Shake-up at Commonwealth AGs … Siren call of the Afghanistan war crimes investigation … Notetaker’s notes go missing and with it evidence relating an an “improper inducement” … Rekindling memories of the AHRC’s Forgotten Children report … Polly Peck remembers
He becomes the new Director General of the Office of the Special Investigator, tasked with examining Justice Paul Brereton’s Afghanistan war crimes findings, working alongside the Special Investigator, Mark Weinberg, who is charged with sending relevant evidence to the Commonwealth DPP. Former Queensland copper Ross Barnett has signed-on as the director of investigations.
The assembly of evidence will be conducted under the auspices of Benito’s Dutton’s Department of Home Affairs, itself already familiar with crimes against humanity in the implementation of Australia’s immigration detention program.
According to PM Morrison the panel is to provide “assurance of Defence’s broader response to the inquiry relating to cultural, organisational and leadership change”.
The last time Christos Moriatis came to public attention was when he was pushing the barrow for AG Soapy George Brandis, during the Gillian Triggs affair.
Triggs as president of the Human Rights Commission was investigating the welfare of children held by the government in immigration detention.
Prime Minister Abbott, Brandis and a gaggle of others in the government were incandescent about the activities of meddlesome Triggs, and attacks on her were fanned by hacks in the Murdoch press.
The HRC’s 2015 Forgotten Children report found 233 recorded assaults involving detained children, 33 incidents of reported sexual assault, 207 incidents of “actual self harm” and another 436 incidents of threatened self-harm. There were about 1,200 children in detention at the time the HRC commenced its work.
The commission called for a royal commission to examine the detention policy.
Prime Minister Abbott responded by saying the Human Rights Commission ought to be “ashamed of itself” for attacking his government.
“I reckon that the Human Rights Commission ought to be sending a note of congratulations to [Immigration Minister] Scott Morrison saying, ‘Well done mate because your actions have been very good for the human rights and the human flourishing of thousands of people’.”
Brandis’ office drafted abusive questions for Coalition senators to fire at Triggs when she appeared at an estimates hearing.
At this stage, it came to light that Moraitis, doing Brandis’ bidding, asked Triggs to resign as president of the commission – before her report was publicly released.
He told the professor that the AG did not have confidence in her as president of the HRC, but had high regard for her legal skills and that the government would be prepared to consider, positively, another senior role for her.
Moving Triggs out of the HRC by dangling an alternate job was seen by the government as a way of blunting attacks arising from the findings about the offshore detention of children. The opposition claimed the job offer constituted an improper inducement to a Commonwealth official.
Sgt. Plod of the AFP was supposed to investigate the inducement but, needless to say, that went nowhere.
In February 2015, Moraitis told the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee that he had “lost” his notes of his conversation with Triggs about finding her a different job.
“I had taken some notes of my discussion with the attorney and also annotated those notes after my discussion with Professor Triggs. I had those notes for a while and unfortunately I have travelled to three countries in two weeks and I have lost those notes, losing my briefcase by mistake. I am sorry.”
Queensland barrister Alex McKean made an FOI application seeking any notes created by Moraitis and Brandis about Triggs and the HRC inquiry and any records about the missing briefcase.
Back came a reply from Sarah Chidgey, a first assistant secretary at the AG’s department, denying the application of grounds of “practical refusal”. She said:
“To assist you to revise the scope of your request I can advise that secretary, Mr Moraitis, did not lose a briefcase during the period September 1, 2014 to February 28, 2015.”
It was a mystery. The notes had disappeared but, apparently, not the briefcase, that contained the notes. The evidence as to whether an improper inducement had been made to a Commonwealth officer had gone AWOL.
Barristers Stephen Keim SC and Alex McKean had the sorry task of tracing the history of vital documents that were eaten by dogs and examining the role of the Australian Public Service Values and Code in Practice.
It’s to be hoped that Christos doesn’t lose important bits of evidence gather by the Office of the Special Investigator.
See the background stories …