Labor ignored whistleblower on airport security flaws
THE Labor Party turned away whistleblower Allan Kessing and refused to act when he provided federal MP Anthony Albanese - now the Transport Minister - with access to a secret report on security flaws at Sydney airport.
When Labor was in opposition, Mr Kessing, a former Customs officer, provided a clandestine briefing to the Sydney office of Mr Albanese, his mother's local member.
Despite accompanying that briefing with a report on security failures that had been suppressed for more than two years, Mr Kessing's attempt to persuade Labor to take up the issue was rebuffed. Several days after briefing Mr Albanese's electorate officer, Nathan Cureton, Mr Kessing telephoned to check on Mr Albanese's intentions. Mr Cureton told him Mr Albanese would not be taking any action.
Mr Kessing has retained Mr Cureton's business card and has provided The Australian with telephone records showing he made a call to Mr Albanese's electorate office that lasted two minutes and four seconds. That call took place on April 5, 2005, less than a week after Mr Kessing's visit to Mr Albanese's office.
Mr Cureton, who is a solicitor, no longer works for Mr Albanese. He confirmed he met Mr Kessing but said he could not remember the details of the meeting and it was inappropriate to discuss his work for Mr Albanese.
Mr Kessing said Mr Cureton took two pages of notes. Halfway through the briefing, Mr Cureton took the report into an office normally occupied by Mr Albanese.
He could not see if Mr Albanese was present but Mr Cureton remained in that room with the report for 10 minutes.
Mr Albanese said yesterday: "I am confident my electorate office in general responds to representations appropriately, but I will check any records to ensure an accurate response, given this is back in 2005."
Mr Kessing's leak to Mr Albanese, whose electorate of Grayndler borders Sydney airport, means at least some elements within the then Labor opposition knew about the security risk at Sydney airport almost two months before its disclosure in The Australian on May 31, 2005.
Kevin Rudd, who criticised the Howard government's approach to whistleblowers before the last election, last night declined to say whether he knew that Mr Albanese had rebuffed Mr Kessing.
When asked if the Prime Minister had been aware of the incident, a spokesman said: "Mr Rudd's comments during the 2007 election campaign related to whistleblowing and the approach of the Howard government in this area.
"The Rudd Government is developing its response to the House of Representatives committee report on whistleblower reform."
Mr Albanese's inaction on the airport security leak has only come to light now because Mr Kessing has volunteered the information to The Australian in full knowledge its publication could prompt federal authorities to charge him with breaching public service secrecy laws for a second time.
Mr Kessing has already been convicted of providing the report on airport security to The Australian - an accusation he still denies, despite freely admitting he leaked it to Mr Albanese.
"If I am going to have a criminal record it may as well be for something I have done rather than for something I have not done," Mr Kessing said.
He also wanted to show the nation why the government needed to greatly improve the limited whistleblower reform plan it is soon expected to make public. His experience in attempting to have Mr Albanese address an issue that was clearly in the public interest meant the federal government needed to extend the likely scope of its whistleblower reforms.
The government has been considering a report that calls for most public interest disclosures to remain criminal offences unless they are made to authorised groups inside the public sector, including federal politicians. By revealing his contacts with Mr Albanese's office, Mr Kessing has also cast light on why he never gave evidence in his own defence during his trial over the leak to The Australian.
Had he been asked if he had ever leaked the secret report, he would have been required to reveal the leak to Mr Albanese, potentially exposing Mr Kessing to liability over events that were unknown to the authorities.
However, Mr Kessing adopted that position reluctantly. On July 31, 2007, he sent an email to his solicitor, Joe Weller, that said in part: "I'm still tempted to drop Albanese & Kendall/Bevis into this, since AA had the docs in April." The "Kendall/Bevis" reference is to Rod Kendall, a staffer for federal Labor backbencher Arch Bevis.
Other documents supplied by Mr Kessing had been passed on to Mr Bevis's office by Mr Cureton in Mr Albanese's office.
An email from Mr Kessing to Mr Kendall dated November 7, 2005, says: "I have heard nothing from you or your office since giving Nathan (@ Grayndler) the requested docs for you in Canberra that w/e?? beginning of October? I hope they were received, understood and proved useful."
Mr Kendall replied the same day: "I did receive the information and used it as the basis for some questions I submitted to Senate estimates hearings."
Mr Kessing's decision to admit leaking confidential material to Mr Albanese comes soon after he abandoned a plan aimed at laying information about the affair before the NSW Supreme Court in an attempt to reopen his conviction over the leak to The Australian.
For more than a month, Mr Kessing and a small team led by independent senator Nick Xenophon, have been assembling information aimed at persuading NSW Chief Justice Jim Spigelman that Mr Kessing's conviction was unsafe and needed to be reopened.
Mr Kessing, who still owes money for past legal fees, has now abandoned that course, saying he is in no fit state - financially or emotionally - for another extended round of legal action.
Source:
The Australian