{"id":21,"date":"2012-12-03T10:02:14","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T10:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/australiansforhonestpolitics.wordpress.com\/?p=21"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:24:26","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:24:26","slug":"tony-abbotts-unholy-dealings-with-the-aec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/tony-abbotts-unholy-dealings-with-the-aec\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Abbott\u2019s unholy dealings with the AEC"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Christian Kerr
\nSource:\u00a0Crikey
\n<\/a>30th December 204<\/p>\n

Has Tony Abbott been protected by some slip-shod work at the Australian Electoral Commission? Read on.<\/p>\n

Yours truly is a friend of Margo Kingston\u2019s, but when I\u00a0reviewed Not Happy John<\/i>\u00a0in July I had the following to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cMargo pinpoints everything that\u2019s wrong with the Howard Government – but, being Margo, wants to talk about more. Much more. Too much more.<\/p>\n

\u201cEighty odd pages of brilliant polemic on matters ranging the corruption of the system supposed to protect the integrity of Australia\u2019s electoral system downwards is obscured by 350 pages of tangents. It\u2019s so Margo. Passionate, captivating and utterly infuriating all at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuy it and persevere. Yes, you\u2019ll want to bin it at times. Skip some parts altogether – the Hanan Ashrawi peace prize folly chapter, definitely – but plug on. Read the damn thing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t think Margo liked my remarks, but six months and an election later, I feel that they\u2019re even more applicable \u2013 particularly after reading\u00a0The Australian<\/i>\u00a0today.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of\u00a0Not Happy John<\/i>\u00a0there\u2019s a fascinating chapter called \u201cAustralians for Honest Politicians\u201d. It\u2019s lengthy and impossible to summarise adequately here, but is perhaps the most comprehensive journalistic investigation of the campaign Tony Abbott conducted against Pauline Hanson under the Australians for Honest Politics banner. It\u2019s also scary as all hell. And \u2013 surprise, surprise \u2013 it got completely buried by the hype and hyperbole surrounding much of the other material in the book.<\/p>\n

The chapter makes some serious allegations about the truthfulness of Abbott\u2019s public statements about Australian for Honest Politics.<\/p>\n

More concerning, it also examines the legality of Abbott\u2019s activities in his campaign against Hanson \u2013 and, remember, whatever you think of Margo, she is a lawyer by training.<\/p>\n

Margo looked in detail at the way in which the Australian Electoral Commission \u2013 the supposed guarantor of the integrity of the way in which the elections that are fundamental to our democracy are run and the integrity and propriety of their participants \u2013 dealt with Australians for Honest Politics.<\/p>\n

Given its subject matter, it deserved to be higher up the book. Much of its contents, alas, were obscured in Margoisms, too. The key conclusion, however, was unmistakeable.<\/p>\n

Margo found the AEC did as good a job examining and regulating Australians for Honest Politics as they did getting out the postal votes at the last election (I\u2019m still waiting for mine, Mr Becker).<\/p>\n

The AEC hid behind confidentiality claims to refuse information on its decision making process on the legality of Australians for Honest Politics and Abbott\u2019s actions under Commonwealth electoral law.<\/p>\n

And, after a leak, this tumbled out:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bloke who had decided to let Abbott off the hook was named Brad Edgman, I was told, the head of the AEC\u2019s Funding and Disclosure branch\u2026 Brad Edgman does not have legal qualifications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Say what? To use a good old phrase, they won\u2019t get away with that in business. Not lawyers interpreting the disclosure requirements of the Electoral Act?<\/p>\n

All which makes today\u2019s piece (Abbott blast scuttled inquiry<\/a>) by two heavies from\u00a0The Australian<\/i>, Sid Maher and Michael McKinnon, even more interesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) investigation into whether a trust fund, which bankrolled legal action against One Nation, was linked to the Liberal Party, was dropped after Health Minister Tony Abbott objected,\u201d Maher and McKinnon write.<\/p>\n

\u201cDocuments obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws show the AEC issued a demand to Mr Abbott in May requiring him to reveal the donors to Australians for Honest Politics, which backed legal action that ultimately led to the jailing of Pauline Hanson.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Mr Abbott wrote back to the AEC on June 8, objecting to the demand and describing it as \u2018unreasonable\u2019. The AEC announced it had dropped the investigation in July.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hullo? Since when were Ministers above the law?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Maher and McKinnon report \u201cThe documents show the AEC received draft legal advice in April 2004 suggesting there was sufficient evidence to issue a notice under section 316(3A) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act to require Mr Abbott to produce documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than six months after Kingston had received her leak, note \u2013 and presumably after the AEC had had an attack of conscience.<\/p>\n

\u201cA spokesman said Mr Abbott was on leave,\u201d the Australian says. Convenient.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn AEC spokesman referred\u00a0The Australian<\/i>\u00a0to advice on its website, posted on July 14, where it announced the trust was not an associated entity and would not be required to disclose its donors under the Electoral Act,\u201d it also says.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t find any such document on the AEC website under\u00a0Media Releases<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is a lengthy\u00a0Statement from the Australian Electoral Commissioner<\/a>dated July 30 that covers a very broad range of topics. It begins:<\/p>\n

\u201cA federal election will occur in the next six months and with it the call to the polls for more than 13 million Australian voters. It is a time of energy, anticipation and a wide-ranging discussion of issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunity confidence in the AEC is an important part of our democratic fabric. It is for this reason that I wish to address some comments made this week on a Brisbane radio station. In this session a range of unsupported claims were made which may give rise to concerns in the wider community\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In it, Electoral Commissioner Andy Becker devotes less than 50 words to Australians for Honest Politics:<\/p>\n

\u201cCLAIM: That the AEC procrastinated in finalising the Australians for Honest Politics matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cFACT: Like any legal matter which requires thorough consideration, this was a complex issue. Once the matter had been finalised, the AEC put its conclusion on the public record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becker may well have woken up today to an almighty hangover. Here\u2019s hoping. Community confidence in the AEC is an important part of our democratic fabric, as he says. It needs a hell of a lot of shoring up at the moment.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never voted for a minor party in the Senate in my life \u2013 but while we still have a genuine House of Review, can we have an inquiry into this sleazy mess. Pretty damn quick.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Christian Kerr Source:\u00a0Crikey 30th December 204 Has Tony Abbott been protected by some slip-shod work at the Australian Electoral Commission? Read on. Yours truly is a friend of Margo Kingston\u2019s, but when I\u00a0reviewed Not Happy John\u00a0in July I had the following to say: \u201cMargo pinpoints everything that\u2019s wrong with the Howard Government – but, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,5,49],"tags":[83,165,269,358,470,476],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-l","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}