Via the AFR:
Two rules of politics: first, you don’t mind getting into the mud if it diverts attention on to something you think damages your opponents; second, genuine outrage always works better than the feigned variety.
Both rules were working against the Turnbull government on Wednesday as it tried to corral a public relations disaster that some bright spark, apparently in Employment Minister Michaelia Cash’s office, must have thought looked like a masterstroke at some point.
The Coalition knows that, despite Labor’s lead in the polls, voters remain ambivalent about Bill Shorten, and many do not see his history as a trade union official as a positive.
Someone seems to have decided that it would be good to tip off the media about Australian Federal Police raids on the Sydney and Melbourne offices of Shorten’s old union, the AWU, late on Tuesday. The raiders were searching for documents about two ten-year-old political donations, one of which was to a body the Coalition hates almost as much as trade unions: activist group GetUp!.
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A staffer to Employment Minister Michaelia Cash was forced to resign last night after admitting tipping off the media about Australian Federal Police raids of the Australian Workers Union.
In a severe embarrassment to the government, senior media adviser David De Garis resigned after making the admission to her during a break in a Senate estimates hearing.
Under intense questioning yesterday, Senator Cash had repeatedly denied she or her staff were aware of the raids until they commenced. Before the dinner break, Labor and the Senate crossbench said they would push for an inquiry into the media tip-off.
Following the admission, opposition workplace relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor accused Senator Cash of misleading the Senate on five occasions.
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Ms Cash denies she misled Parliament about her office’s involvement, after she repeatedly told a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday that neither she nor anyone in her office had told journalists about the Australian Federal Police raids on the union’s offices in Melbourne and Sydney.
The AFP is investigating $100,000 in donations the AWU made to activist group GetUp! when the union was led by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.
But Ms Cash admitted on Wednesday night that she had been wrong and one of her advisers had contacted the media “without my knowledge”.
“My staff member came to me during the dinner break and has resigned from my employment,” Ms Cash told the hearing, sparking heated and chaotic scenes.
“He has admitted he was wrong. He is very distressed.”
The senior media adviser, David De Garis, received the information about the upcoming raid from a “media source” but he would not reveal who it was. Senator Cash said she did not mislead the Senate because she gave information she understood to be true.
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Malcolm Turnbull has also been accused of being “up to his neck” in the scandal surrounding raids on the AWU offices in Sydney and Melbourne.
Senator Cash and Mr De Garis attended a meeting with the Prime Minister before Question Time yesterday.
Labor frontbencher Tony Burke this morning said it was not credible for Minister Cash or Malcolm Turnbull to not know the truth, if the staffer had attended the meeting.
The urgent meeting was called after Labor MP Anthony Albanese had earlier that day accused Senator Cash of personally tipping off the media.
“We’re meant to believe that with the member of staff who made those calls there with her, Michaelia Cash told the Prime Minister ‘oh with that Anthony Albanese allegation, I never made any calls,” Mr Burke told Sky News.
“And we’re meant to believe that is it — that Malcolm Turnbull, who is a trained cross examiner, never said ‘no, no, no, the allegations are about your office and your office is there with you’.
“Either Malcolm Turnbull did ask and we’re not being told — or he knew to not ask.”
Finally, from Katherine Murphy:
I’ll keep this brief, because there’s only one thing you can say about the events of the past 24 hours: what a complete shocker.
What was supposed to be a short, sharp, stage-managed morality play about Bill Shorten having “questions to answer” from his days as a trade union official has now blown up, politically, in the Turnbull government’s face.
After telling a Senate committee for much of the day that neither she, nor her office, tipped off the media about controversial police raids on the Australian Workers Union, the employment minister Michaelia Cash, has now had to correct the public record, and cop the resignation of a senior member of her staff.
The opposition calls AFP raids on the Australian Workers’ Union ‘an abuse of power’ and claims Michaelia Cash is responsible for the ‘witch-hunt’.
“How can we actually believe anything you say,” the Labor senator Doug Cameron asked of the besieged minister on Wednesday night after a day which had lurched between paint-stripping hyper-partisan aggression and high farce.
Can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t throw…
