Jesus turned water into wine, but Albo went one better. He turned a ‘dirt sheet’ on Helen Haines into a song of praise.
Anthony Albanese told ABC Radio on October 22 that the Haines document was a list of funding requests demonstrating that people of integrity stand up for their electorates.
Such a kind gesture, don’t you think?
And unique…
Titled ‘In the past two years – the member for Indi has asked for more than $1.8 billion worth of funding for projects she’s selected’, it also included questions that journalists could pursue about possible undeclared gifts and connections with organisations seeking funding.
So, it seems that the Prime Minister’s office has created a new precedent.
With the help of my personal Sherlock, I could not verify a publicly documented example of the Prime Minister’s office circulating a comparable dossier about another independent MP, presenting that MP’s funding requests as a compliment while also musing about journalists investigating possible personal benefits, gifts, or conflicts of interest.
That distinction matters. A list of projects an MP supports is ordinary political information. A list that adds probing questions about that MP has, in my personal opinion, a different purpose and implication, even if the questions are legitimate subjects for journalistic scrutiny.
The existence of similar funding requests by other MPs would not, by itself, establish that the Haines document was routine. To substantiate that defence, the most useful evidence would be examples of comparable documents concerning Labor, Coalition, and Independent MPs, together with evidence of how and why they were circulated.
In short, Albo is walking on thin ice about the purpose of the document from his office. The document now looks bad in the face of the public outcry and scrutiny of political discourse following the terrible attack on Haines that cost her both her legs.
Albo needed a political miracle and since even he couldn’t conjure one, it is my view he reverse-engineered one, clunky though it is.
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