Neither Dutton nor Pezzullo convinced me to set up Home Affairs

George Brandis’ account of the creation of the Department of Home Affairs is not right. So, reluctant as I am to correct my learned friend, let me set the record straight.

There had been for many years a proposal to bring all the domestic national security agencies together in one department, modelled on the United Kingdom’s Home Office. It was Labor Party policy from 2001 under Kim Beazley to 2007 under Kevin Rudd.

Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull announces the appointment of Peter Dutton (centre) as minister for home affairs in 2017, flanked by then-attorney-general George Brandis (right).Credit: Andrew Meares

Rudd commissioned former ambassador to China Ric Smith to undertake a review of domestic security and while Smith did not recommend the creation of a department in line with Labor policy, he did conclude that a small co-ordinating Department of Home Affairs could be effective at leading Australia’s counterterrorism effort if it focused on strategic issues.

Several domestic security reviews undertaken in 2015, before I was prime minister, were supportive of the home affairs concept, although did not go so far as to formally recommend it.

The history demonstrates that this not-particularly original idea was not a singular project of then-secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Security, Mike Pezzullo, let alone Peter Dutton, although they both supported it. Equally, it is true that then-attorney-general George Brandis opposed it just as he had opposed it when it was reconsidered during Tony Abbott’s time as PM.

I’m sure George had some machinery of government concerns informing his view, but he was equally apprehensive about more power being concentrated in a department headed by Dutton, let alone, in Abbott’s time, Scott Morrison.

Then-Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo (right) with then-minister Peter Dutton in 2020.Credit: afr

The principal advocate for this reform in my time was, in fact, my own department of Prime Minister and Cabinet which formally recommended the move in their “incoming government” brief to me after the 2016 election.

I found the argument for a Home Affairs Department persuasive. I had never been persuaded the attorney-general should be responsible for the AFP or ASIO (any more than a state attorney-general should be minister for police). In my view, the attorney-general’s role should be as the minister for integrity: the source of objective legal advice to the government, someone who ensures the security agencies obey the law and who is not compromised by being responsible for their day-to-day operations. While we do not have to slavishly imitate the administrative models of other countries, there is no doubt the home affairs approach was also in close alignment with the arrangements in our closest partners in the United States and UK.

At the time of the reform, the relevant domestic security agencies were scattered around the government – including AFP and ASIO in the Attorney-General’s Department, Border Force and Customs in Immigration, Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity in Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Transport Security in Infrastructure, among many others.

While some of my colleagues, especially George, were apprehensive about Dutton, some of the agencies due to be moved into the new department were horrified by the thought of working with Pezzullo. If I had, for example, appointed Greg Moriarty, my then chief of staff and current secretary of the Department of Defence, to be the head of the new Home Affairs Department, there would have been very little bureaucratic opposition.

With Pezzullo, I was presented with an invidious choice. He was definitely well-equipped to bring the new super department together, and he believed in the concept. On the other hand, his poor interpersonal skills were a big obstacle to bringing the agencies together, and I counselled him several times on this.

I believe the logic for the reform remains correct. Certainly, it is awkward to have the first law officer responsible for both administering the security agencies and holding them to account. This does not dictate a model precisely like home affairs. But it does perhaps speak to my purist view of the role of the attorney-general.

Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister of Australia from 2015-2018.