Well, Anthony Albanese stands behind his Mean Girls, you have to give him that. Or maybe it’s just because Katy Gallagher and Penny Wong threatened to wedgie him in the parliamentary toilets, or else. Whatever, Albanese is standing firm behind Gallagher despite pretty much everyone conceding that she misled parliament.
Anthony Albanese says claims Senator Katy Gallagher misled parliament are “absurd” and “bizarre”.
Senator Gallagher is staring down claims she misled parliament about the timing and nature of her knowledge on Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation.
The Australian
Guys, c’mon. Even The Age is admitting, straight-up: “Katy Gallagher misled parliament”.
Loyalty is one thing, but even Albanese must dimly grasp that when you’re in a hole, best to stop digging.
As John Howard found out, nearly to his doom in 2001, being perceived as “tricky” is not a vote-winner. Labor’s excuses over Gallagher reek of tricky hair-splitting.
On the surface, Gallagher’s response at the weekend doesn’t wash. Having obfuscated for several days, refusing to directly answer questions, the senator from the ACT finally conceded she had prior knowledge.
Her defence is that in denying two years ago she knew about it before it became public, she was answering a broader question about whether she used that prior-knowledge and that she had known about for weeks. Gallagher now insists she had only days’ advance notice and didn’t do anything with it.
But Gallagher risks looks tricky. Whether she misled parliament hinges on a technicality. Whether it passes the pub test is another matter.
As I reported recently, it looks as if Scott Morrison has a case to answer on misleading parliament, too. But, Morrison is a backbencher of little relevance to voters today. Gallagher is a cabinet minister and close Albanese ally, who not only almost certainly misled parliament, but has serious questions to answer over the allegedly $3m in taxpayer money handed to Brittany Higgins.
If anyone on the government side thinks Finance Minister Katy Gallagher’s explanation at the weekend over what she knew and when will suffice, then they may want to think again.
The opposition’s strategy this week will be to cause maximum damage, even if it cops some blowback. Which it will.
Presumably, the focus will be confined initially to the Senate in what will be a relentless pursuit of Gallagher. Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, who now also appears to have suggested prior-knowledge, will be target No. 2 […]
The trap for Labor is that in defending by attacking – in this case re-raising questions about Morrison and his government’s handling of the issue – it is pulled into a vortex that will mire the government in an appearance of broader parliamentary disgrace.
This is all the kind of gift that Peter Dutton couldn’t have wished for more.
Peter Dutton won’t want to let it go – although he is unlikely to take a lead role in parliament on this just yet. He will want to see where it all heads, if anywhere.
The Liberal leader will be keeping his radar tuned to interest rates, energy bills and general cost-of-living misery, considering the bad economic news last week.
Dutton now has his first substantial political opportunity in front of him. And he will be feeling the pressure just as much as Albanese to get the tone right.
The Liberal Party backbenchers are getting edgy. Having sat patiently on the opposition benches for the past 12 months, waiting for a grand strategy to emerge, they now also sense for the first time that the government could be exposed.
They will be looking to Dutton to make sure he makes the most of it.
The Australian
The fallout from the Higgins scandal is reaching well past parliament, though. It will be a miracle if the ACT chief prosecutor, currently on leave, has a job to come back to.
Journalists who jumped on the “MeToo” bandwagon are also getting some well-deserved comeuppance. In the same sort of tricky excuse-making as Labor is trying on, Lisa Wilkinson is trying to hang onto the Silver Logie she won for the story, by claiming that it was “collectively” awarded to The Project. This begs the question of why she took to the podium alone, to deliver the self-serving, egotistical speech which led to the trial being delayed and threats of contempt proceedings.
Willkinson is copping well-deserved heat from elsewhere, too.
The Indigenous senator who was mocked by Lisa Wilkinson as a “diversity pick” says the star journalist has not contacted her personally to apologise.
Northern Territory CLP Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price lashed Wilkinson on Friday after audio emerged of the media personality making comments about the senator and struggling to pronounce her name during a pre-interview with Brittany Higgins and her partner David Sharaz.
Wilkinson is hiding behind a self-serving press release. Price isn’t buying it.
But Senator Price said on Monday Wilkinson still had not contacted her, saying instead the apology statement had been passed onto her via her staff.
“She hasn’t personally made an apology to myself,” Senator Price told Sharri Markson on Sky News in her first interview since the incident on Monday.
“If she was a real woman, I’d guess she’d ring me and personally apologise.”
She said the head of Paramount Australia, Beverley McGarvey, had called her to apologise on behalf of the 10 Network, but Wilkinson had not.
The Australian
Don’t be absurd. Wilkinson is too important for that sort of thing. She has “people” to take care of such tasks as are beneath her to bother with.