Another day, another unprecedented use of the resources and powers of government to pursue politics.



Tuesday’s example is a full parliamentary apology to those individuals named in a speech by Craig Thomson, in which “egregious falsehoods were made”, and to “the members of the Health Services Union for the spending by Mr Craig Thomson of $267,721.65 of union members’ funds on his re-election campaign and further private expenditure not authorised by the union”.

Anyone not sure of the point of this exercise need only look to the statement on ABC Radio from the manager of government business, Christopher Pyne, who said it was “an entirely appropriate response for a parliament that wants to put behind it the three hideous years of a hung vote under Labor … this was a very tawdry parliament”.

“This is an appropriate response for a parliament that wants to be taken seriously,” he said.

Thomson’s “I didn’t do it” speech to parliament in 2012 was an abuse of parliamentary privilege. Most people listening found it entirely, ridiculously implausible at the time. Thomson’s behaviour was reprehensible and he has now been found guilty by the courts. But his speech has already been referred to the parliamentary privileges committee. That committee can impose a range of sanctions, including a $5000 fine, a six-month jail term or a request for an apology.

Before it has even met, the government has announced the parliament will apologise, something that has previously happened only in relation to matters such as the stolen generation, forced adoptions or British child adoptions. Pyne says these comparisons are unfair, but concedes this apology is setting a precedent.

Labor, not wanting to help the government’s central political attack that Labor is running a “protection racket” for dodgy union leaders or to be seen to be defending Thomson, is not opposing the apology.

“We do think what Craig Thomson has done is a disgrace … it is a betrayal of what Labor stands for,” was all the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, would say on the matter.

But it does appear to form part of a pattern.

On Monday we discovered the prime minister ordered cabinet documents from the previous Labor government be handed to the royal commission into the home insulation scheme, one of two highly political royal commissions set up by the government (the other is into union corruption). This is also unprecedented.

The cabinet handbook states “the convention is that cabinet documents are confidential to the government which created them and not the property of the sponsoring minister or department. Access to them by succeeding governments is not granted without the approval of the current parliamentary leader of the appropriate political party.”

The deputy secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Elizabeth Kelly, said the department “implemented a decision made by the prime minister”.

“They are for the commission to inspect on a private basis and, if they are to be disclosed to anyone outside of Commonwealth who hasn’t previously seen them, the Commonwealth has asked the commission that it be notified and be given the opportunity to make a claim under the public interest immunity privilege for protection of that material from publication,” she told Senate estimates on Monday.

This is entirely beside the point. They have already been provided to the royal commission, full of people acting on terms of reference provided by the present government, people who have obviously never before seen the cabinet documents.

By sharp contrast, the Howard government argued against provision of Keating government cabinet documents to the royal commission into the lease arrangements for Labor’s centenary house, a royal commission it had itself set up. (A couple of cabinet-in-confidence documents had already been inadvertently provided.) And the Keating government argued all the way to the high court against the provision of Fraser government documents in a case challenging the Ranger uranium mine agreement. The Fraser government in turn argued against the provision of cabinet documents concerning the Whitlam government and the Khemlani loans affair.

Whether these unprecedented and blatantly political tactics are effective remains to be seen, but it is possible the best way for a government to “put behind it” three years of a hung parliament is to get on with governing.