Grow a pair Mal - Sack Brandis

[Redneck]

Come on Mal sack Brandis

George Brandis has only two weeks to rebuild faith in Aus­tralia’s top two legal offices after the spectacular resignation of ­solicitor-general Justin Gleeson SC because of an “irretrievable breakdown” in their relationship.

After weeks of legal and political infighting between the ­Coalition and the Labor opposition, as well as an unprecedented collapse of trust between the ­government and its most senior legal adviser, Mr Gleeson resigned yesterday.

Senator Brandis is facing ­renewed calls for his resignation and must now find a new ­solicitor-general after the first resignation from the office in 100 years.

Mr Gleeson told Senator Brandis he was resigning because the commonwealth’s “first and second law officers” had to have each other’s “complete trust and confidence within a mutually respectful relationship”.

He said that when that relationship was “irretrievably broken” there had to be “a resolution to the impasse” and that resolution was his resignation as the statutory office holder.

The senior lawyers had been entangled in a public brawl after the Attorney-General issued a new direction requiring ministers to obtain his written permission before seeking advice from the solicitor-general.

Mr Gleeson had faced intense questioning at a Senate committee 10 days ago after revelations he had briefed Labor legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus during the election campaign.

One of the nation’s leading constitutional lawyers, George Williams, dean of law at the University of NSW, said the resignation was not a positive development for Mr Gleeson or Senator Brandis. “It is a momentous day in the history of solicitors-general and (it) has never happened before at a federal level,” Professor Williams said.

He said it was too early to tell what the implications would be but the resignation had formed a sombre backdrop to a ceremony in Sydney last night marking 100 years of the office of solicitor-­general. Mr Gleeson, whose salary was more than $730,000, had been due to attend that ceremony in the Sydney law courts building but informed organisers several weeks ago he no longer considered it appropriate to attend.

Professor Williams said he would look closely at the way the government selected Mr Glee­son’s successor because it was ­important “that these sorry events do not end up doing long-term damage to the office”.

After bitter differences and sniping attacks on each other before the Senate committee, Mr Gleeson was losing the confidence of ministers and Senator Brandis was being accused by senior legal figures of treating Mr Gleeson “like a dog on a lead” over changes to how he was instructed.

The relationship between the two top law officers became the central reason for an ALP campaign to have Senator Brandis resign or be sacked for misleading parliament and misrepresenting Mr Gleeson, son-in-law of former High Court chief justice Sir Gerard Brennan. Government members and Senator Brandis hit back, denying he had misled parliament and expressing “shock and surprise” that Mr Gleeson had ­spoken to Mr Dreyfus during the election campaign and disclosed what he thought about the ­Attorney-General’s actions on new controls over seeking advice from the solicitor-general.

Mr Dreyfus appointed Mr Gleeson in February 2013, when he was attorney-general in the Gillard government.

In resigning, Mr Gleeson ­refused to resile from any of his positions and rejected “absolutely each and every attack and ­insinuation that has been made in ­recent times” against him, including those of Senator Brandis.

“My decision does not amount to a withdrawal of any position I have taken in relation to matters of controversy between us,” he wrote in his resignation letter. He said his only motivation in stepping down was to “further the best interests of the commonwealth by enabling the restoration of a ­functional working relationship” between the two highest law officers in the land.

Senator Brandis responded to Mr Gleeson’s resignation with a brief letter telling him it was “the proper course for you to take” and he would take “immediate” steps to find a suitable replacement.

Mr Gleeson’s term had not been due to expire until 2018.

Bill Shorten said last night Mr Gleeson, whose father Gerald was head of the NSW Premier’s Department from 1977 until 1988, was “an honourable man pushed out of office by a dishonourable government”. “Turnbull should hang his head in shame,” the Opposition Leader added.

The government sees Mr Gleeson’s departure as a setback to Labor’s campaign to force Senator Brandis to resign.

Mr Dreyfus said last night: “It is not Mr Gleeson who should have resigned; it is Senator Brandis.”

Mr Dreyfus said Senator Brandis and government senators had “forced this resignation upon Mr Gleeson with their shocking undermining of Mr Gleeson and the office that he holds”.

The dispute resulted in the unprecedented disclosure of ­correspondence between the ­solicitor-general and the Attorney-General, which indicates the breach in relations went beyond the new rule governing ­access to his advice. Senator Brandis told parliament he had consulted the ­solicitor-general and later produced notes from a meeting in ­November last year for a Senate inquiry 10 days ago to refute claims there had been no consultation. He said he had been shocked to learn during the Senate inquiry that Mr Gleeson had a telephone conversation about the affair with Mr Dreyfus.

The correspondence shows Mr Gleeson complained to Senator Brandis on November 12 last year that the Attorney-General had been wrong to give the impression that the solicitor-general had provided advice on a bill to strip certain people of their citizenship. He complained that, after he had provided initial advice, other government lawyers had provided advice on later versions of the scheme. “No one involved in this latest revision process has engaged with my office to seek further advice,” Mr Gleeson told Senator Brandis.

Senator Brandis has complained that Mr Gleeson had not sought permission before revealing during the inquiry that he had been asked to provide a legal opinion on a matter that concerns the composition of the Senate.

Mr Gleeson told the inquiry that telephone conversation had been justified. He was concerned that the new access rule would have made it ­unlawful for the ­Governor-­General to seek advice in the event of a hung ­parliament.

Tom Howe QC will be acting solicitor-general.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nationa ... 1477362644

[Redneck]

Brandis 'cannot be trusted' to fill vacancy

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stor ... ation.html

Malcolm Turnbull says the solicitor-general has done the right thing in resigning and expressed his confidence in Attorney-General George Brandis.

However, Labor says Senator Brandis should be kept out of the process to replace Justin Gleeson.

Australia's second law officer announced his resignation on Monday saying his professional relationship with Senator Brandis was irretrievably broken.

The move came after Senator Brandis banned ministers - including the prime minister - from seeking advice from the solicitor-general without notifying him first - a change Mr Gleeson said undermined his independence and happened without consultation.

'It's always regrettable when people don't get on in the workplace,' Mr Turnbull told reporters in Brisbane on Tuesday.

'But that's been the case and he has made the right call but I thank him for his work.'

He added it was a 'pity' the relationship with Senator Brandis had broken down, but such things happened.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said it was Senator Brandis who should've resigned.

'Make no mistake, George Brandis brought about the circumstances in which the Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson has felt obliged to resign - it is a sad and unnecessary resignation,' Mr Dreyfus told reporters in Melbourne.

Mr Dreyfus said the senator shouldn't be able to select the replacement for Mr Gleeson, who's only the 11th person to serve in the prestigious role.

He's written to the prime minister suggesting the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Martin Parkinson determine a short-list for cabinet to consider.

'It cannot be left to Senator Brandis to hand-pick the replacement,' Mr Dreyfus said.

He said Senator Brandis 'cannot be trusted' to conduct the replacement process properly.

'(Brandis) is someone that has shown over the past several months that he has no respect whatsoever for the integrity of the Office of the Solicitor-General... and has been determined to achieve a situation where the Solicitor-General simply expresses the view of George Brandis himself,' Mr Dreyfus said.

Mr Gleeson will step down on November 7 and is rumoured to be heading to the London bar.

Mr Turnbull doesn't expect it will be hard to fill 'one of the great offices of the law'.

'You will always find many distinguished lawyers who would be honoured to accept an appointment as solicitor-general.'

Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon linked the saga to the stoush between Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and former agriculture department boss Paul Grimes, who stepped down last year citing a similar relationship breakdown.

'It's pretty clear that these days, anyone who disagrees with this government, any professional public servant who gives frank and fearless advice to this government faces execution,' he told reporters in Canberra.

Mr Turnbull said his government valued 'frank advice' from public servants.

AAP

[Rorschach]

Gleeson was handpicked by Labor.
Gleeson had secret talks with Dreyfus during the election.
Gleeson was directed by his boss to take certain actions he refused.
Gleeson was politically tarnished.
Gleeson had no alternative but to resign.

[Rorschach]

Gleeson was appointed by Labor, and there is no surprise his political leanings and affiliation has ended up with this result. The tail cannot wag the dog.

Justin Gleeson sucked into the deep end

The Australian
October 25, 2016
Dennis Shanahan
Political Editor
Canberra

As solicitor-general Justin Gleeson’s fate was sealed the moment it became public he had talked to ­opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus during an election campaign and had not informed the Attorney-General.

His position was untenable and his resignation inevitable.

Gleeson was also drawn into a political fight he could not control and which Dreyfus was determined to drive to extreme lengths to get the scalp of George Brandis as Attorney-General. Dreyfus has failed to prosecute the case against Brandis on form and substance and in doing so has left his star witness with no choice but to move from the witness box to the dock.

No matter what the legal position, no matter how toxic the personal relationship with Brandis and no matter what impact other public revelations and differences the simple political fact was that Gleeson’s initial toe in the water sucked him in over his head.

Breaches of confidentiality at the Senate committee and unresolved contradictions in evidence meant Gleeson had lost the confidence of the government.

Ministers were becoming concerned about the confidentiality of advice after Gleeson revealed at the Senate inquiry without permission some of the advice the government had sought from the government’s lawyer — him.

As he said yesterday the necessary complete trust between the nation’s two top legal officers was gone, the relationship was ­“irretrievably broken” and it was up to him to resolve the impasse by resignation.

While Gleeson’s involvement in politics during an election campaign was based on his view he had been misrepresented by Brandis and may even have had a “gotcha” moment for his superior, elected boss, the pursuit of that belief was fatally flawed.

He could even have a got away with talking to Labor if he then informed Brandis and agreed to discuss his grievance after the election. But in not informing the ­Attorney-General of his contact, then failing to fix the grievance, Gleeson was drawn into Dreyfus’s political campaign of overreach and hyperbole, and out of his depth.

[Redneck]

Gleeson proved Brandis to be loose with the truth that is all that matters as far as I am concerned!

[skippy]

This government to is already falling apart.
How long before Abbott is PM again?

[Redneck]

This government to is already falling apart.
How long before Abbott is PM again?

Dont you worry Skip, he is working on it.

[Rorschach]

Gleeson proved Brandis to be loose with the truth that is all that matters as far as I am concerned!

Well actually he didn't.

[Rorschach]

This government to is already falling apart.
How long before Abbott is PM again?

Isn't happening except in the minds of the progressive Left.
Abbott doesn't have the numbers either. So both thoughts are wrong.

[Redneck]

George Brandis v Justin Gleeson: anything but a fair fight in a self-made crisis

Date: October 24 2016

Mark Kenny

Something had to give, and it was never going to be an attorney-general famous for his inestimable assessment of his own talent.

This was a substantially self-made crisis. Noisy. Distracting. Ultimately pointless.

For reasons that have never been convincingly laid out, George Brandis had quite explicitly impinged on the functional separation of the Solicitor-General, expressly limiting that office's capacity to furnish legal advice unfettered by any conditional say so of a political nature.

It put the incumbent, Justin Gleeson SC, into what he believed was an untenable position.

Brandis maintained that the new restrictions were entirely legal, and that they merely reflected an intended practice that would have been the norm were it not for the growth of other habits like topsy.

Moreover, he justified the change – delivered through a parliamentary edict – as the product of consultation with Gleeson. The implication was clear: Gleeson was on board. He most assuredly was not.

It wasn't the first time Gleeson's name, or his office, had been parlayed in political debate. But it was the last straw.

To have the nation's top law officers impugning each other's character could never be allowed to continue.

As the Solicitor-General said in his resignation letter, the relationship had been "irretrievably broken". On that at least, the two men do agree.

Gleeson had weathered a sneering interrogation at the hands of a couple of Coalition bovver-boys just over a week ago, and had then been admonished further by Brandis for revealing that he had been asked to advise on the composition of the Senate.

The arcane specifics of this breakdown are matters of disagreement and will in any event elude most people. But the political take-out is an all-too familiar one: yet another controversy engulfing the Attorney-General's portfolio.

A replacement for Gleeson will be found. But it will be someone who enters the job on conditions tighter and therefore smaller than those upon which Gleeson took the office.

Even allowing for criticism each way, it was anything but a fair fight between a respected QC muzzled by his office and a brawling political QC occupying the bully pulpit.

http://www.watoday.com.au/federal-polit ... eType=text