Senate estimates, when members of government and the public service are subjected to rigorous questioning by opposition and crossbench senators, is the most wonderful time of the year (at least for a very specific subsection of the population). The scrutiny invariably provides crucial insight into the mechanisms of power — and also the Bureau of Meteorology occasionally has to deny it’s involved in any kind of conspiracy regarding its data.
Here are some of the biggest revelations and most colourful interactions from a typically packed week.
Israel, Gaza and UNRWA
Inevitably, the horrors in Gaza and Australia’s response to it came under questioning from all sides. Foreign Minister Penny Wong attended Senate estimates on Wednesday and echoed the stronger language used by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in his joint statement with his New Zealand and Canadian counterparts, urging Israel “not to go down this path” with regard to its ground assault on Rafah.
“I don’t believe the international community has yet seen a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the million people sheltering in Rafah,” Wong said, reaffirming the Australian preference for a two-state solution and adding that the “status quo is failing everyone”.
DFAT’s first assistant secretary Marc Innes-Brown took questions on the decision to cease funding refugee aid group United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), based on Israeli allegations that members of its staff were involved in the October 7 attacks. Audibly frustrated, he said allegations against the organisation, frequently containing “kernels of truth” and a “significant amount of exaggeration”, were often made by groups that “want UNRWA to be disbanded”.
Wong also confirmed in estimates that the government wants funding to UNRWA restored “as quickly as possible”, and that it has asked to see the dossier put together by Israeli authorities in support of their claims.
Mistakes weren’t made
Estimates also followed up on recent revelations that a court had found that police had potentially further radicalised an autistic 13-year-old boy as part of an undercover operation. In granting a permanent stay on the two terror offences the boy was charged with, Magistrate Lesley Fleming said the conduct of the investigators fell “so profoundly short of the minimum standards expected of law enforcement”. However, under questioning from Greens Senator David Shoebridge, AFP deputy commissioner Ian McCartney responded that there had been a “conservative three-and-a-half month effort” by police to deradicalise the boy.
“The decision that was made by the team, it wasn’t being effective,” Fleming said. “He was becoming more and more radicalised.”
“I think from our view, and again, we go to the damage control operation — if the same set of circumstances, I would sign that again.”
Brakes on breaks
Independent Senator David Pocock went after Services Australia on Wednesday, over allegations its staff were being publicly shamed and facing potential disciplinary action over infractions such as taking too long for bathroom breaks.
“Any minutes over that five minutes which you’ve ‘stolen’ from the agency is in some cases being put up on a whiteboard,” he said. “How is it acceptable to use someone’s minutes that they take on a toilet break over five minutes to put that on a whiteboard and publicly humiliate people in your agency?”
Deputy CEO of customer service delivery Jarrod Howard insisted this was all a “myth”.
“We have done a lot of work to bust what I say is a myth,” he said.
“It is not acceptable and I’m not aware of it happening … If they are utilising reasonable time to go to the toilet that is not something we are going to have a code of conduct breach for.”
Flipping the script
As our beloved siblings at The Mandarin pointed out, “You know that you’re getting to the pointy end of an enterprise bargaining cycle when a Labor minister for the public service openly accuses a Liberal senator of being a union stooge”.
This Face/Off-like role reversal happened when Liberal Senator Jane Hume was hammering ALP Senator Katy Gallagher and Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) assistant commissioner for workplace relations bargaining taskforce Damien Booth over how the APSC came to provide misleading information to workers about the supposedly new and improved rights they would secure under a workplace deal.
“I wasn’t going to get confrontational about this, but if you would like to go toe-to-toe I’m quite happy,” Hume said as the conversation grew more heated.
“Yeah, I’m very happy too, particularly on bargaining with you becoming the ASU’s representative at the table. I mean, it’s a shame you didn’t care about bargaining when you were in government,” came Gallagher’s response.
