Last night, the ABC documentary series Nemesis continued to chronicle the Liberal Party’s decade-long experiment in just how much of the nation’s time it was able to waste in the name of personal enmities and bad judgment. Two things struck us in the bunker. First, there is no limit to the number of chances at self-reflection politicians won’t gleefully discard. Second, the 2017-18 period was so chaotic that the episode simply didn’t touch on a lot of its dysfunction and controversy.
Section 44
At the time, it would have seemed nigh on unthinkable that the eligibility crisis assailing Parliament could be left out of any assessment of Malcolm Turnbull’s time in government. And yet Nemesis didn’t mention it, even while showing footage from one of the many by-elections it brought about. Section 44, which disqualifies foreign nationals or dual citizens from holding office, approached Australia’s 45th Parliament like a slasher movie villain at a campsite, ultimately picking off eight senators and seven lower house members.
Initially, there was a great deal of crowing from the Coalition after two Greens senators (Scott Ludlum and Larissa Waters) were found to have failed to renounce their dual citizenship. That swiftly stopped when LNP Senator Matt Canavan, and then Nationals leader and deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, and then Nationals deputy leader Fiona Nash were all implicated.
Labor was duly caught up with Katy Gallagher and three lower house MPs having to resign. While the by-elections and Senate countback votes eventually returned everything more or less to how it was prior for the major parties, Joyce’s disqualification did briefly cost Turnbull his teensy majority in the lower house. It also brought about a lot of weirdness (and worse) in the Senate, with the disqualification of One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts giving us the unedifying presence of Fraser “Oswald Mosley” Anning.
Bernard Collaery and Witness K
While it really ramped up under the Morrison government, the prosecution of former ACT attorney-general and Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery and his former client, former Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) officer “Witness K”, began in June 2018. This followed years of government harassment of the pair after the 2013 revelation that ASIS had illegally bugged East Timor’s cabinet in 2004 to secure an advantage to Australia in treaty negotiations with the fledgling state over natural resources in the Timor Sea. The shameful saga would drag on until the change of government in 2022.
AWU raids and the Michaelia Cash of it all
In October 2017, the Australian Federal Police raided the Australian Workers’ Union offices. This followed a letter from then-employment minister Michaelia Cash’s office, which called the supposedly independent Registered Organisations Commission’s (ROC) attention to alleged impropriety over donations to GetUp during then-opposition leader Bill Shorten’s time as AWU secretary in 2007. It was the only issue Cash’s office ever brought up with the ROC, and the raid took place in front of the waiting media, which had received a tip-off from a member of Cash’s office.
It backfired spectacularly, and under questioning on the matter in early 2018, Cash made a series of grubby allusions about “rumours” concerning “young women” in Shorten’s office (she later withdrew the comments but did not apologise). The whole thing hit an absurd peak with Cash ducking behind a whiteboard to avoid the media. One of Cash’s staffers resigned, and, given the exacting standards of the Liberal Party, Cash had to wait a few years before being made attorney-general.
Having a (midwinter) ball
During Canberra’s Midwinter Ball in 2017, where journalists and politicians gather to enjoy themselves for a cosy and classified night, Turnbull delivered a speech impersonating then-US president Donald Trump and mocking his own low opinion poll ratings.
“The Donald and I, we are winning and winning in the polls. We are winning so much! We are winning like we have never won before,” he said. “We are winning in the polls. We are! Not the fake polls. Not the fake polls. They’re the ones we’re not winning in. We’re winning in the real polls.”
The recorded video was first leaked on social media and was then reported by journalist Laurie Oakes.
Showing just how convivial politicians find themselves in mid-winter, then-shadow infrastructure and transport minister Anthony Albanese said on Nine’s Today program that it was “unfortunate that it has leaked” and it would “dampen” any possibility of politicians letting loose at future such functions. Turnbull’s great ally Christopher Pyne, meanwhile, told Today: “The reason Bill Shorten’s speech wasn’t leaked is because it was such a stinker.”
The footage made it to US media outlets, with headlines in the New York Post and CNN emphasising Turnbull’s “mockery” of Trump. While Trump never publicly responded, we can only assume the next call between the pair would have been awkward. But then, Turnbull would be used to that.
Assorted Nonsense
Nemesis did provide a valuable look behind the scenes of the marriage equality debate, but we’d argue you can’t understand quite what that debate was like without knowing Peter Dutton argued the NRL final should only have a pro-marriage-equality song if it also played one of the many real and popular songs opposing it.
It also skimmed over some of the troublemakers in Turnbull’s midst: perpetual malcontents such as Cory Bernardi, who quit the Liberals to form his own party, the Australian Conservatives, on the first sitting day of 2017; and George Christensen, whose travel schedule would soon generate a fair bit of media interest.
What other sagas and scandals were overlooked? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
