Q&A on Monday 20 February 2017 included Attorney-General George Brandis QC.
Brandis showed rather unhappy aspects of himself, as he sought to justify enormous and extravagant expense allowances for Federal parliamentarians while justifying the meanness of NDIS funding, disability allowances, Community Legal Centre funding and the harshness of automated Centrelink debt recovery.
There was a common theme in Brandis’ position. He seemed to prefer meanness to generosity. He seemed unsympathetic to people who are struggling to survive; he does not care what we do to refugees; he does not care that his party has lied systematically to the public for years about boat people; he can’t be bothered to check the law in an area which, whatever your position, is contentious.
He chose to blame Labor for every difficulty, no matter that his party has had years to correct the situation which, he asserted frequently, was created by Labor. I don’t have much time for Labor, but watching him blame everything on a government which was defeated four years ago is simply pathetic.
It would be charitable to assume some kind of neural deficiency rather than a deep-seated personality disorder.
On robo-debt, Brandis seemed mildly concerned that a man had committed suicide after being chased for an alleged debt of $18,000 (this was later revised down to $10,000, without explanation). The way the system “works”, the burden is on the recipient of the debt notice to prove the demand is wrong. Most lawyers (at least, most lawyers who have actually practised law) respond instinctively against civil claims in which the Defendant has to prove that they do not owe the money claimed: the usual situation is that the person who makes a claim must prove it.
Brandis urged that anyone who received a robo-debt demand should ring Centrelink and discuss the claim: he seemed not to understand that getting Centrelink to answer a phone call is extraordinarily difficult. Several people in the audience with practical experience of the matter told Brandis how difficult it is to get Centrelink to answer a call, but our esteemed Attorney-General continued urging the same course. He cruised calmly on like a Spanish galleon in full sail, completely untroubled by any facts. Perhaps that’s the world he lives in: when he wants to speak to someone he simply instructs a staff-member to arrange it. He appears to know nothing of the world experienced by ordinary people, and did not seem willing or able to learn anything about it.
When tackled about the reduced funding for Community Legal Centres, he tried to blame Labor. It seemed not to occur to him that, as Attorney-General, he could arrange increased funding for Community Legal Centres and for Legal Aid. After all, Community Legal Centres deal with about 260,000 clients each year. Their total funding is about $40 million a year. So it costs the government about $153 per client for a CLC to help people who can’t afford lawyers. That’s pretty good value, but government funding is about to fall to about $30 million a year. Brandis did not seem to notice this as a problem, just as he didn’t notice the grotesque difference between his position on welfare payments and his position on parliamentary entitlements. Interestingly, Brandis presides over a department which spends about $792 million per year on lawyering. He has access to excellent legal advice.
Perhaps Brandis regards his government’s legal problems as vastly more important than the legal problems of any ordinary Australian.
And then we got to refugee policy. Confronted with the awkward fact that several thousand men, women and children have been locked up on Nauru and Manus for over 3 years, Brandis again tried to blame it on Labor. It is true that Kevin Rudd’s government put them there, but Brandis party, in government, could have removed them. Instead, it left them to swelter for years on end, suffering torment and abuse which includes hundreds of reported cases of child sex abuse and at least 5 deaths that we know of.
But the most surprising development was when I asked Brandis directly whether boat people commit any offence by arriving in Australia seeking protection from persecution. He said Yes, they do. He is wrong about that. I asked him to identify the provision in any legislation which makes it an offence. He protested that he could not be expected to identify a particular statute and a particular provision. He is wrong about that, too. The Coalition government has, for the past 15 years, called boat people “illegal”.
I assume Senator Brandis sometimes finds time to consider his party’s policies. So he can hardly have missed the fact that men, women and children who have fled persecution were being branded as “illegal”, and were being locked up in shocking conditions for years.
Unless he has slept through the past 15 years (and I would not rule that out as a possibility), Brandis must be aware of a few related things:
- the Coalition, of which he is part, has called boat people “illegal” for the past 15 years;
- some irritating people (including me) have been pointing out for years that boat people commit no offence by coming to Australia as they do.
- If they don’t commit any offence by coming here, calling them “illegal” is misleading at best, and dishonest at worst.
- He has a big staff of highly qualified lawyers and access to lots more.
If he had ever had any of his staff research the question, he would know affirmatively that boat people do not commit any offence by coming here the way they do.
And yet, when I asked him what offence he thought they committed, he protested that he could not be expected to remember what section of what Act.
If the first Law Officer of the country paid more attention, he might have paused to wonder whether his own party’s marketing was honest or not; he might have paused to wonder why no boat people are ever prosecuted because of their means of arrival.
But it seems that our Attorney-General is much too busy enjoying the fat perks of office to think about these things. Either Brandis does not care or he is a hopeless lawyer. In either case, it will be a relief to see him leave the Parliament and the country.
The only available conclusions are either:
- He has never bothered to have the question researched; or
- He lied, because he knew the true answer
Really, Attorney-General? Did you expect anyone to believe you?
Brandis is a disgrace to the office he holds. The first law officer of the country should be a bit more curious and a bit more honest.
[Incidentally, both before and after the show, Brandis conspicuously avoided speaking to me in the Green Room. So I will add pettiness and a lack of manners to my criticism of him]
Thank you for your contribution. I watched Q&A and felt so frustrated by George Brandis’ continual evasions.
I’ve often wondered who has voted for the (Honourable) Senator. If the first Law Officer of Australia lies consistently as he appears to do, the Governor General should revoke his commission, it’s not really a good example for young kiddies 🙂 While he gets his staff to research the statute or crime that the “Illegal Boat-people” have transgressed he may wish to get them to look up the meaning of Honourable. I doubt that he would recognise any of the attributes
And you could have added: Akerman’s stupidity.
No wander this country is going to the dogs or should I say organised criminal gangs. They have help in high places Turnbull listens to this man and bases decisions on his inaccurate facts and lack of knowledge. Personally I think he’s just a liar.
The AG, like many of his LNP compatriots, is well past his “use by” date and should be put out to grass [without a fat pension]. He displays a cynicism and complete lack of regard for the welfare of the common people – like many in his arrogant and out-of-touch government. High time that all govt ministers responsible for administering a department were made to experience the interface with their department organizations that the public are forced to endure. I’d love to see him try and contact Centrelink as a customer! Perhaps I can only dream on.
Well put
Yes, well put. I don’t believe that any one with a legal background could hold and promote such a strong position on the legality of asylum seeking without having examined it in some way. Even when it came to the decision of calling asylum seekers ‘illegal’ some consideration occurred. ‘Will we or won’t we?’ ‘Yes. Let’s do it because . . . ‘
George Brandis does not live in the real world.I became increasingly angry as I listened to him on Q and A on Monday night.He has NO idea and showed absolutely no compassion at all. I cannot believe that someone like him holds the position he does in our government.No wonder we are all becoming increasingly cynical.It is all so depressing.
Brandis is a disgrace and an embarrassment. He is pompous, either stupid or will fully ignorant & certainly oblivious of his privilege.
Here’s what I took from the unedifying spectacle of party politics Australian-style on Q&A:
People don’t matter at all to George Brandis, nobody.
People matter to Tanya Plibersek, except if they’re in offshore detention or taking a boat.
Nothing is going to change in this country because they and their respective parties are too busy attacking each other to attack the real problems we face.
Thank you, Julian Burnside, for sticking to the facts and standing up for humanity.
Senator Brandis has had since Monday night to point to the provision or statute that would uphold his claim ‘boat people’ are doing something illegal by arriving here. I suggest he is pursued to present the legislation he is referring to and stops resorting to cheap tricks like opinion and rhetoric to continually defend his governments atrocious policies. The man’s a lawyer, the highest in the land apparently. He should at least be capable of arguing his case in law.
Thank you Mr Burnside for standing up and speaking out for what is just.
The legislation Brandis had in the dark recesses of his mind was the:
Coming To Australia (Disorderly Arrivals) Brandis Interpretation Act Cth 1901 Cth
Here’s what I took from the unedifying spectacle of party politics AHere’s what I took from the unedifying spectacle of party politics Australian-style on Q&A:
People don’t matter at all to George Brandis, nobody.
People matter to Tanya Plibersek, except if they’re in offshore detention or taking a boat.
Nothing is going to change in this country because they and their respective parties are too busy attacking each other to attack the real problems we face.
Thank you, Julian Burnside, for sticking to the facts and standing up for humanity.
I would really like to see an open group of Legal Eagles that know the laws in this area like Julian does and respects all people [except Brandis, but no one could do this] band together and push this government out and any others that are disgusting enough to maintain this rage against the Mannus/Nehru asylum seekers. As for Brandis’s hilarious comments on Centrelink phone contact, just go your local office, no help there either, so out of touch, he has a huge election shock coming, unless of course we follow America’s pathetic path.
Thank you for this excellent commentary and also for all that you do for asylum seekers in particular. George Brandis was his usual pompous self as expected but I confess I was a bit surprised by his blatant lying. Silly me!
I am sure our “esteemed” AG has a PhD in the politics of fear …..and a cruel streak to boot.Fancy this from a Credit Card Christian.
Julian Burnside for Attorney General
Brandis typically attacks the person rather than addressing the message, his behaviour to Plibersek was appalling, and to Mr Burnside, saying don’t interrupt me when he constantly interrupted her and others when they spoke says a lot about his bullying behaviour. He has tried to bully Gillian Triggs and the Secretary General who eventually resigned as a consequence of Brandis’s behaviour. This man should be held to account for his actions. I hope Australians who watched this episode can see his mean spirited behaviour and understand that this man lacks empathy.
He is the puffy personification of white privilege. Someone who has risen by the sheer bloviating force of his unashamed pomposity to a position utterly beyond his capabilities. Fortunately, as that is so blindingly obvious to everyone but himself, he is continues to flaunt his arrogant cluelessness to his and his Government’s detriment.
The QandA program surely has a purpose to inform as well as promote debate over critical issues and how best to respond to them. Neither Brandis nor Ackerman brought truth to this week’s program. They contributed no intelligent analysis. The afforded the various debated no balance, no give and take. No introspection. In fact, they did not even take the opportunity to put a cohesive, intelligent case in support of any of their traditional positions on any of the issues. I therefore wonder what the ABC were thinking in inviting these two individuals onto the program. Balancing right and left is one thing, but getting hold of people who will do the program’s purposes justice is another. We did not get a reasoned, respectful, intelligent debate on Monday night.
Thank you for your rational and compassionate assessment. Brandis is a disgrace: a miserly liar & also a fool, if he imagines that he is above judgement. I sincerely hope that this exhibition inspires people to seriously contemplate the types of government they have elected and make wiser decisions at the next ballot box. I thought that you were the only gentleman on the panel. Your arrow hit home.
Thanks. Do we have a method to impeach an Attorney General? This Vicar of Bray has to go!
Hi Julian
You and I go back to more pleasantly enjoyed “meetings”.
I furiously condone your efforts in the murkiness of our Human Rights issues and admired your performance on the most recent Q&A. Who was the chump to your left who persisted in personally insulting you as a pathetic attempt to undermine your fact driven points.
Mr. Brandis’s ambitions exceed his abilities by the equivalent of the estimated distance of the breadth of the universe. Cutting legal aid is a knowingly cruel and ultimately an assault upon the judiciary itself,- justice cannot be seen to be done if one party is unrepresented with zero legal knowledge. It is the feeding ground of cowards, opportunists and thieves.Some are lawyers. Mr. Brandis is scheduled (Turnbull promise for undisclosed services rendered)to be appointed High Commissioner to the U.K. in the near future. The main benefit is that he will leave the country.Though unfair to U.K.