How little does Anthony Albanese think Australians notice—and how much accountability does he believe his office owes them?
Those questions are increasingly difficult to dismiss after the Prime Minister’s extraordinary effort to portray a document casting doubt on Helen Haines’s integrity as something akin to a compliment.
As Haines remains in hospital after losing both legs in the horrific incident outside her electorate office, Albanese has opted to defend what critics regard as indefensible conduct.
Earlier this week, I reported that the Prime Minister’s office had circulated a briefing document about Haines to journalists last month, after the independent MP questioned a $6 million grant to Albanese’s local golf club. The document raised suggestions about undeclared gifts and private interests, yet offered no evidence to substantiate those insinuations.
Haines is widely regarded as an MP of strong personal integrity. That, however, did not prevent the Albanese team from attempting to undermine her.
When the story emerged, Albanese’s office had several opportunities to acknowledge an error, apologise and explain what the Prime Minister knew—or planned to do—to address the culture within his team.
Instead, the public received this explanation:
‘Haines is widely regarded as an MP of strong personal integrity. That, however, did not prevent the Albanese team from attempting to undermine her,’ writes Daily Mail political editor Peter van Onselen
‘It’s a list of funding asks from Helen Haines, just showing that people of integrity stand up for their electorate,’ Albanese told ABC Radio.
The Prime Minister then made the remarkable claim that the document contained “no personal criticism of Helen”.
Really?
Sky News journalist Trudy McIntosh, who received the briefing when it was circulated, challenged that version of events on Thursday.
‘That’s not how it was handed around to journalists like myself at the time by members of the Prime Minister’s office,’ she said.
Are questions about whether an MP accepted undeclared gifts not personal? Do suggestions about private interests in projects for which she sought public funding not invite readers to question her integrity?
What, exactly, would constitute a personal criticism, Prime Minister? The attempt to redefine the document looks like gaslighting on an extraordinary scale.
Others who saw the briefing have reached much the same conclusion. It was not presented as a tribute to an MP of integrity standing up for her electorate, despite the way Albanese is now seeking to portray it.
Albanese is attempting to present his unsubstantiated ‘dirt sheet’ about independent MP Helen Haines as containing ‘no personal criticism of Helen’
The document questioned whether Haines had received undeclared gifts or held private interests in projects for which she sought public funding
The document went beyond listing Haines’s funding requests. Without offering supporting evidence, it questioned whether she had received undeclared gifts or maintained private interests in projects she wanted funded. In effect, it recast legitimate advocacy for her electorate as potential self-interest. That is hardly a tribute to her integrity.
Adding a question mark does not transform an insinuation into responsible public scrutiny. Nor does placing legitimate funding requests beside those suggestions erase the impression they were designed to create.
It supplies the scaffolding on which suspicion can be built, which was exactly what his office was trying to achieve.
Haines, incidentally, is an MP who gave up her Qantas Chairman’s Lounge membership. She was among the comparatively small group of parliamentarians prepared to surrender that particular perk.
Yet the Prime Minister’s office invited journalists to investigate whether her advocacy concealed private benefits. How grubby is that?
Now Albo wants Australians to believe his staff were effectively celebrating her commitment to her constituents.
How thoughtful.
What an unfortunate coincidence that this sudden enthusiasm for celebrating Haines’s integrity emerged right after she described the $6million grant to his local Marrickville Golf Club as ‘pork-barrelling by design’.
Her objection was that the invitation-only scheme let his local golf club collect millions while clubs in her electorate couldn’t even apply. Rather than explain why some communities got a cheque and others couldn’t get through the door, Albo’s office went digging in the mud.
And now we’re supposed to believe the dirt sheet was meant as a compliment? How utterly ridiculous.
Even if we play along with the PM’s fallacy, does his office routinely distribute supposedly flattering profiles of independent MPs? Where are the equivalent documents recognising their integrity and applauding their funding requests if that’s how the PM’s office operates?
And do those tributes also come with questions designed to sully reputations?
Independent senator David Pocock isn’t buying the Prime Minister’s insulting reinvention of events either.
‘Trying to explain this away rather than acknowledging what happened, taking responsibility and apologising is not good enough,’ he said.
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‘Whether or not this behaviour was authorised, it was wrong, and there should be accountability.’
Precisely.
There is more to this affair than an offensive document and an implausible defence that reflects Albo’s tendency to gaslight.
Sources with knowledge of the incident tell me deputy director of communications Joshua Lloyd produced the document after a morning communications meeting, having been directed to do so.
It places the question of who commissioned the document squarely alongside the question of who prepared it.
I haven’t established who specifically gave that direction. But Lloyd is a deputy head of communications in the Prime Minister’s office. The number of people occupying positions of authority above him is hardly limitless.
His communications boss is Fiona Sugden. The chief of staff is Tim Gartrell. Another senior figure in the office is principal private secretary David Epstein. Above the office sits the Prime Minister himself. That’s about it.
It does not establish which, if any, of these individuals (including the PM himself) commissioned or approved this document. But it certainly makes the refusal to explain the chain of responsibility all the more unacceptable, and concerning.
Epstein’s presence also supplies some historical context worthy of special mention.
During the Hawke and Keating years, he ran the National Media Liaison Service, known in Canberra as the ‘Animals’ and notorious for its political dirt-digging. I’ve researched and written extensively about it as a political science academic.
Epstein’s experience in the government’s media operation is well-documented, and its reputation long predates this particular controversy.
That history doesn’t establish that he had any involvement in the Haines document. But it does mean this is an office with ample institutional knowledge of how political attack operations work.
It should therefore be capable of explaining this one. I gave its senior staff every opportunity to do just that.
First I sent four straightforward questions to Sugden. When she didn’t respond, I forwarded them to Gartrell.
- Did Lloyd prepare the document and who authorised its distribution?
- Did the Prime Minister know about or approve it?
- What evidence supported its questions about possible undeclared gifts and personal interests?
- And how did the office reconcile the document with Albanese’s praise of Haines’s integrity and his call to avoid unjustified questioning of politicians’ motives?
Neither of Albo’s lieutenants have bothered to reply. Four questions. No response. These are taxpayer-funded staffers, by the way, including Lloyd, who created the dirt file and was the last person to edit it, according to the metadata.
Your tax dollars hard at work.
An office willing to circulate questions about somebody else’s integrity should at least be willing to answer a few simple questions about its own conduct, surely?
Apparently that standard is too demanding for Albo’s prime ministerial office.
There is a further question he should answer: did Haines raise the document with him after she became aware of it last month?
If so, what did she say, and how did he respond? Establishing whether he was told about the document at the time is central to understanding what he knew before this week’s evasions.
It might even help us understand why he’s being so evasive. Think about it.
There is a familiarity to Albo’s gaslighting this week. After the controversy over his ‘melons’ comments (replete with hand gestures) concerning Japan’s first female prime minister, Albo insisted the interpretation placed on the exchange was incorrect.
People’s eyes and ears were deceiving then.
Now a document inviting suspicion about Haines’s integrity is presented as evidence of respect for it. The gall of it all is off the charts!
The circumstances make this episode especially ugly. Haines is facing a recovery and a changed life that most of us can scarcely comprehend. Surely this was a moment to put aside the stubborn determination to concede nothing.
Albo could have acknowledged that insinuations unsupported by evidence should never have been circulated by his office.
If he didn’t know about the document, he could have said so. If staff acted improperly, he could have told us they have been counselled to do better.
But accepting responsibility for the standards of his office requires leadership. Enough humility to acknowledge that the conduct fell short.
Instead of doing that, Albo has chosen to gaslight everyone, including Haines. She deserved better when the dirt sheet was circulated in the first place, and she certainly deserves better now.
The PM used a radio interview during the week to declare that he considers Helen Haines a friend. With friends like Albo, who needs enemies.