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.

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“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.

Given Cash had told the committee five times throughout the course of Wednesday that neither she, nor her office, had assisted in putting cameras on the scene of the raids before the police turned up at AWU offices, the plausibility question from Cameron seemed entirely reasonable.

Cash, for her part, insisted that she had come forward with the relevant information as soon as was practicable. The rogue staffer (a recurring trope in politics) had only come forward and ‘fessed up to his conduct in the dinner break, and the correction of the public record had followed shortly after.

The media tip-off had not been authorised, Cash said; she had no knowledge.

Timeline Australian Workers Union Show Hide $100,000 donation to GetUp Australian Workers Union makes $100,000 donation to activist group GetUp as it launches in 2005. Bill Shorten was the secretary of the AWU and a founding board member of GetUp. ROC established Turnbull government sets up Registered Organisations Commission – a new union watchdog to monitor and investigate unions and employer associations. Cash refers AWU to ROC After details of AWU's 2005 donation are reported in the Weekend Australian, Cash refers matter to the ROC for investigation. ROC starts investigating AWU ROC begins formally investigating AWU's national and Victorian branches. AEC announces separate GetUp investigation Separate to AWU, ROC and $100,000 donation, Australian Electoral Commission announces it will investigate GetUp for its conduct in the 2016 election. AEC says GetUp could potentially be an 'associated entity' of Labor and the Greens because its activism substantially benefited both parties in the federal election. AFP raids AWU ROC asks Australian federal police to raid offices of AWU, after anonymous caller tells them union officials may be destroying documents. Some media outlets are tipped off, appearing at AWU's offices before police arrive for late afternoon raid. Cash denies aide tip-off ... then admits it 11am – On five occasions, Cash denies that anyone in her office knew about the raid, or tipped off journalists, as she is grilled at a Senate estimates committee.

6pm – An explosive Buzzfeed article is published. Two journalists say they were tipped off by someone in Cash's office, an hour before the raid. The Senate committee heads to a dinner break.

7.30pm – Cash returns and reveals her senior media adviser, David De Garis, did in fact tip off the media.

She explains she was unaware of De Garis's actions until he told her over dinner. As for how De Garis knew about the raid in advance, Cash says De Garis was told by 'a media source".

De Garis resigns. Calls for Cash to resign The questioning continues. Cash fronts the Senate committee again as Labor and the Greens call for her resignation, saying she mislead the parliament five times the previous day. Government colleagues stand by her. 'Michaelia Cash simply did not know,' says social services minister Christian Porter.

Yeah, nah, was the collective response of the Labor folks across the estimates table, who had been objecting to a government filibuster in the estimates committee, which had been very obviously in play for a couple of hours, to push past the television news bulletins.

Cameron warned Labor would continue to pursue the issue for as long as it took for Cash to take responsibility, as ministers are supposed to do in the Westminster system.

This was the beginning, not the end, of questions about this imbroglio, was Cameron’s clear implication. So, Michaelia, settle in, how long have you got?

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The government has mired itself in its own mess, not only by enabling media coverage of the police raids, but by its decision to send off the reference for this particular investigation to the Registered Organisations Commission.

While no participant in the political process gets a free pass, while it is perfectly appropriate and valid that any participant in the political process answer questions about their conduct, whether it happened five minutes ago, or 10 years ago – the government also has to deal with how things look, with voter perceptions of its conduct and motives.

It’s self-evident that voters want everyone in the system to play by the rules.

But through its own overegging, and misguided stage management, and it’s too obvious desire to apply the blowtorch to inconvenient institutional foes, the government has opened itself up to commentary that this whole process is less about serving the public interest and more about indulging obsessive witch-hunts against political opponents.