If there is a message to be taken from the Supreme Court's recent ruling in favour of the Legislative Council over the CCC, it's that parliament must be responsible for its own affairs.
There is one key message to be taken from Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling on the three way stoush involving the Legislative Council, the state government and the Corruption and Crime Commission on the issue of parliamentary privilege.
It is that parliament must be responsible for its own affairs.
The days when aspects of its administration, including responsibility for the mobile phone records of MPs, are managed by the Department of Premier and Cabinet must be over.
The reason? The department having back-office functions for matters linked with Parliament House can no longer be justified. The public service has become too politicised over the past 30 years or so for that to continue.
The separation of powers between the executive (government), the legislature (parliament) and the judiciary demands that the administration of Parliament House be controlled “in house”. With a record state budget surplus in the offing, the extra cost is no longer an issue.
The story of the battle involving the records of three MLCs no longer in Parliament – including former Liberal Phil Edman’s laptop – reflects significant overreach on the part of the DPC, the Corruption and Crime commissioner John McKechnie, and Attorney-General John Quigley.
They attempted to browbeat the upper house into conceding they should have access to MPs records – including Mr Edman’s laptop - and decide which aspects were privileged and which were not. The Labor president of the council at the time, Kate Doust, took the traditional view those decisions should be made by elected MPs, not appointed officials.
This angered her party and she was dumped for her principled stance. This reflects poorly on her Labor colleagues.
The matter of what material will be passed on to the CCC will now be decided by the MLCs. With Labor gaining control of the chamber at the March election for the first time, the Liberals could well be in for a torrid time over the release of material which is expected to include details of a controversial trip to Japan and slap up Liberal “black hand gang” dinners, paid for by taxpayers.
Labor will enjoy embarrassing the Liberals. But if it helps stop abuse of generous expenses by MPs, and leads to rigorous administration of “staff office” functions – free of potential political largesse and rorting – the exercise will have been worthwhile.
