The attorney-general made 14 appointments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on Friday, five of which are linked to the Coalition.
For sheer political opportunism, it’s hard to beat Australia’s first law officer Christian Porter. The attorney-general chose last Friday afternoon, at the tail end of the year, to announce the appointment of yet more Liberal Party mates to high-paying jobs at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).
As regular readers will know, Inq has gone into some detail on the government’s plundering of the AAT — a practice that shows how ready it has been to use taxpayers’ money for party political purposes, as a reward for service or as a payoff for factional work.
In doing so, the government — with the attorney-general’s sign-off — trashes the independence and professionalism of a body with the quasi-judicial role of reviewing the merits of government decisions. Robodebt has been one of those areas.
