"We" can make any accusation we like in a parliamentary enquiry. It is covered by absolute privilege.
Not quite “absolute”, Olivia.
If the allegation is made,
knowing the allegation to be false, there are potentially serious consequences.
If someone goes in front of a Senate committee and tells a deliberate lie about me, I can’t take legal action against that person. However, telling a deliberate lie to Senate committee is itself a breach of parliamentary privilege.
The privilege exists to facilitate the discovery of truth,
not to protect deliberate liars.
That’s why I’m interested to know what individuals in CASA take responsibility for throwing the mud at witnesses like Aherne.
Aherne and the other ‘private’ witnesses are personally responsible for their evidence – and rightly so.
But who, precisely, in CASA, takes responsibility for asserting that Aherne said something “false and misleading”?
At the point at which Senator Fawcett asked the CASA witnesses about who was responsible for ‘closing the loop’ on commitments made by CASA to coroners, all the witnesses ducked for cover – nobody was responsible. I wonder what the answer would be if Committee asked each of the CASA witnesses at the next hearing to either take or deny responsibility for the content of the First Supplemental Submission.
I’ve just read Mr Davies’ submission.
I say again: CASA’s response to the ditching was a travesty and the ATSB report was a sick joke.