Sky News – Minister Cash, Redress
E&OE
Subjects: Minister Cash; Redress
KIERAN GILBERT:
The Minister for Social Services Christian Porter joins me now. Minister, thanks very much for your time. Under the Westminster tradition of our Parliament, our Government, Michaelia Cash has to step down, doesn’t she, having misled the Parliament?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
I would respectfully disagree with that. I think there’s any number of interpretations I’ve heard this morning about the tradition of ministerial responsibility, but knowledge has always been at the core of the modern interpretation of ministerial responsibility. Michaelia Cash’s staff member clearly did something very serious and very seriously wrong. They have, I understand, resigned, which is utterly appropriate and there’s probably more that will occur in that space going forward. But Michaelia Cash simply did not know. And I’ve known Michaelia Cash for decades and I think, in fact, people in this Parliament, on both sides of the house, understand that she is a truthful and honest person. When she says that she did not know about the actions of her staff until she alerted the Senate committee – which I think was about 7 o’clock last evening – she is to be believed.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Well, maybe that could be a viable defence if it was an obscure departmental staff member, liaison member or something in the Minister’s office, but this is one of her closest advisers, a senior media adviser. It’s untenable.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, the fact that the senior adviser did not volunteer the information to what was effectively his boss, I agree, is a matter of enormous seriousness, but it doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t volunteer the information. Michaelia Cash simply didn’t know. So again, whether it’s a staff member high or low in the ranks, if the Minister simply does not know – as was the case here, and Michaelia Cash is to be believed, I think that that is bearing very positively in Michaelia’s favour.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Labor’s questioning whether or not she should be believed or not. I’m not questioning that. What I’m saying is, though, that he was so close to her as an adviser, and under the Westminster tradition, you mislead the Parliament, you go. It’s hard to see how she can survive, given the proximity of this person to her. It’s either incompetence or Labor’s right.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Can I say again, your interpretation of the substance of misleading the Parliament ignores the fact that misleading always has to be intentional for it to have those serious consequences, which turns again on knowledge. look, the reason that we’re all here is because of the enormous seriousness of the fact that a magistrate’s accepted the credibility of whistleblower’s view that important evidence was about to be destroyed. It’s very unfortunate that this is detracting from that fact, but this is the actions of a staff member, unauthorised, unknown to the Minister in question.
KIERAN GILBERT:
You say it goes to knowledge, but shouldn’t it also go to the requirement of the Minister to find out, to ask the question?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, I don’t know exactly what inquiries were undertaken, but I understand from the very little I’ve seen of the Senate Committee hearings that there were inquiries undertaken. But clearly the actions of the staffer in question were, for want of a better description, hidden. That person didn’t volunteer the information. Inquiries were made and it wasn’t until later in the evening that that person volunteered the information about what they had done. And no minister …
KIERAN GILBERT:
But a minister can’t have their hands over their eyes and ears and say I’m not going to ask this. It emerged earlier in the day, Mr Albanese made the assertion and reports emerged. Surely amid speculation that there was a tipoff, there would have been a question asked?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, Mr Albanese’s assertion was that the Minister herself had called media, which was utterly …
KIERAN GILBERT:
He wasn’t that far off.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, that is a very serious assertion in itself which is totally wrong.
KIERAN GILBERT:
It wasn’t that far off. It was from her office.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
It was very far off. It was absolutely wrong. Now, I accept the fact – as everyone does – that a staff member has done something utterly wrong in these circumstances, but that occurred without the knowledge or imprimatur of the Minister, and that is the fact that we’re dealing with here.
KIERAN GILBERT:
There was an ugly look to see the Minister repeatedly reject this assertion and then have to come back in, cap in hand, and concede, I’m sorry, I misled the Senate five times.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, I mean, I’m sure there wouldn’t be a single person in the Government who would prefer that the staff member had not done the stupid thing that they did, not least of which because it places the Minister in obviously difficult circumstances, but it detracts from the fact that we’ve got a union that was raided for documents on credible information that those documents were about to be destroyed.
KIERAN GILBERT:
So, you believe hand-on-heart that she can survive as minister?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
I do, absolutely. I mean, the reality is that ministers aren’t telepathic. Michaelia Cash did not know about the actions of the staff member, and I concede absolutely that the actions of what the staff member did were terribly wrong.
KIERAN GILBERT:
And shouldn’t have asked? Shouldn’t have asked more strongly to find out?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, you say asked and then asked more strongly, I mean, all of us …
KIERAN GILBERT:
Well, asked….
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, I understand that inquiries were made and that was …
KIERAN GILBERT:
And he lied.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, silence is often the worst form of lie because the information, when asked, wasn’t volunteered. And we’re not telepathic as ministers. We don’t have compulsory powers to extract answers.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Last question I have to ask you, because that’s why we arranged this interview and you did stump up regardless of the difficulties around for the Government. But legislation introduced for the Commonwealth Redress Scheme for survivors of child sexual abuse. Is this only applicable to Commonwealth institutions, or how does this work?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, this is the architecture that would allow any state or territory or any church or charity in Australia to opt in. So it’s the very critically important first stage of the ultimate outcome, which is broad national coverage. There are about, we think, 60,000 survivors of these terrible instances of sexual abuse in institutions across Australia. Best estimates are about 1000 of those are in constitutional settings. So this is the start. We want all the states and territories to opt in, and this is the broad-based program that would allow us in all states, territories, churches, charities, to offer appropriate recognition and redress and some alleviation through the counselling-based systems we’re going to put in place.
So it’s a very important day for survivors of sexual abuse in institutions. There is some way to go, and it’s very important now that the states, the territories, the churches, the charities, do the right thing and opt into this scheme, and I’m very confident that they will, but I think today is a landmark day for all of those people that suffered so terribly at the hands of institutions where their care should have been paramount.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Indeed, Minister. I appreciate your time. Thanks so much.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Thank you very much.
(ENDS)