George Brandis dumps legal directive

George Brandis says his decision to dump a controversial legal directive comes after a ‘confected storm in a tea cup’.

Attorney-General George Brandis says his decision to dump a controversial directive for how legal advice was sought from the solicitor-general comes after a “confected storm in a tea cup” about the change.

Facing a move from Labor and the Senate crossbench to disallow the legal services direction that led to the dramatic ­resignation of former solicitor- general Justin Gleeson, Senator Brandis pre-emptively rescinded the change yesterday.

He said he had made the “commonsense” decision after consulting with Acting Solicitor-General Tom Howe following Mr Gleeson’s resignation last month.

“He (Mr Howe) agreed with me that it was appropriate that when the new solicitor-general came into office, which will be very soon, that he should begin, as it were, with a clean slate,” Senator Brandis said.

“I have said all along I regard this as a matter of administrative housekeeping. I think it is the greatest confected storm in a tea cup that I have ever seen.”

Senator Brandis rejected suggestions that the legal directive had been aimed specifically at Mr Gleeson as a “conspiracy ­theory” favoured by the Left ­faction of the Labor Party.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus ­labelled Senator Brandis’s backflip on the measure — repealed hours before the measure would have been blocked by the oppos­ition and Senate crossbench — as “extraordinary”.

“After all of the blustering, posturing and lying, it has come to this: George Brandis has ­reversed his own legal services ­direction, which limited the role of the solicitor-general to such an extent that it forced Justin Gleeson to resign,” Mr Dreyfus said.

“This is the direction which George Brandis has been ­defending for months — arguing that he was simply bringing the solicitor-general’s procedures in line with the law, that Mr Gleeson had asked for it, that it caused no trouble at all.”

Malcolm Turnbull accused Mr Dreyfus of having an “unhealthy obsession” with Senator Brandis, and said the government would discuss the legal ­services direction with the new solicitor-general “in due course”.

“I’m not sure if there is anything in the standing orders about unhealthy obsessions or stalking but the member for Isaacs’s enduring interest in the Attorney-General is one that reaches a pinnacle,’’ the Prime Minister said.

Labor’s attack on Senator Brandis came as the High Court set November 21 as the date for a directions hearing over whether Bob Day and Rod Culleton were ineligible to be elected to the Senate.

The Court of Disputed ­Returns will examine whether Mr Day had an indirect pecun­iary interest in a lease he organ­ised with the federal govern­ment, which paid rent to a friend of the Family First senator for his electoral office. Mr Day held a mortgage secured by the property, and rent was scheduled to be paid into his bank account.

The court will also consider whether a larceny conviction against One Nation senator Rodney Culleton over the theft of a tow truck key made him ­ineligible to nominate as a candid­ate. Senator Culleton faces a bankruptcy hearing in the Federal Court in Perth on the same day.