The great shark hunt

LABOR yesterday failed to bring down its nemesis, trade union royal commissioner Dyson Heydon, but the Liberals’ patchwork defence of the former High Court justice was indicative of poor management skills.

Several years ago, before the TURC was initiated, Commissioner Heydon accepted an invitation to deliver the annual Sir Garfield Barwick address from a group of Liberal barristers and lawyers. The address attracts a bipartisan audience but it is registered as a Liberal Party fundraiser to meet electoral disclosure laws. At $80-a-head, the entry fee would barely cover the price of the three-course meal and associated costs for the event. Previous keynote speakers have included Liberal attorneys-general George Brandis, Bob Ellicott and Tom Hughes. On discovering Wednesday that the event was a registered political event, Commissioner Heydon immediately advised the organisers that he could not give the address. His response was prompt and honourable. Labor disgracefully attempted to traduce his unimpeachable reputation. During a fiery Question Time, Speaker Tony Smith evicted MPs for the first time since he took office Monday. One Labor MP was forced to withdraw his remarks after labelling Commissioner Heydon a “bagman”. Commissioner Heydon’s integrity is indisputable. Labor can’t make the same claim. In its interim report published by the TURC in December, Commissioner Heydon found that former Prime Minister Julia Gillard demonstrated a “lapse in professional judgment” in her work for her former boyfriend Bruce Wilson’s slush fund and at times gave “evasive”, “excessive” and “forced” evidence to the commission. He found her demeanour during the hearings contained an “element of acting” and that her “intense degree of preparation, her familiarity with the materials, her acuteness, her powerful instinct for self-preservation” made it difficult to judge her credibility as a witness. He noted her “occasional evasiveness, or non-responsiveness, or irritability”. During questioning of Opposition leader Bill Shorten earlier this year, Commissioner Heydon had to ­remind the former AWU union boss that his responses brought his credibility into question. The stuff-up over the Barwick address gave Labor an opportunity to play to its trade union backers but it over-reached with its attempts to ­impugn the integrity of the former High Court justice. Even former Labor Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, QC, was careful to note that while the commissioner’s name on the invitation to the Liberal Party function may give an appearance of bias, there was no evidence of bias.