Clare O’Neil under fire after leaving Home Affairs boss ‘in tears’
“I work very closely with the secretary of my department and let me talk about some of the work we’re doing so constructively together. As I have spoken to the parliament about before, we have a Home Affairs department with some very, very significant issues,” she said.
“I would say to the deputy leader of the opposition, my secretary and I work closely together. It is why I was supportive of the decision of the prime minister and PM&C [Prime Minister and Cabinet] to appoint secretary Foster to the role. We have an incredibly important clean-up job to do in the department, work we are doing. Don’t take it from me, take it from the litany of eminent Australians who have written reports about significant, systemic issues in my department.
“We have a significant job to do and I’m here to do it, to serve the national interest, not the political interest of the Liberal Party.”
O’Neil has called four inquiries into aspects of Home Affairs work: the Nixon review into failures to deal with visa fraud and human trafficking; the Richardson probe into failures in the management of offshore detention procurement; the Parkinson report into the migration system; and the Briggs investigation into former Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo’s misconduct.
In contrast to O’Neil’s answers, Giles point-blank denied a report that he had not spoken to Foster for a week after the document had been tabled by the secretary.
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“The allegation that it is based on is simply not true … I can say further to that I speak with Ms Foster very regularly, as I did when she was the associate secretary. She is a highly credentialed public servant who I am privileged to work with together with my friend, the minister for Home Affairs,” he said.
In response to a series of detailed questions to Foster for the original story, a spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said that “Ms Foster meets regularly with ministers to discuss a range of matters that impact the department and its functions. The department does not comment on the content of those discussions.”
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