Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The purpose of my contribution today is to further expose the relationship between the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, his office and his department in deceiving the ABC and the Australian community over the disguised appearance by Mr Gregory Andrews, a senior officer of Mr Brough’s department, on the ABC’s Lateline program on 21 June this year. We now know that Mr Andrews prepared his statement for the ABC at his workplace on 1 and 2 June, that he had this statement ‘legalled’ by his department and that he was assisted in the preparation of this statement by his boss, Mr Gibbons, and the minister’s office. Indeed, it is clear to me that he was coached in what to say by Mr Gibbons and the minister’s office.

We also know that the interview with the ABC was recorded at Mr Andrews’s home on Friday, 2 June. We were told that Mr Andrews appeared anonymously because he was afraid for his safety. We also know that, in the days following the interview, Mr Andrews and another departmental officer travelled to Central Australia and visited the Mutitjulu community and held meetings with that community. We know that while he was there he was involved in seeking to improperly gain access to criminal records that were later publicised on the ABC and that his boss, Mr Gibbons, had full knowledge of his activities. At no time during his visit to Mutitjulu on 6 June did he inform the community of his pending appearance on the ABC or seek information from them that might assist him in that appearance.

We now know that Mr Andrews’s orchestrated appearance on the ABC was a deception, that he had an agenda and that he had previously threatened the community with having an administrator imposed on them—and subsequent events that I will come to in a moment demonstrate that that did happen. We know from Mr Gibbons that part of the reason for the appointment of an administrator subsequently was the adverse publicity received by the community on the ABC Lateline program of 21 June. This is evidenced in correspondence between Mr Gibbons and the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations, where he indicates very clearly that this was one of the major reasons for having an administrator imposed. There is now ample other evidence that the contrived appearance on the ABC’s Lateline program was part of a conscious strategy to attack the Mutitjulu community by at least Mr Gibbons and Mr Andrews, and, I fear, the minister’s office. We have to ask: did the minister approve of this behaviour and what did he know of this behaviour?

Since Mr Andrews’s visit and the subsequent actions taken by Mr Gibbons to wrongly force an administrator on the community, the minister and his department have been caught out and exposed. While the actions of Mr Andrews and Mr Gibbons have been exposed with regard to the Mutitjulu community, we also know that this behaviour is not unusual and that Mr Gibbons in particular, who was accountable only to the minister, is autocratic, patronising and often insulting when dealing with Indigenous people—and I know this from discussions I have had with the community over recent times. One wonders whether this attitude and this behaviour are sanctioned and approved by the minister.

I would also add that earlier in the week, in answer to a question in the parliament about the Lateline program, the minister promptly said that this program raised significant issues about the welfare of young children and the concern of the community about sexual exploitation of young children, and accusations were made about a paedophile. We asked the question about Mr Andrews. That question was not answered but what the minister did in support of his position was to recount the assertions of others who appeared on that program. One of those who he cited was a doctor who we now discover was responsible for prescribing Viagra to the paedophile whilst he was in the community. It stands as an open question: when did the minister become aware of this fact? Was it before he answered the question in question time this week, and was he aware of it at the time Mr Andrews appeared on the Lateline program?