Well, We Know Where His Priorities Lie

Anthony Albanese has been caught out trying to pull off the political equivalent of marking his own homework: editing a letter sent to him by a parliamentary committee to – surprise, surprise! – parrot exactly the talking-points he wanted it to.

Independent senator David Pocock has accused the Prime Minister’s Office of “heavily” vetting a letter sent to Anthony Albanese from the parliamentary committee on artificial intelligence.

The wide-ranging letter called for “robust safeguards to protect Australian data”, tweaks to copyright laws and more investment in data centres.

Both of which just happen to be Albanese government policy. What a coincidence!

In the digital draft seen by NewsWire, a prime ministerial adviser has directed changes in comments on the document.

The changes included rewording parts.

“So this is meant to be a letter from the committee but clearly has been heavily vetted by the Prime Minister’s Office,” Senator Pocock told News24 on Tuesday.

“I’m concerned that the major parties are working together to potentially get a preconceived outcome rather than actually listening to experts, listening to the community and saying … how do we genuinely work towards this as a country where we are actually preserving our sovereignty, where we’re doing what’s best for Australians over the long term.”

He must be new around these here parts.

Obviously editing committee letters to turn them into government-friendly Dorothy Dixers is taking up a lot of the PM’s time. He certainly doesn’t have any time or energy to spare for such footling stuff as a royal commission into antisemitism. Having been dragged kicking and scheming into establishing a royal commission he never wanted, Albanese is making damn sure neither he nor any member of his government is going to have anything to do with it.

If you ever wanted proof that the Albanese government operates on pure, unadulterated cynicism, you need look no further than the FOI paper trail – or rather, the magnificent absence of one. Journalists lodged a freedom of information request seeking any submissions, preparatory briefs or notes made by the prime minister or his hive of courtiers ahead of the royal commission.

The official bureaucratic reply from the Prime Minister’s Office was a dry little masterpiece:

The PMO last week advised “reasonable steps have been taken and no relevant documents have been identified”.

None. Zero. Zilch. Not so much as a stray scribble on a paper napkin from the parliamentary dining room.

Our fearless leader was so delightfully confident he would never be dragged into the witness box to answer uncomfortable questions that his staff did not even bother dusting off a keyboard. While former prime ministers like Bob Hawke and John Howard had the intestinal fortitude to face judicial scrutiny under royal commission powers, Albo preferred to pull the blankets firmly over his head and hope the whole tiresome spectacle simply goes away.

The coalition’s most senior Jewish MP Julian Leeser seized on the admission, saying it proved the prime minister “was so sure he wouldn’t be called as a witness that his office didn’t even bother preparing material for him” […]

“This is the royal commission the prime minister never wanted and couldn’t be bothered to participate in. In fact, the prime minister was so sure he wouldn’t be called as a witness that his office didn’t even bother preparing ­material for him.

Well... yes. The government’s vaunted policy of ‘non-interference’ is merely a bureaucratic euphemism for sticking their fingers in their ears and humming loudly. When they weren’t completely ignoring the proceedings, government lawyers were busy making repeated bids for public interest immunity, attempting to bar commissioner Virginia Bell from laying eyes on sensitive cabinet papers detailing how counter-terrorism funding was whittled away to a shadow over the past five years.

God forbid the public discover what the cabinet actually knew and when about the drying up of resources inside the intelligence apparatus. Ms Bell had to overrule those obstructionist manoeuvres herself just to inspect advice concerning commonwealth resource allocations and unredact chunks of ASIO boss Mike Burgess’s witness statement.

Now we learn the commission is quietly scurrying behind locked doors for secret hearings into the security failures surrounding the horrific Bondi massacre, ensuring the public is kept at arm’s length while the clock ticks down toward its tight December deadline. Cabinet ministers escape cross-examination, the government dodges accountability and the prime minister carries on as if national security and social cohesion are mere matters of public relations management.

When an administration spends its late nights frantically ghostwriting artificial intelligence committee letters to praise itself, but cannot summon five minutes to prepare a single scrap of evidence on the collapse of community safety, you know precisely where its priorities lie.