Julie Bishop’s emails to remain secret

The Prime Minister has been accused of repeatedly refusing to answer questions about his office’s dealings with Greensill.

Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison in parliament in 2019. Picture: Kym Smith

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has refused to hand over more than 120,000 emails that may have been sent ­between the department, former foreign minister Julie Bishop and her fellow associates of collapsed ­financier Greensill Capital.

A Freedom of Information ­request lodged by Labor industry spokesman Ed Husic seeking ­access to email correspondence between department officials and Ms Bishop, Lex Greensill and David Cameron was refused because the request would “substantially and unreasonably divert resources of the department from other operations”.

A preliminary search by the ­department identified 122,515 potentially relevant documents that would need to be assessed under the scope of Mr Husic’s request. It estimated it would take “at least 22,388 hours” to process those documents.

The application sought copies of all emails between the department and Ms Bishop from August 28, 2018 – when she moved to the backbench after her failed leadership tilt – and July 6 this year.

It also sought emails between the department and Greensill, its founder Mr Greensill and former British prime minister Mr Cameron between January 1, 2015, and this month.

Mr Cameron and Ms Bishop were advisers to ­Greensill which collapsed ­earlier this year after failing to renew $4.6bn in ­insurance policies.

Ms Bishop was named as the chair of Greensill’s Asia Pacific arm in December 2019 and formally registered Greensill as a client of her lobbying business Julie Bishop and Partners in April 2020.

The department said it was not able to divert resources from other operations to process the FOI request. “In reaching this view, the department has had regard to the public interest in access to information held by the department but considers the public interest in ­access is outweighed by the competing public interest in the ability of the department to undertake its ordinary functions without substantial impairment, including the processing of other FOI requests,” it said in its response.

The declined request came just weeks after the department responded to a question on notice from Labor senator Murray Watt seeking details of any introductions made by Ms Bishop between government ministers and Greensill by saying it would also be “an unreasonable ­diversion of resources”.

Mr Husic said the number of emails returned by the initial search was “astounding”.

“At every turn the Prime Minister and Ms Bishop have refused to answer legitimate questions around their relationship with Lex Greensill, and at a time Australians were struggling through the pandemic, Ms Bishop was collecting an annual salary of around $800,000 to spruik Greensill’s dodgy finance product.”

“There are more than 600 staff in the Prime Minister’s department yet he wants us to believe that responding to these legitimate concerns are an unnecessary diversion of resources.”

A government spokesman said Mr Morrison had already given details about his meeting with Mr Greensill. “The Prime Minister and a staff member met with Mr Greensill on 30 October,” he said. “Mr Greensill was referred to meet with relevant staff in the Prime Minister’s office if he wished to provide a detailed proposal … the Australian government did not pursue any part of Mr Greensill’s proposal.”

Ms Bishop approached Josh Frydenberg’s office on behalf of Greensill, senior Treasury officials have previously confirmed.

Ms Bishop, according to those officials, sought information about the government’s small and medium enterprise guarantee scheme ahead of a teleconference on April 2 last year – at the height of the pandemic.