Brandis in strife again … Caught up in post-truth politics … The solicitor general did the AG a favour … Timeline that shows how Soapy weaved and wavered before protecting “the interests of the Commonwealth” … New senate inquiry to probe pork-pies  

Among other things the Bell Act sought to give the state preference as a creditor to Alan Bond’s collapsed companies over federal taxpayers. 

Actually, the attorney general ought to be thanking Justin Gleeson for ignoring any such instruction – thereby saving him from bankruptcy. 

Section 69(1) of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 provides that: 

Section 70(1) provides that the amount payable under s69(1) is recoverable as a debt in a court of competent jurisdiction. 

The Commissioner of Taxation has a statutory duty under s.11 of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Rule 2014 to collect the debt due to the ATO from the liquidators of the Bell group. Had the commissioner instructed Gleeson to go along with Soapy’s instruction, then the commissioner himself would be liable under s.69 of the Act. 

Citizens are entitled to be sceptical, if not downright incredulous, given Soapy’s long history of shonky denials. For starters, there was his implausible justification for his May 2016 Legal Services (Dog on a Lead) Direction, claiming that it was something solicitor general Justin Gleeson wanted and had been discussed at a meeting in November the previous year.

Soap released hand-written notes of the meeting, which curiously revealed there had been no such discussion. It was obvious to Blind Freddy that Brandis had misled parliament – as a majority of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee found. 

Of course not, only with the recent exceptions of: 

These and other cases were all basted in commentary by Brandis. Perhaps he might more truthfully have said:

“The government does not comment on litigation in which the Commonwealth was a party unless it perceives some political benefit to itself from so doing.” 

As Brandis himself has observed, we live with “post-truth politics”, of which he is a leading exponent. He used the term to try and take down shadow AG Mark Dreyfus over his criticism of the government’s handling of the Bell litigation.   

“Well ladies and gentlemen, Mr Dreyfus and Mr Shorten have in the last several days been saying some extraordinarily reckless and foolish things in relation to the Bell litigation. The things they’ve said have no basis whatever, in fact. No basis whatever. But I’m sorry to say that we live in an era so far as the Labor Party and the Greens are concerned, what has lately become known as post-truth politics. It is absolutely of no concern to Mr Dreyfus that he will lie through his teeth, that Mr Dreyfus is prepared to lie and lie again to make things up, to fantasise, to make the most reckless and offensive allegations with no facts to support him whatsoever.” 

Yet, post-truthiness crept into Brandis’ explanation to the senate of the Commonwealth’s role in the case in which the High Court found the Bell Act invalid. 

This incredibly informative article in Guardian Australia said that Brandis’ statement was full of unexplained holes, the result of backdoor deals between the WA and Commonwealth governments. 

The questions that Brandis’ statement to parliament did not answer are these:

One further point, the ATO could only apply for leave to intervene. It did not have that leave when Brandis intervened and said he would now run the arguments as of right the ATO was seeking leave to run. 

What is it with Brandis, Western Australia and the Bell litigation? Brandis said at Justice James Edelman’s swearing-in to the Federal Court, in April 2015: 

“Your Honour was articled to Blake Dawson Waldron where you worked on the Bell litigation. Shortly after, Your Honour was selected as associate to the Honourable Justice Toohey AC of the High Court of Australia – whose sad recent passing we should also note today.”  

Edelman was a paralegal at Blakes, which acted for the liquidator (WA Insurance was the creditor beneficiary of the liquidator’s claim). Go WA! 

The senate legal and constitutional affairs references committee has to report by March 21, 2017 on the nature and scope of any agreement between the Commonwealth government and its WA soul-mates on the liquidation and litigation concerning the Bell Group. 

Specifically, the terms of reference require exploration as to whether there was any “direction or instruction given by the attorney general to the solicitor general, either directly or through his office or department, in relation to the conduct of litigation concerning proceeds”, and whether there was a trade-off with the demands of the WA government for more GST money. 

The senate has directed both Brandis and the minister for finance, Mathias Cormann, to appear and answer questions.