Godwin Grech furious over being used for ALP smear against Dutton

Godwin Grech has blasted ‘insinuations’ from ministers that he had any connection to Peter Dutton’s handling of shares during the GFC.

Former senior Treasury officer Godwin Grech in 2009. Picture: Gary Ramage

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Godwin Grech, the former senior Treasury officer Labor has suggested may have been involved in insider trading of bank shares during the global financial crisis and even passed sensitive information to Peter Dutton, has categorically denied all the claims.

Mr Grech has described the “insinuations” from senior Labor ministers about his conduct 16 years ago while working for Treasury as “baseless and highly ­defamatory”.

“To be absolutely clear, at no stage in my years as a public servant in both the Treasury and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet did I engage in any conduct involving insider trading either for myself or anyone else,” he told The Australian on Friday.

“Specifically with respect to Peter Dutton, at no stage either before, during or after the GFC, did I provide any information on any issue to Peter Dutton, his family, friends or staff.

“Any suggestion to the contrary is a lie and will result in me suing for defamation.”

As Labor ramps up its personal campaign against the Opposition Leader ahead of the election, Mr Dutton has denied any wrongdoing and maintained he has conducted himself with integrity.

Employment Minister Murray Watt and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher this week used Senate committee hearings to reveal the Opposition Leader’s property dealings and suggested buying bank shares the day before a government bailout for banks was “unusual”.

Peter Dutton. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Mr Grech is known for his role at the centre of the 2009 Utegate scandal in which he fabricated an email from then-prime minister Kevin Rudd’s economic adviser, Andrew Charlton, purportedly trying to organise a kickback for a political donor.

The fallout cost Mr Grech his job and led to the downfall of the then opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull.

An email from Mr Grech when he was working on the GFC measures for Treasury in 2008 was read to the Senate committee this week with the inference that the unnamed recipient could have been Mr Dutton, who was then opposition health spokesman.

The heavily redacted email ­tabled on Wednesday showed Mr Grech claiming to be “very busy here dealing with this bank guarantee business” and warning of unintended consequences. “There is much to discuss,” he wrote to an unknown recipient on December 3, 2008.

Senator Gallagher said Labor was asking reasonable questions because “there is a history here and now we know that on the eve of a very significant announcement, a market-sensitive announcement, there was the purchase of a substantial number of shares in the major banks in this country by Mr Dutton”.

“Why were those shares purchased the day before a very substantial bank bailout?” Senator Gallagher asked.

On Friday Senator Watt, when asked if he was an attack dog, said: “I’ve seen Peter Dutton carrying on this week and saying, ‘poor me’ about this. I mean, let’s be serious. Peter Dutton has spent his entire career going after other people, including the Prime Minister so, you know, I think people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

“The issue that we were pursuing this week was this very unusual share transaction that he engaged in the middle of the GFC.”

Murray Watt at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Mr Grech said it was distressing that ministers were forcing him to face “baseless” insinuations.

“As a long-term Comcare client living with an accepted mental health illness that was demonstrably aggravated as a result of working for the commonwealth, I find it distressing and seriously unsettling that I am forced to address baseless and highly defamatory insinuations about my conduct from more than 16 years ago while working in Treasury during the GFC,” he said.

“It is especially disappointing that senior cabinet ministers who really should know better – especially in light of the fallout from the tragic Brittany Higgins saga that may have contributed to the serious illness of one senator – appear to be actively promoting blatantly fictitious and defamatory insinuations towards me.”

Mr Dutton said Anthony Albanese was using “lackeys” to spread dirt about him.

“The Prime Minister’s office is shopping around dirt sheets at the moment,” he said. “Transactions that go back to when I was 20 years of age. I’ve conducted myself with integrity at every moment of my life, including as a police officer and since I’ve been in politics.”