Post by NFA on Dec 23, 2023 3:53:19 GMT 8
Higgins test for NACC
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For all the attention Brittany Higgins has copped over her $2.445m payment, she didn’t write the cheque herself.
So far, questions have been asked only of the person who received the money, not the person who authorised it.
Meanwhile the National Anti- Corruption Commission kicked off with 180 staff and $33.2m in July, and has more than $300m and another 100 staff on the way.
It was billed as a “national anticorruption commission with teeth”, but we are about to find out whether it has ferocious incisors or dentures in a glass beside the bed.
Its purview is to investigate the conduct of any person that adversely affects a public official’s honest or impartial exercise of powers or performance of official duties; conduct of a public official that involves a breach of public trust; conduct of a public official that involves abuse of office; and conduct of a public official involving the misuse of documents or information they have gained in their capacity as a public official; it’s like this sordid saga was made to order for the NACC.
What matters in Lehrmann’s defamation case is not three competing egos, but the debunking of myths, only surfacing because of the staffers’ separate addictions to proving their victimhood.
Higgins received $1.48m for lost earning capacity, being unable to work again for 40 years.
While having this apparent impairment, she has been able to address rallies, deliver speeches outside the courtroom, to the National Press Club televised on ABC, keep a high-profile social media presence, be awarded a $300,000 book deal, an ANU fellowship and UN trips to Geneva.
Thanks to the Federal Court this week, we know the CCTV was never denied to police as part of some cover-up conspiracy that was, Justice Lee said, a “complete red herring”.
The office was cleaned, not because of a rape allegation that did not eventuate until days later, but because a naked staffer was sleeping on the minister’s couch.
The Prime Minister’s Office was not ruthlessly vilifying Higgins.
Phone calls played to the court – recorded by Higgins to back up her case of sinister play – instead showed her minister boss Michaelia Cash and chief of staff genuinely trying to help.
They were supporting her if she went to police.
She wasn’t unfairly dismissed, or sacked, she quit.
The money wasn’t for lack of process, it wasn’t for alleged rape, but $400,000 for hurt, distress and humiliation suffered by Higgins.
Most people, if they are humiliated and shunned, avoid the public spotlight. She made herself the centre of it, from The Project all the way to business class in matching white outfits with her mother and fiance.
It was $1.48m to cover lost earning capacity, but she got a book deal immediately.
Surely those responsible for the assessment of the claim would ask the question of what income was coming her way? Those funds, which presumably paid for her fiance’s Burberry coats, business class tickets to Europe, holidays to the Maldives and a French country home, raise questions about public trust in our institutions.
Lehrmann might have shown himself to be a deluded liar in these proceedings, but the evidence around him has exposed the question, was this a payment by the current government for services rendered to impugn the former? Was the government party to weaponising untested and unproven allegations? Higgins’ early draft of her book presents situations that no one has ever corroborated, and even she has stepped away from.
According to the draft, a wound on her leg was seeping blood.
Photographs of the bruise, on appearances more synonymous with falling up the stairs, did not appear at any stage to be an open wound.
Is this the information that Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher used as the basis for her claim? What was driving them to make such a massive payout? Now that they are aware of contradictory information, we have not heard one utterance from them that they were misled or misinformed, which may suggest the facts had little to do with the number on the cheque.
The chasm between the Fiona Brown and Higgins accounts is damning.
Especially when Brown deliberately refused the order of the then Special Minister of State and her minister so that Higgins had the autonomy to choose to go to police herself.
If the NACC properly investigates the case, it will be forced to investigate the same minister who birthed it into life, who also signed off on the unprecedented $2.445m payment after a few hours of mediation.
Pork barrelling was put deliberately within the NACC’s remit, allowing investigation of unwarranted payment of taxpayers’ money for the predominant purpose of soliciting votes.
Evidence put to Justice Lee opens so many questions. Why were Ms Brown and other staffers named in the deed denied the opportunity to provide the alternative version in a mediation where they were accused of victimising Higgins, when the evidence provided to the court shows they championed on her behalf? Which minister directed that this mediation occur without an investigation or corroboration? And importantly, why?
Since so much importance is placed on education within the NACC, what will be put in place to ensure that people in the future making claims of being unable to work again will not be given incentives to lie? As a regular person, the government can’t wait to take money if you make an honest mistake.
If, as a working parent, you fail to correctly predict how much money you will earn (easy to do for casual workers and sole traders), the government forces you to pay back every cent of miscalculated childcare subsidy. If you underestimate your earnings, you have to pay the extra tax. The taxpayer has paid you money you are not entitled to.
So what is the difference here? This is not magic money; it’s taxpayers’ money.
The NACC has no time to dither.
It’s been in operation for six months, will have 260 staff over the next two years, and $328.8m of federal funds on the way.
You can’t make a first impression twice. How the NACC approaches this issue will determine how people view it from this point forward.
-----
For all the attention Brittany Higgins has copped over her $2.445m payment, she didn’t write the cheque herself.
So far, questions have been asked only of the person who received the money, not the person who authorised it.
Meanwhile the National Anti- Corruption Commission kicked off with 180 staff and $33.2m in July, and has more than $300m and another 100 staff on the way.
It was billed as a “national anticorruption commission with teeth”, but we are about to find out whether it has ferocious incisors or dentures in a glass beside the bed.
Its purview is to investigate the conduct of any person that adversely affects a public official’s honest or impartial exercise of powers or performance of official duties; conduct of a public official that involves a breach of public trust; conduct of a public official that involves abuse of office; and conduct of a public official involving the misuse of documents or information they have gained in their capacity as a public official; it’s like this sordid saga was made to order for the NACC.
What matters in Lehrmann’s defamation case is not three competing egos, but the debunking of myths, only surfacing because of the staffers’ separate addictions to proving their victimhood.
Higgins received $1.48m for lost earning capacity, being unable to work again for 40 years.
While having this apparent impairment, she has been able to address rallies, deliver speeches outside the courtroom, to the National Press Club televised on ABC, keep a high-profile social media presence, be awarded a $300,000 book deal, an ANU fellowship and UN trips to Geneva.
Thanks to the Federal Court this week, we know the CCTV was never denied to police as part of some cover-up conspiracy that was, Justice Lee said, a “complete red herring”.
The office was cleaned, not because of a rape allegation that did not eventuate until days later, but because a naked staffer was sleeping on the minister’s couch.
The Prime Minister’s Office was not ruthlessly vilifying Higgins.
Phone calls played to the court – recorded by Higgins to back up her case of sinister play – instead showed her minister boss Michaelia Cash and chief of staff genuinely trying to help.
They were supporting her if she went to police.
She wasn’t unfairly dismissed, or sacked, she quit.
The money wasn’t for lack of process, it wasn’t for alleged rape, but $400,000 for hurt, distress and humiliation suffered by Higgins.
Most people, if they are humiliated and shunned, avoid the public spotlight. She made herself the centre of it, from The Project all the way to business class in matching white outfits with her mother and fiance.
It was $1.48m to cover lost earning capacity, but she got a book deal immediately.
Surely those responsible for the assessment of the claim would ask the question of what income was coming her way? Those funds, which presumably paid for her fiance’s Burberry coats, business class tickets to Europe, holidays to the Maldives and a French country home, raise questions about public trust in our institutions.
Lehrmann might have shown himself to be a deluded liar in these proceedings, but the evidence around him has exposed the question, was this a payment by the current government for services rendered to impugn the former? Was the government party to weaponising untested and unproven allegations? Higgins’ early draft of her book presents situations that no one has ever corroborated, and even she has stepped away from.
According to the draft, a wound on her leg was seeping blood.
Photographs of the bruise, on appearances more synonymous with falling up the stairs, did not appear at any stage to be an open wound.
Is this the information that Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher used as the basis for her claim? What was driving them to make such a massive payout? Now that they are aware of contradictory information, we have not heard one utterance from them that they were misled or misinformed, which may suggest the facts had little to do with the number on the cheque.
The chasm between the Fiona Brown and Higgins accounts is damning.
Especially when Brown deliberately refused the order of the then Special Minister of State and her minister so that Higgins had the autonomy to choose to go to police herself.
If the NACC properly investigates the case, it will be forced to investigate the same minister who birthed it into life, who also signed off on the unprecedented $2.445m payment after a few hours of mediation.
Pork barrelling was put deliberately within the NACC’s remit, allowing investigation of unwarranted payment of taxpayers’ money for the predominant purpose of soliciting votes.
Evidence put to Justice Lee opens so many questions. Why were Ms Brown and other staffers named in the deed denied the opportunity to provide the alternative version in a mediation where they were accused of victimising Higgins, when the evidence provided to the court shows they championed on her behalf? Which minister directed that this mediation occur without an investigation or corroboration? And importantly, why?
Since so much importance is placed on education within the NACC, what will be put in place to ensure that people in the future making claims of being unable to work again will not be given incentives to lie? As a regular person, the government can’t wait to take money if you make an honest mistake.
If, as a working parent, you fail to correctly predict how much money you will earn (easy to do for casual workers and sole traders), the government forces you to pay back every cent of miscalculated childcare subsidy. If you underestimate your earnings, you have to pay the extra tax. The taxpayer has paid you money you are not entitled to.
So what is the difference here? This is not magic money; it’s taxpayers’ money.
The NACC has no time to dither.
It’s been in operation for six months, will have 260 staff over the next two years, and $328.8m of federal funds on the way.
You can’t make a first impression twice. How the NACC approaches this issue will determine how people view it from this point forward.