Peter van Onselen: The dodgy tactic that every political party is indulging in and why it has to stop

It’s a tactic used by politicians of all political stripes, but it must stop: asking inflammatory questions that are factually wrong to gain media attention.

The Greens are now using it to inaccurately smear both Australian companies and individuals.

Just a week after Greens Senator Barbara Pocock made an embarrassing blunder in Parliament, she is at it again, this time misleading Parliament with an inaccurate and leading question.

Daily Mail Australia recently revealed Senator Pocock’s $99,900,000 blunder when she criticized government officials over a “missing” $100 million payment that didn’t actually exist.

The payment she incorrectly referred to was in fact $100,000, not $100 million, and although the senator claimed that ‘key milestones had not been properly met’, both the government department and the service provider (big four consultancy KPMG) denied this .

The Greens senator eventually deleted her tweet, but only after queries from Daily Mail Australia.

Yet Senator Pocock is at it again, using questions at another committee hearing to smear the consulting firm again. This time she is also attacking another government body: regulator ASIC.

The problem with the attacks is that they include more careless mistakes by the senator.

In February, Senator Pocock interviewed ASIC officials at Senate Estimates asking: “Has it come to your attention at ASIC that KPMG carried out bogus audits for two companies, Paladin and Canstruct, who subsequently received more than $2 billion in taxpayers’ money to to run immigration? detention centers for the Ministry of the Interior?’

It was a serious allegation of improper conduct. She further asked: ‘Is ASIC currently investigating KPMG for breaches of audit standards in relation to those audits?’

ASIC took note of the questions and understandably could not provide an answer during the hearing. As a result, the accusation was treated as a fact, reported in the media at the time, simply based on the question asked.

Daily Mail Australia can now reveal that after ASIC recently provided a written response to Senator Pocock, it made it clear that the question was based on a completely false premise.

KPMG was not even the designated accountant of either company. Naturally, ASIC therefore does not investigate breaches of audit standards in relation to work it did not do.

Greens Senator Barbara Pocock (above) has a habit of making inaccurate comments under privilege

The error was intended to get the right headline before the facts eventually came to light – and Senator Pocock has yet to correct the record.

The senator, a former economics professor from South Australia, also used a radio interview on the ABC in July last year to claim that partnerships such as the big consultancies do not pay payroll tax in Australia. However, this is also not true.

Parliamentary privileges allow MPs and Senators to discredit and humiliate anyone they name: people or organizations. They can do this without legal consequences, as long as they limit their comments to parliament and do not repeat the accusations outside it.

Parliamentary privileges are also applied during committee hearings. There are currently more than a hundred parliamentary committees active, where witnesses who are called to testify are also protected by privileges.

At a time when political parties are calling for all kinds of reforms in media regulations, within legal institutions and within the business community, it is time for them to look closer to home. By their own behavior, abusing the once important concept of parliamentary privilege for ideological purposes.