party into these positions before they might have missed that opportunity. I am not sure whether people had recently finished up as staffers and needed new jobs to be guaranteed, or whether donors needed to be rewarded. But, for whatever reason, a very curious number of appointments—and I will come to that shortly—were made by the Attorney-General, without having gone through his own process, one day before the election was called.

In total the Attorney-General made 76 appointments to the AAT one day before the election was called. You might ask: how much was the selection process followed by the Attorney-General? What was revealed at Senate estimates was that not one of those 76 appointments that were made by the Attorney-General one day before the election went through the selection process and the selection committee that was established under the protocol. The Attorney-General's Department gave evidence at the estimates hearing that it was not asked about the qualifications of these 76 employees. Despite the fact that there is supposed to be a process for people to give EOIs and have their qualifications vetted, on this indication it appears that the qualifications and experience of these appointees were not relevant to the job whatsoever. Of course, what we learnt was that there were certain other qualifications that were required, and that is favouritism, by many, towards the Liberal Party.

The department gave evidence that it did not come up with the names of the 76 AAT appointees. Ordinarily, the department would be involved and would be asked for advice about who would be appropriate appointees to the AAT. On this occasion, the Attorney-General's own department did not come up with the list of names. It was only as we got into the late-night session at that Senate estimates that the truth became very clear. When asked who came up with the list of names of those 76 people to be appointed to these highly paid, responsible positions on the AAT, the answer from the department was that, just as we all suspected at the beginning of the day, that list came from the Attorney-General.

That is really not much of a surprise when you review the names, experience and background of the 76 appointees. With a little bit of research, we found that 21 of the 76 appointees were ex-Liberal Party donors, members of parliament, candidates or staffers. That is nearly a third of these appointees. There was not really any consideration given to whether they had legal qualifications or whether they had experience that was appropriate to the sorts of decisions that they would need to make as AAT members, but they ticked a very important box in the Attorney-General's new selection process—and the box that they ticked was that they were former Liberal Party donors, MPs, candidates or staffers. It seems that, if you were able to tick that box, you got a much bigger advantage in getting appointed.

Time does not permit me to go through the experience of all 21 of these appointees, but I think it is important to highlight the experience of some of the more celebrated appointees that this Attorney-General found his way clear to appoint to the AAT. The one who has attracted the most attention is Mr Theo Tavoularis, a former solicitor and criminal defence lawyer in Queensland—my own home state. It became clear from media reports that Mr Tavoularis represented the Attorney-General's own son in court. When it was put to the Attorney-General, he said that he could not remember whether legal fees that were paid by his son were discounted, whether there was a further favour made to Mr Tavoularis in addition to his appointment to the AAT—