Andrew L. Urban.
Jesus turned water into wine but Albo went one better. He turned a ‘dirt sheet’ on Helen Haines into a song of praise.
Anthony Albanese told ABC Radio on 22 October that the Haines document was a list of funding requests demonstrating that people of integrity stand up for their electorates. Such a kind gesture, don’t you think? And unique … Titled “In the past two years — the member for Indi has asked for more than $1.8 billion worth of funding for projects she’s selected,” but it also included questions journalists could pursue about possible undeclared gifts and connections with organisations seeking funding.
So it seems that the Prime Minister’s office has created a new precedent. With the help of my personal Sherlock, I could not verify a publicly documented example of the Prime Minister’s office circulating a comparable dossier about another independent MP, presenting that MP’s funding requests as a compliment while also inviting journalists to investigate possible personal benefits, gifts or conflicts of interest.
That distinction matters. A list of projects an MP supports is ordinary political information. A list that adds questions about whether the MP received gifts, had private connections with beneficiaries or stood to gain personally has a different purpose and implication, even if the questions are legitimate subjects for journalistic scrutiny.
The existence of similar funding requests by other MPs would not, by itself, establish that the Haines document was routine. To substantiate that defence, the most useful evidence would be examples of comparable documents concerning Labor, Coalition and independent MPs, together with evidence of how and why they were circulated.
In short, Albo is walking on thin ice when claiming innocence about the real purpose of the document from his office, which was an (annoyed) response to Haines’ questions about the PM’s unique grant of $6 million to the golf club in his electorate. But the document now looked bad in the face of the public outcry over the terrible attack on Haines that cost her both her legs. He needed a political miracle and since even he couldn’t conjure one, he reverse engineered one, clunky though it is.