Office romance at DPS raises questions; fractures deepen inside Melbourne chapters of YPO

Cate Saunders, former deputy secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services.

You can bet a few questions are being asked over the exit of the very senior Parliament House bureaucrat Cate Saunders, who served as deputy secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services from 2019 to October 2023.

We understand she left that role on very good terms and with a substantial exit package to boot. These days she’s completely separated from the bureaucracy, where she spent almost two decades of her career; now she’s working as a sales associate, selling property with a boutique Canberra real estate agency.

A lesser known footnote, however, is that Saunders was in a relationship with her boss, DPS Secretary Rob Stefanic, who was mentioned in this column last year over a questionable decision to ban bottles of wine being left on tables during functions in the Great Hall.

We called him a fun-sponge for that order and he wasn’t too fond of the designation, but he defended the decision in light of a blistering review released at the time around parliament’s workplace culture.

Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services Rob Stefanic. Picture: AAP

And lo, speaking of workplace culture! Nothing overtly wrong with an office romance, to be sure, but one might ask exactly who cleared Saunders’ exit package and whether or not that person was indeed Stefanic and if the relationship had even been declared at that point.

A DPS spokeswoman told us that Saunders took a secondment with Services Australia in April last year and that she left the public service during that period. “The secretary maintained a professional working relationship with Ms Saunders for a number of years before her employment by Services Australia in April 2023,” she said. “The secretary declares all relevant relationships in the appropriate manner.”

Responses, we might add, that hardly clarify the two most important questions at hand, namely whether the relationship was declared in a timely manner, and whether or not Stefanic signed off on the package for Saunders — known internally as an “incentive to retire” payment.

Senator Jane Hume had the good sense to ask about Saunders’ absence from the table during budget estimates in February. Stefanic, answering those questions, took them on notice — and we’ve heard nothing of them since.

Boots and all

We spied an unusual contribution from Dr Kerryn Phelps to the online river of sludge formerly known as Twitter on Monday, an off-brand tweet that vanished shortly after it was posted.

The former MP started by retweeting someone else’s quote of radical British preacher Anjem Choudary, in which he said democracy would be replaced by sharia law in the UK, Belgium and France within 20 years. A concerned Phelps put that to her followers with a warning: “Wake up Australia,” posting an Australian flag alongside it, the whole post bristling with a weird brand of nationalism so drastically out of character for the veteran gay rights campaigner. Even some detractors gave her the benefit of the doubt and asked if her account had been hacked.

Alas, Phelps told Margin Call she hadn’t been hacked at all and those were indeed her sentiments but she deleted the tweet over “some noxious responses” from the trolls. In a 350-word statement provided to Margin Call, she said her intended point was about the radicalisation of young people through social media, which was obviously buried sotto voce in what was actually said. “Yes, it is time to wake up to this threat.”

Fired up

Meanwhile, we’re hearing of deepening fractures inside the Melbourne chapters of YPO, the global and invitation-only group of young leaders. Concerns have apparently been raised over two prominent members, Hash Tayeh and Nasser Mashni, and mainly in relation to remarks they’ve made in public forums.

Mashni is president of the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network and is on record advocating for the total destruction of Israel.

Tayeh, CEO of Burgertory, is a speaker at pro-Palestinian rallies. He wrote a poem praising Yemen but which winked at Houthi rebels who attacked shipping in the Red Sea. He’s also led chants that include the rhyme “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

All of which has clearly caused discomfort among the broader YPO membership and led to questions being raised with the organisation’s leadership asking whether or not some of these remarks might have breached the YPO code of conduct.

Not yet, apparently. No action has been taken against Tayeh or Mashni, from what we hear, and believe the YPO WhatsApp groups and subgroups have been aflame with dialogue querying whether YPO Global is adequately managing the discord.

The smallest man who ever lived

Meanwhile, the ex-girlfriend of federal MP Josh Burns threw up some shade on Instagram on Monday at news of Burns’ fresh relationship — or situationship? — with Victorian Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell.

Josh Burns MP for Macnamara.

Kate, as she’s known, posted a screenshot of a Sunday Telegraph article noting Burns and Purcell being seen out together, except she added a caption which said, “It’s Bashert”, a word that roughly translates from Yiddish to mean the relationship was destined, or maybe written in the stars. Either way, the line was soaking in sarcasm. Cherry on top was the accompanying song added to the post.

Taylor Swift, of course, and so many break-up tracks to choose from, too. Was it The Story of Us? Last Kiss? Death by a Thousand Cuts?

Not even close. Kate’s choice of track? The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.