Paul Starick: Ombudsman’s inconvenient truth too late to debunk Labor spin

Two rulings by SA’s independent umpire in two months have exposed the truth behind two scandals – but it’s too late for the Liberals, Paul Starick writes.

Two damaging rulings from the independent umpire have exposed the bluster behind scandals that helped propel Labor into government.

Within two months, Ombudsman Wayne Lines has released two statements that obliterate two Labor-fuelled attacks that last year tore apart Steven Marshall’s Liberal government – one that claimed then-deputy premier Vickie Chapman’s scalp.

The other furore centred on allegations of “data harvesting” by the Liberals of personal details of people clicking on government websites.

The findings by the Ombudsman – effectively the independent umpire – came too late to defuse the misjudged feeding frenzies that debilitated and distracted the minority Marshall government, contributing to Labor’s landslide March 19 state election victory.

But the sagas strikingly illustrate the ruthless realpolitik that has helped make Labor the party of government in South Australia for the past five decades – and continues to be employed under Premier Peter Malinauskas’s watch.

The chief prosecutor of both overblown cases was veteran Cabinet minister Tom Koutsantonis, Labor's chief parliamentary tactician and an astute, combative political practitioner the Liberals have been unable to find a way to counter.

Labor frontbencher Tom Koutsantonis during parliamentary question time in November, 2021. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Brenton Edwards

In the most recent case, Mr Lines on Monday released a statement summarising his office’s inquiries into the alleged data harvesting.

This two-page statement effectively crushed Mr Koutsantonis’s allegations of “a massive fraud on the people of South Australia” and “corruption at the highest levels somewhere in South Australia’s public sector”. These claims were made in parliament in March last year, when the Opposition was baying for the minority government’s blood over people being “inundated” with emails from Mr Marshall’s Liberal Party account.

Mr Koutsantonis asked: “How is the Premier collating this database of email addresses? If there is any suggestion or if there is any evidence that those email databases have been populated by state government servers into the Liberal Party, that is a corruption that has not been matched in this state’s history.”

Never mind the 1991 State Bank collapse, which a Royal Commission found lost $3.15bn in government-guaranteed funds – as this reporter told Mr Koutsantonis when resisting pressure to hype the issue.

The Ombudsman’s views were clear. Having engaged an expert in cyber security, privacy and the protection of government data, Mr Lines concluded the data was effectively “muddled” and “most likely could not be used in any meaningful way”. It was “highly plausible” that “hyperlinks were copied and pasted by public officers who had no knowledge or understanding of the data implications”.

“In all of the circumstances, particularly noting the expert advice that it does not appear data was produced in any meaningful form, I determined, in my discretion, that it is not in the public interest to take further action in relation to the matter,” the Ombudsman concluded.

The carry-over of Liberal media distribution list software into government was “regrettable”, the Ombudsman said, because it “created the perception of public information being used for party-political purposes”.

This perception was created because the Liberals were too weak to defuse Labor’s attacks and an overly credulous media – not The Advertiser – suspended some critical judgment. A similar scenario applied last November, ahead of Ms Chapman standing down as deputy premier over a conflict-of-interest scandal relating to her rejection of a proposal to build a Kangaroo Island port.

Former Premier Steven Marshall and former deputy premier Vickie Chapman during the opening of parliament on May 3. Picture: Brenton Edwards

The Liberal task in heading off those claims was complicated by their insufficient numbers on the floor of parliament, following Speaker Dan Cregan’s defection last October.

In a report released on May 3, Mr Lines found Ms Chapman “did not have a conflict of interest, whether actual, potential, or perceived, when she decided the Smith Bay (port) application”.

By then, of course, Labor was in government and Ms Chapman had already declared she would quit parliament.

But Labor retains a Machiavellian tactical approach, as evidenced by sneakily introducing a Bill for workers’ compensation changes as an ambit claim before Mr Malinauskas ultimately brought business and unions together. Perhaps the government has been too clever, though, in mandating free parking at Westfield Tea Tree Plaza while ripping it away from healthcare workers.

What matters when winning over voters, though, is not necessarily the correctness of the argument but which side is more convincing and better equipped to push their case.