Dear Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet,

I note media reports that the Liberal Party of Australia organised the rape of Brittany Higgins because her partner is or was a Commonwealth public servant and the Liberal Party hates Commonwealth public servants.

Noting that the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet was appointed to that position on the basis of his membership of the Liberal Party of Australia and his close friendship with Scott Morrison, under the FOI Act, I seek a copy of any document contained in the sent folder (current or archived) of Phil Gaetjens’ email client or Mr Gaetjens’ WhatsApp and Signal accounts that contains the word ‘Brittany’. It’s obviously a matter of public interest if the Secretary had any involvement in the organisation, or the covering up, of, a sexual assault.

Thank you!

Dear FOI,

I refer to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s (DPMC) email to me of yesterday acknowledging receipt of my application made under the FOI Act of 18 February 2021. I note the following statement included in DPMC’s email to me as follows:

"we note your request was accompanied by unnecessary and untrue commentary, as well reference to a serious criminal matter currently under investigation by the police. The Department does not accept the commentary and will only respond to you in relation to the FOI request as outlined above."

I have taken that statement as an invitation to provide further submissions to DPMC in support of the veracity of the statements included in my FOI request as well as how those matters go to the public interest in the documents the subject of my request.

As a starting point, while I appreciate the statements contained in my request are inconvenient to DPMC’s political objectives, that doesn’t make them ‘untrue and unnecessary’.

In relation to the Secretary of DPMC, the basis of Mr Gaetjens’ appointment to that position has been widely documented, and is widely understood, as being a result of his close personal friendship with the Prime Minister and of his status as a fellow senior member of the Liberal Party. The nature of his appointment is no different to the approach this Government has taken to the appointment of members of the AAT, statutory officer holders, board members of government business enterprises, other Departmental secretaries and other senior public servants. Nepotism doesn’t constitute an ethical approach upon which to fill positions of public office, but it is the prerogative of the current Government to act unethically, and Australians have come to expect unethical behaviour from this Government.

In respect of the Liberal Party’s rape of Ms Higgins, it is a matter of public record, including as first reported by the chief political correspondent for a free to air television network, that staff from the Prime Minister’s office have been ‘backgrounding’ Liberal party favoured media organisations that the sexual assault of Ms Higgins was the result of her partner being a former DPMC public servant.

Relevantly, and subsequent to my FOI application, the Government has asked Liberal party operatives Mr Phil Gaetjens and Ms Stephanie Foster to ‘investigate’ matters related to the sexual assault of Ms Higgins (including the backgrounding of journalists as engaged in by the Prime Minister’s staff). Those ‘public servants’ have form in ‘investigating’ politically motivated corruption – be it Sports Rorts corruption, the corruption engaged in by John Lloyd or the Robodebt extortion program – and so it’s little wonder they were a favoured choice by this Government to ‘investigate’ these matters.

Regarding my comments as to the Liberal Party’s disdain of public servants – I would have thought that to be axiomatic. Members of Parliament on that side of politics, including the Prime Minister, frequently engage in public commentary that disparages and deprecates public servants. As do Liberal and National Party affiliated far right groups such as the Institute of Public Affairs and the Sonnenkrieg Division who also regularly engage in public commentary that vilifies, derides and otherwise pours scorn on public servants.

In relation to my statement that ‘it’s obviously a matter of public interest if the Secretary had any involvement in the organisation, or the covering up, of, a sexual assault’ – that’s an incontrovertible truth. Again, while I appreciate acknowledgement of that fact is politically inconvenient, it is plainly in the public interest if Mr Gaetjens, being a close friend and keen political ally of the Prime Minister, holds documents indicating that he had any knowledge of or involvement in the organisation, or the covering up, of, a sexual assault. Indeed, noting the Prime Minister’s claims around his knowledge of the rape of Ms Higgins, and when that knowledge came into being, it’s clearly in the public interest if the documents tend to show that the Prime Minister has lied. As DPMC relevantly notes, my request partially relates to a serious criminal matter currently under investigation by the police. That investigation commenced after I had lodged my request and so it is plainly in the public interest if Mr Gaetjens is in possession of documents that fall within the terms of my request because those documents will relate to a politically motivated serious criminal offence. Accordingly, if DPMC refuses access to those documents in reliance on s.37 of the FOI Act or imposes charges in respect of locating, compiling, redacting and deciding relevant documents - that will necessarily implicate Mr Gaetjens.

I am deeply concerned that DPMC, on behalf of the Liberal Party, has apparently already determined that clear public interest factors favouring the release of the documents are ‘unnecessary’ and won’t be taken into consideration (as required by law) in the making of a decision on my request. That leads me to another relevant matter in respect of my request and DPMC’s preliminary response to it – DPMC’s record of compliance with its obligations under the FOI Act. It is a matter of public record that under Ms Foster’s and Ms Moran’s leadership of the DPMC’s FOI processing function, that DPMC has repeatedly been found to have engaged in systemic and politically motivated contraventions of the FOI Act (ie. corruption). See here: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-ne... and here: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-ne... . Further, DPMC’s access refusal decisions in respect of documents that are mildly politically inconvenient for the Liberal Party are regularly overturned on independent review by the Information Commissioner. It is a statement of fact that DPMC has led the charge, on behalf of the LNP Government, to effectively render the FOI Act unenforceable and useless. DPMC have engaged in these actions because the concepts of transparency and accountability that underlie the FOI Act are politically inconvenient when running the most corrupt Government administration in Australia’s history. In effect, DPMC conducts its FOI processing function as if it were a PR consultancy for the Liberal Party.

It’s telling that despite the commentary in my request being directed towards unethical activities of the Liberal Party, that DPMC, a theoretically apolitical, independent and ethical Commonwealth agency, considers it appropriate to challenge that commentary on behalf of the Liberal Party. That DPMC thinks it is incumbent upon itself and moreover, appropriate, to go out of its way to actively defend the actions of the Liberal Party, speaks volumes as to how politicised, partisan and corrupt the once respected central agency has become. I remind DPMC officers of their legal obligations to act honestly, apolitically, transparently and ethically - values that DPMC has disregarded in recent years.

I anticipate that I will be required to provide additional factual and relevant information in response to an anticipated charges or access refusal decision by DPMC - I stand ready and waiting to do so.