Another day, another insanely wonderful scandal for the government. Employment minister Michaelia Cash has been forced to fire one of her staffers after it was revealed her office tipped off media that the Australian Federal Police were about to raid the offices of the Australian Workers’ Union.
Let’s walk back a bit and unpack this one. The AFP raided the headquarters of the AWU in Sydney and Melbourne yesterday as part of an investigation into donations the union had made to GetUp back in 2005 – an investigation spurred by a recommendation from Cash to the Registered Organisations Commission.
Now, when the AFP made those raids, the media was already there. That’s a bit odd, because nobody was quite sure where they got the tip to be there. If the government tipped them off, it wouldn’t be a good look, because obviously the AFP is supposed to operate independently of the government.
.@AWUnion: On Tuesday the media informed our staff there was a warrant about to be served by the AFP. MORE: https://t.co/WL5pMlgwuD pic.twitter.com/dMHYiPjF6f
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) October 24, 2017
A report in BuzzFeed today cited two unnamed journalists who said they were tipped off about the raid by Cash’s office. Now, that’s a little problematic – because Cash had already denied in the Senate that she had anything to do with it:
I found out as it unfolded on the television after I returned from a meeting yesterday about 4.45pm on the ABC. My understanding was that a phone call was made to my office once the search warrant was issued just before I saw it on the television … 4.30, 4.45pm.
She said she “literally watched it on the television unfold [herself],” a pretty clear statement that she had nothing to do with any kind of leak to the media.
Once BuzzFeed came out with the intel, Cash refused to answer questions from journos, claiming that she had not read the report and therefore wouldn’t comment. She denied the claims multiple times while being questioned.
So obviously, once the BuzzFeed report dropped, the heat was on to explain exactly what had happened. So, what happened? Well… one of Cash’s staff members resigned.
https://twitter.com/MattWordsworth/status/923104917845241857
After the resignation of the staffer, Cash took to the Senate to deny complicity, claiming that she had no knowledge of this plan to inform the media, and did not authorise it. The video is here:
The moment Michaelia Cash throws her staff member under the bus in #estimates in a last desperate attempt to save her job. pic.twitter.com/f0P5tc2EmT
— Stephen Spencer (@sspencer_63) October 25, 2017
Cash claims that the information did not come to her office directly from the AFP – which would be deeply troubling indeed – but that it had come from “a media source” and was then distributed among other media outlets. Again: without her knowledge. Hmm.
Things are going bloody well for the government, hey?
