NSW Labor staffers will front inquiry to avoid detention, arrest

Five NSW Labor staffers have agreed to front a parliamentary inquiry to avoid arrest after upper house president Ben Franklin told them he intended to seek arrest warrants based on legal advice.

In a major blow to the staffers who had defied summonses to attend an inquiry into the so-called Dural caravan incident, the five will appear before the committee at 10am on Friday.

The Dural property in Sydney’s north-west where a caravan containing explosives was found in January. The incident is now the focus of a NSW upper house inquiry.Credit: TNV

Franklin told the staffers on Tuesday night that he had legal advice from top barrister Bret Walker, SC, which said it was within his power as president to seek arrest warrants for the staffers, including NSW Premier Chris Minns’ chief of staff.

He told the staffers he would go to the Supreme Court to seek the arrest warrants, at the request of the committee, if they did not reconsider their positions.

The staff have now agreed to give evidence rather than face the spectacle of being detained and arrested, which would have been unprecedented.

Police allege the Dural caravan incident, which Minns described at the time as an act of terror that could have caused mass casualties, was the work of organised crime figures who allegedly orchestrated several antisemitic attacks across Sydney in a plot to gain leverage over police.

Minns mentioned he had been briefed on the possible involvement of organised crime. The upper house inquiry is investigating who knew what and when, and if the government raced to push the hate laws through under false pretences.

Committee member Greens MP Sue Higginson has confirmed the five will appear and give evidence on Friday after refusing several initial requests and ignoring a summons.

The premier said he was disappointed his staff would now front the inquiry, which he called a “kangaroo court”.

“In a punitive way pulling in staffers to this upper house inquiry … I think it’s a troubling precedent for NSW,” Minns said on Wednesday morning.

He said he was providing support to the staffers, who he claims are victims of a “massive overreach”.

Minns and Police Minister Yasmin Catley were asked to appear before the inquiry, but because they are lower house MPs, they are not obliged and cannot be compelled to front the upper house.

The committee then called the five staffers, which include Minns and Catley’s chiefs of staff and senior advisers.

Despite their protestations, calling political staffers to an inquiry is not unprecedented and under the former Coalition government, Labor called Liberal staff members before committees.

Then-treasurer Dominic Perrottet’s chief of staff appeared to answer questions about the scandal engulfing public insurer icare, while a staff member for then-premier Gladys Berejiklian also fronted an upper house inquiry to give evidence about documents being shredded.

Minns has described the inquiry as a “massive conspiracy” and “the definition of a fishing expedition” and said his staff had nothing to add to its line of questioning.

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