Crossbench Senator Rex Patrick has launched a stinging and unusual attack on a top bureaucrat, saying Martin Parkinson's investigation into Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop looked like a political fix and was the low point of his career.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
His investigation was "poorly executed, incomplete and reflects extremely poorly on Dr Parkinson", Senator Patrick said in additional comments to a parliamentary report tabled on Thursday.
"The investigation appears to be either a demonstration of a lack of competence, which goes to ability, or a carefully crafted sham which purports to be an investigation but was in reality a political fix, which goes to character. I suspect it goes to the later [sic].
"The report epitomises what many people see as a public services cancer whereby the Australian Public Service Code of Conduct is cast aside and replaced with a new code which states, "Protect the Minister."
The Senate finances and public administration committee released its report into the decisions of former Coalition Ministers Pyne and Bishop to take jobs with consultancies connected to their ministerial work. Mr Pyne went to work for EY on defence contracting after being defence minister, and Ms Bishop went to Palladium, an aid contractor that had extensive dealings and contracts with the Foreign Affairs and Trade department while she was foreign minister.
The pair has been accused of breaching ministerial standards, which say ministers must not work on matters that they have had dealings with in office for at least 18 months.
Amid controversy, Prime Minister Scott Morrison asked Dr Parkinson then head of the Prime Minister's Department, for advice. He reported "no grounds to believe that either Mr Pyne or Ms Bishop have breached the standards".
But a Senate inquiry, chaired by Labor's Jenny McAllister, has now recommended that Prime Minister Scott Morrison reopen the investigation.
The inquiry's majority report, criticised Dr Parkinson's investigation, saying it wasn't particularly extensive and did not appear to have tested the claims of Mr Pyne and Ms Bishop. The majority report said Dr Parkinson had not spoken to Palladium or EY, had not looked at the work contracts, and had not asked crucial questions about how the pair would avoid conflicts of interest. He had also failed to reconcile inconsistencies.
The majority report said the deficiencies in his investigation did not reflect in any way on Dr Parkinson, who "did the job the prime minister expected him to in the manner expected by the prime minister".
But Senator Patrick, in additional comments included with the report as tabled and publicly issued, said the committee had been polite, perhaps because Dr Parkinson was retiring from the public service and "most people, including myself, are inclined to wish people well on their way".
Departmental secretaries were extremely well remunerated, with Dr Parkinson paid more than $900,000 a year, and given the authority and responsibility to do their job. They must be held accountable.
"I will not be restrained in my criticism of a most perfunctory inquiry that Dr Parkinson has led," Senator Patrick said.
He had asked his staff to gather publicly available information, a task on which they had spent eight days. But they had not included two highly relevant and key statements, Senator Patrick said. On June 26, both EY and Christopher Pyne had confirmed his appointment to the consultancy to help it ramp up its defence work.
When asked by the inquiry why those statements had not been in his report, Dr Parkinson had answered "no particular reason", a response Senator Patrick blasted as "woefully inadequate and unsatisfactory".
Dr Parkinson had not spoken to EY or Palladium and had not used a notebook to record evidence. His notes had been recorded as "annotations on a blank sheet of paper", which he had declined to release.
Senator Patrick said he believed Dr Parkinson had had a highly esteemed and effective career in the public service without significant controversy.
But the investigation meant he left the public service "at something of a professional nadir". The inquiry's report, including Senator Patrick's additional comments, has been made publicly available on the parliament website.
Dr Parkinson told the inquiry in August that there was a difference "between the standards as they exist and the standards that people seem to want to be in place".
"I'm responsible, when asked by the prime minister, to assess people's behaviour against the standards as they exist. I can't do anything more than that."
He said he had no investigative powers and no legislative backing, but simply spoke to the ministers, collected as much information has he could and made a judgement.
Mr Pyne had told him that he was aware of his obligations under the ministerial standards and had made it clear to EY that he could not meet Defence ministers or officials. Ms Bishop was non-executive director at Palladium which made it highly unusual that she would be involved in contracts, tendering or lobbying, Dr Parkinson told the inquiry.
He had not spoken to Palladium or EY because "when ministers or senators or MPs say to me that they are going to do something, I tend to take that at face value".
Committee member One Nation's Malcolm Roberts, in additional comments in the inquiry's report, criticised Dr Parkinson as "vague and evasive".
But the government senators in the inquiry James Paterson and Paul Scarr rejected the entire inquiry as partisan. It had found no evidence of wrongdoing and made no case that ministerial standards had been breached, they said.
Dr Parkinson's investigation had been thorough, they said.
Comment has been sought from Dr Parkinson.