This week it was revealed that the Morrison government’s pursuit of lawyer Bernard Collaery and his client, ex-intelligence officer Witness K, cost the Commonwealth $5,510,829. Collaery was tried over his alleged role in helping K expose Australia’s bugging of East Timor’s cabinet in 2004.
Let’s look at the timeline.
May-September 2018: It was in 2014 that then attorney-general George Brandis first demanded the prosecution of K and Collaery, but things really ramped up under his successor Christian Porter, in 2018. The prosecution was consistently delayed throughout the year, as the government attempted to have the case heard in camera (privately before a judge). This delayed the case for weeks as the parties negotiated, and even at this point, Collaery’s lawyers complained of “deliberately late” advice they were receiving from the Crown.
February 2019: Porter’s lawyer Tim Begbie attempted to make a last-minute application to change the court orders they had previously asked for. The changes propose an entirely new category of documents that would be subject to a non-disclosure certificate, essentially allowing the prosecution to use evidence against Collaery that he and his team (and the jury) would not be allowed to see. Magistrate Lorraine Walker noted:
Things do seem to take a very long time with the Commonwealth, Mr Begbie. This matter has already taken far longer than really it ought, and perhaps there are reasons for that that I don’t fully comprehend, but I think a finger needs to be pulled out to make it happen as quickly as possible.
November 2019: Having agreed to a trial opening of December 11, Porter’s lawyers again insisted that the date be delayed, ostensibly so the legal team could better respond to a submission by Collaery’s team arguing against those secrecy orders. They were successful, and the trial date was pushed into 2020.
June 2020: The pre-trial hearing commenced. ACT Supreme Court magistrate David Mossop ruled in favour of Porter’s team, meaning evidence could be used against Collaery that he and the public would not be allowed to know.
February 2021: Porter’s team earned a third dressing down from a third separate judge for delays, this time from Magistrate Josh Burns. This came after Porter and his team tried to prevent Bret Walker SC from joining Collaery’s team, initially refusing to provide him with permission to join the case under national security provisions.
March 2021: Michaelia Cash officially took over the role of attorney-general from Porter.
May 2021: Collaery faced court, challenging the court order that would require large parts of his trial to be held in secret. It was the 50th scheduled court hearing in the government’s long-running pursuit of the senior lawyer.
June 2021: Witness K, the now-elderly intelligence officer, after nearly three years of the trial, having had his passport seized and enduring periods of “effective house arrest”, pleaded guilty. He received a three-month suspended sentence.
October 2021: The Supreme Court overturned Mossop’s ruling that secret evidence could be used. The government appealed.
November 2021: Cash’s team asked that the court’s reasoning for its decision to reject the secrecy demands itself be kept secret. There was a hearing dedicated to attempting to prevent the court from releasing its full judgment, pending an appeal to the High Court.
December 2021: Lawyers for Cash, effectively ignoring their defeat in October, again attempted to introduce evidence against Collaery that he and his lawyers would not be able to see.
July 2022: More than four years and over $5 million dollars of taxpayer money after the prosecution against Collaery commenced, the newly elected attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, called it to a close. His trial was still yet to begin.
Bugged an ally, while a serving member of parliament, for the benefit of a company who you later, upon leaving politics, gain lucrative employment with. Absolutely zero consequence other than millions of taxpayer $ being used to cover your arse and harass the whistleblowers until no one is bothered enough any more to see the perpetrators in gaol with all their political benefits forfeited. Gotta love an open and transparent democracy. Pathetic really, and most pathetic is the public’s acceptance. We’re not even in a totalitarian country where the facts aren’t known to us.
Not acceptance. Powerlessness. The public’s strength, collectively, lies in our elected government, whom we have no choice but to trust in these matters. But trust or distrust, there’s sod all we can do about it. And, yes, it is pathetic – that the public have no recourse in law to take things into our own hands when we see obvious injustice perpetrated by, technically, ourselves. Bill of rights, anyone?
I protested along with many others outside Mr. Porters and Ms. Birney’s office to get a resolution to this case, as Drastic says the is “sod all \”we can do about it
A good summary of what we know so I do not believe the Libs spent millions to cover this up. What is the point? Which leads to me asking what are they really hiding. It has to be something a lot more damaging.
Another example of Australian Politicians following America down the path of prosecuting Whistle Blowers, when the real ones that should be prosecuted are the Politicians themselves for their shabby and often unlawful behaviors.
Never had much time for Philip Ruddock but as A-G he surely outshone Brandis>Porter>Cash.
The vindictiveness is breathtaking. $5.5 million over four years is scandalous. A truly shameful episode in every way.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last couple of decades it is that “When it comes to the $$$$tax-payer cost of trying to cover/hide Howard government complicity :- the sky’s the limit.”
Were those Howard & Downer pelts really worth that many of our $tax?
And we don’t even get to see them nailed to the wall.
I’d like to see them worn as a “forget-me-knot” neck-wrap (little faces, glass eyes, looking out ….?) – but a ‘stole’ would be more appropriate?
The Taxpayers should grant another $5 mil to Bernard and his client for pain and suffering – to be then recovered from all members of Parliament who sat pat without resisting this contemptuous abuse of power.
Surely the oil industry should pitch in!