Labor says commissioner unfit to hold office as contact with Institute of Public Affairs under scrutiny

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Australian Public Service commissioner, John Lloyd, has repeatedly refused to say whether he is under investigation for his relationship with the Institute of Public Affairs.

Lloyd’s contact with the rightwing thinktank, of which he is a longtime member and former director, has come under scrutiny. Labor is claiming it as proof that he is acting in a partisan manner, including in an email revealed on Monday in which Lloyd complained about Labor questioning during an earlier hearing in October.

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has rejected a freedom-of-information request seeking emails it holds about Lloyd, claiming that to do so “could reasonably be expected to prejudice the conduct of an investigation of a breach, or possible breach, of the law”.

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On Monday Labor senators used Senate estimates to query whether Lloyd was the subject of this investigation.

Lloyd refused to answer, citing the fact that public service legislation provides a “high degree of confidentiality” and guarantees the “non-disclosure of any protected information”, including the identity of those under investigation.

The Labor senators Penny Wong and Jenny McAllister repeatedly warned Lloyd that this was not a proper basis to refuse to answer the question.

Lloyd signalled that he may make a public interest immunity claim but, when pushed by the Labor senators for the basis of the claim, Lloyd returned from a break to inform the hearing that he would take the question on notice.

The public service commissioner said he would do so “expeditiously” and “as quick as [he] can” but would not commit to a Tuesday deadline.

Lloyd then took on notice a series of questions about whether he was under investigation, which, if any, of his actions were being investigated, who was conducting the investigation and what law may have been breached.

At an October estimates session Lloyd was grilled about his contact with the IPA including an email in which he attached a document that he said “highlights some of the more generous agreement provisions applying to APS employees”.

At that hearing Lloyd defended his link to the group, rejecting the allegation that giving the information amounted to special access because the information was publicly available in public service enterprise agreements.

The IPA is a fierce public critic of public service conditions and called for 27,000 jobs to be slashed in December.

On Monday Wong suggested to Lloyd that he had acted in “a partisan manner, inappropriate” for his office.

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“I think you are unfit to hold this office because you are partisan,” she said. “I reject that,” Lloyd replied.

It was revealed that after the October estimates session, Lloyd wrote to the IPA’s executive director, John Roskam, referring to “more publicity for the IPA including page 1 of the Canberra Times thanks to ALP questioning”.

Wong suggested that no reasonable person would look at that email and conclude it “wasn’t partisan” but Lloyd rejected the suggestion, countering that it reflected his annoyance at the questioning.

“That doesn’t make it less partisan, it makes it more so,” Wong said.

“I conveyed similar sentiments to other people,” Lloyd said.

Throughout the Monday hearing Lloyd was accompanied by the Senate president, Scott Ryan, or the jobs and innovation minister, Michaelia Cash, neither of whom lodged a public interest immunity claim on his behalf.

Cash said that she did not know of grounds to do so, while Ryan said he was not inclined to do so but noted Lloyd could make such a claim himself.