1 She seemed to pause for an excruciating eternity as the gallery sat forward on the edge of their seats; then her lips moved as she said: “Yes, I think you’re right.” Serena Wilson is now retired but was a former deputy secretary at the Department of Social Services, giving evidence before the Robodebt Royal Commission.
Wilson had made the dramatic concession that the Coalition government’s welfare debt recovery program was operating unlawfully and that: “I took no steps to stop it.”
The Robodebt Royal Commission is trying to ascertain who knew it was unlawful and why it was allowed to proceed. On Wednesday, December 14, former PM Morrison appeared before the commission.
In the meantime, The Guardian reported that former ministers Scott Morrison, Lord bless him, and ministers Christian Porter, Alan Tudge, Stuart Robert, Michael Keenan and Marise Payne have received approval for taxpayer-funded legal expenses related to the Robodebt Royal Commission. The price of truth is very costly these days.
But that’s not all. Scottie’s lawyers have asked that he be able to refer to cabinet documents when giving evidence. I suspect he wants to show that all decisions were of the cabinet and not him alone. Would the other witnesses be given the same luxury? And would access to cabinet papers for so many be in the public interest?
Questioning Scott Morrison
He was asked what he knew about the scheme from its inception in 2015 but needed help from a bad memory to enlighten anyone about anything.
His evidence was often interrupted by the commissioner or counsel assisting in criticising Morrison for not listening and giving answers that strayed from the question. Answers with unnecessary detail, unfairly describing the personality of his questioner and trespassing on parliamentary privilege.
His evidence was continuously in conflict with that of others before him, quiet’ sharply at times. He denied he knew-was told that this new method of debt collecting was illegal from the start or at least five years before the courts reached that conclusion.
Really, as the Minister of three departments, overlapping robot debt over time, “nobody ever told him.” Couldn’t lie straight in bed is a term Australians often use.
He then got stuck into those public servants he thought should have told him but didn’t for whatever reason.
Mr Morrison was warned in 2014, early as the social services minister, that the scheme was unlawful, and he and the department were conflicted as to whether parliament ice of would need to pass a law to allow the use of the new method.
Mr Morrison, as reported in The New Daily said the department changed its advice:
“All I know is between February when the [social services department] was communicating a view, there was a series of discussions to work up this proposal and resolve any of these issues,” Mr Morrison said.
At some point in time, some critical pieces of documentary evidence relating to this matter strangely went missing and frustrated the commission’s attempts to conclude the truth of this matter.
For any enquiry involving Morrison, one would have to assume that, given his reluctance to speak the truth, he would replace it with an air of condescension, manipulation and possibility, which he did.
As a witness before the Royal Commission, former PM Morrison contributed nothing more than another self-opinionated view of himself. His self-aggrandisement grates. And we know how full of himself he is.
He didn’t at any time ingratiate himself to the commissioner or council assisting. His answers to questions were full of self-embellishment. Often just to guild the lily with his perceived self-importance.
A good summation of Morrison giving evidence can be found at the ABC. Morrison, in my view, saw it as yet another opportunity to impress upon the people of Australia that he and he alone had the qualifications to make decisions in the country’s best interests. God had ordained him to do so. Why didn’t people understand that?
Is the Trump saga over with?
2 In terms of international public importance, father slime has caught up with former President Trump himself, and any amount of law dodging won’t help him this time. Yes, it’s terrible news for Trump and the Republican Party.
a) Bennie Thompson, chairman of the January 6 committee, enquiring into the assault on the National Capital, announced that it is now open to making criminal referrals to the US Department of Justice and would be forthcoming.
b) It looks like a Manhattan jury has convicted the Trump Organization on 17 counts of tax fraud, conspiracy and falsification. According to prosecutors, the former president was complicit, says the Guardian online news.
c) And now, the Democrats have pulled off a win in Georgia with the incumbent senator Raphael Warnock prevailing in a hard-fought runoff. Georgia once again rejected Trumpism. It was a sound rebuke of anything that had the slightest odour of Trump about it.
Could it be that America, like Australia, is ridding itself of this experimentation with extremism? A return to decency, however imperfect it might be.
Of course, there is still the matter of how top government secrets came to be at Mar-a-Lago – associating with the wrong people and ripping up the constitution.
3 The Australian Government’s long-awaited plan to reduce power prices passed the house on Thursday afternoon and the Senate in the evening, thus completing a successful six-month period wherein it completed what it said it would.
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My thought for the day
Change sometimes disregards opinion and becomes a phenomenon of its own making. With Its own inevitability. Particularly in politics.
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