This is the second of a two-part series.
When Attorney-General Christian Porter appointed Liberal Party lifer Karen Synon to head up the social services and child support division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal it capped a near five-year Coalition blitz on the AAT’s independence.
As we’ve reported, the stacking of the AAT is the quintessential example of how the Morrison government has corrupted government processes to the benefit of party members, backroom workers and failed candidates.
The social services and child support division is responsible for a third of the AAT’s work, dealing mainly with Centrelink decisions affecting the aged pension, carer allowances and support, Newstart, youth allowance and ABSTUDY, to give a partial list. Those appealing to it are, in short, the people most in need of help and a fair hearing when taking on Australian bureaucracy.
‘Corporations Act, it’s time to grow up!’
By Naomi Neilson|14 February 2021
Australian Law Reform Commission lawyers have poked fun at the almost 20-year-old
Corporations Act in a light-hearted script that tells the story of discontented parents as they implore their “son” to finally grow up, slim down and get tech-savvy.
Father:
Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)
, could you come here, please? Your mother and I would like to speak to you.
In a script created by Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) senior legal officer, William Isdale, and legal officer Nicholas Simoes da Silva, the “parents” of the maturing
Corporations Act have called him into the room for a witty talking-to about his complete lack of coherency, his overwhelming length and his constant, needless modifications.
Attorney-General Christian Porter (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)
As Australia was drifting into its festivity-induced haze over the Christmas break, Attorney-General Christian Porter quietly slipped out news of a $500,000-a-year appointment he’d made to a Liberal Party lifer. Nothing unusual in that.
Even less surprising was that it was another well-paid job for life at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal which the government has relentlessly stacked with cronies.
Yet the appointment of Karen Synon, made in the figurative dead of night, deserves a closer look, not least because she is the government pick to run the very area of the AAT the social services and child support division which called out the illegal basis of the government’s robodebt scheme. That scheme was a scandalous abuse of power which left a trail of ruin in the name of budget repair on the way to a billion-dollar class action settlement.
Hanson threatening to torpedo workplace law reforms unless the Morrison Government drops its plan to water down a key safety net for workers entitlements.