- Greens Senator is asking misleading questions
- Not the first time Senator Pocock has her facts wrong
- Using parliamentary privilege to smear needs reform
It is a tactic politicians of all political stripes deploy but it has to stop: asking inflammatory questions which are factually wrong to gain media attention.
The Greens are now using it to inaccurately smear Australian businesses as well as individuals.
Just a week after Greens Senator Barbara Pocock made an embarrassing blunder in Parliament she’s at it again, this time misleading the Parliament with an inaccurate and leading question.
Daily Mail Australia recently revealed Senator Pocock’s $99,900,000 gaffe when she grilled government officials over a ‘missing’ $100million payment which didn’t actually exist.
The payment she mistakenly referred to was in fact $100,000 not $100million, and while the senator claimed ‘key milestones had not been properly met’, both the government department and the service provider (big four consultancy firm KPMG) denied this.
Greens senator Barbara Pocock (left) has asked questions attacking KPMG and ASIC which were based on incorrect information
The Greens Senator eventually deleted her tweet but only after questions from Daily Mail Australia.
Yet Senator Pocock is at it again, using questions at another committee hearing to smear the consultancy firm once again. This time she is also attacking another government body: regulator ASIC.
The problem with the attacks is that they include more sloppy mistakes by the senator.
In February Senator Pocock grilled ASIC officials at Senate Estimates, asking: ‘Has it come to your attention at ASIC that KPMG has delivered false audits for two companies, Paladin and Canstruct, who subsequently received more than $2billion of taxpayers’ money to run immigration detention centres for the Department of Home Affairs?’
It was a serious allegation of improper actions. She went on to ask: ‘Is ASIC currently investigating KPMG for breaching audit standards in relation to those audits?’
ASIC took the questions on notice, understandably unable to provide an answer during the hearing. As a result the allegation was treated as fact, reported in the media at the time based simply on the question asked.
Daily Mail Australia can now reveal that ASIC, having recently provided a written response to Senator Pocock, clarified that the question was based on an entirely false premise.
KPMG wasn’t even the appointed auditor of either of the companies referred to. Naturally, ASIC therefore also is not investigating it for breaching audit standards in relation to work it didn’t do.
Greens senator Barbara Pocock (above) has form at making inaccurate comments under privilege
The mistake was designed to get the right headline before the facts eventually come to light – and Senator Pocock is yet to correct the record.
The senator, a former economic professor out of South Australia, also used a radio interview on the ABC in July last year to claim partnerships such as the big consultancy firms do not pay payroll tax in Australia. However this is also not true.
Parliamentary privilege allows MPs and senators to defame and degrade anyone they name: people or organisations. They can do so without legal consequences as long as they restrict their commentary to parliament and do not repeat the imputation outside of it.
Parliamentary privilege is also applied during committee hearings. There are currently well over 100 parliamentary committees afoot, with witnesses called to give evidence also protected by privilege.
At a time when political parties are calling for all manner of reforms, to media regulations, across legal institutions and within the business community, it is time they look closer to home. At their own conduct, misusing the once important concept of parliamentary privilege for ideological purposes.