Senior bureaucrats to Australian politicians: ‘Leave us out of politics’

[Mighty AU]

Public servants often end up as the meat in the political sandwich in election campaigns. That has never been more true than it is in 2019, even though we're not even yet into a formal campaign.

What makes this year's public servant sandwich a particularly gourmet feast, however, is that the public servants involved are not just senior officials from Treasury or the Department of Finance as they have been in the past, but our most senior national security officials.

Senate estimates hearings yesterday heard extraordinary evidence from ASIO head Duncan Lewis and the powerful Department of Home Affairs head Michael Pezzullo, in which both made it extremely clear how unhappy they were that their organisations had been dragged into the political fray by the selective leaking of classified advice to the Government — advice leaked in a way that favoured the Government's political message on border protection.

The two senior bureaucrats sent clear shots across the bows of our politicians that such leaks were highly damaging to the way they do their jobs, and also that they did not appreciate being dragged into the scuffle.

'We don't deal with political questions'

Mr Lewis told an estimates committee on Monday afternoon that "when reporting wrongly attributes advice from ASIO, or our classified advice is leaked, it undermines all that we stand for".

He was referring to leaked ASIO advice published in The Australian which suggested the medical evacuation bill, if passed, would undermine offshore detention.

For his part, Mr Pezzullo had already taken the extraordinary step of calling in the Australian Federal Police to investigate the leaking of advice attributed to Home Affairs and ASIO to The Australian.

This is despite the fact there are few people in Canberra who believe the advice came from anywhere other than the Government.

The Home Affairs Secretary made clear in Monday afternoon's estimates hearing it was the suggestion that the advice reported in The Australian had come from ASIO that had triggered his referral.

Despite these messages, everything the department had to say in estimates has been seen — and continued to be used — in a political way.

A clearly frustrated Mr Pezzullo told Monday's hearing that: "I have no view and I've expressed no view about the attitude taken by different political parties in the Parliament."

"I just look at the laws that the Parliament generates. Who moved the amendment, who decided to vote, whether the legislation is in favour of the Government's direction or against it, is of no concern to me.

"Any interpretation that somehow my department or the agencies within the portfolio or agencies that we consult with have concerns about what the Parliament has done is a political question.

"We don't deal with political questions.

"We just deal with the passage of laws that the Parliament overall brings down, and how we then implement those laws as the laws of the land."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-19/senior-bureaucrats-send-message-on-leaks-to-government/10825446