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July 28, 2024
Sunday 28 July 2024
Anthony Galloway and Finn McHugh
Capital Brief
For much of this year, journalists and Labor insiders have speculated over whether it would be Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil or Immigration Minister Andrew Giles who would be moved amid the fallout of the High Court’s NZYQ decision.
In the end, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese decided to move them both on, handing veteran cabinet minister Tony Burke the super portfolio of home affairs and immigration in a significant shakeup of the government.
Albanese was keen on Sunday to present his government as the “most stable in living memory” – but he had for some time been looking for a trigger to shake things up.
Few expected the shake up to be quite this sweeping.
Knowing that the government’s response to NZYQ was continuing to harm Labor’s chances at the next election, the Prime Minister months ago called for any ministers who were planning to retire to let him know by the mid-winter break. After Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney and Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Connor came forward, Albanese had his trigger.
The timing of the two announcements – the retirements on Thursday and then the reshuffle on Sunday, originally revealed by Capital Brief – was designed to emphasise that the rejig was happening because of Burney and O’Connor, rather than the state of the home affairs and immigration portfolios.
On Sunday, Albanese announced his reshuffle with Malarndirri McCarthy replacing Burney and Minister for Defence Industry and the Pacific, Pat Conroy, also joining cabinet. Albanese could have stopped here if it was merely about those two retirements – but he didn’t because it wasn’t.
He has given Burke, who was the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the mammoth task of Home Affairs, Cybersecurity and Immigration, while also keeping the Arts portfolio. In Burke, the government will have a highly competent and experienced minister who will not be afraid of a counter-attack against the Opposition in Question Time. He also has experience in the portfolio, having served as immigration minister in Kevin Rudd's second government when he reopened Manus Island to stop asylum seeker boats from coming to Australia.
Many in the government have for some time believed that the performance and structure of Home Affairs is a bigger issue than that of the performance of O’Neil or Giles. They say the department has not been operating well since former secretary Mike Pezzullo was sacked last year after an independent review found he breached the code of conduct over text messages he sent to a Liberal powerbroker.
This came at the same time that an inquiry into Home Affairs by former ASIO director-general Dennis Richardson found it paid companies linked to suspected drug and weapons smuggling to run offshore detention facilities.
By giving Burke both portfolios and elevating immigration to cabinet, there is now no confusion as to who is responsible for the department’s performance.
It also keeps Burke, a potential leadership rival of Albanese, very busy in a controversial portfolio for the foreseeable future.
But in a move that has already sparked sharp criticism from the Coalition, the Department of Home Affairs is losing the domestic spy agency, ASIO, which will move back to the Attorney-General’s Department in a win for Mark Dreyfus.
Home Affairs was created by the then-Turnbull government in 2017 with the rationale of putting all of Australia’s domestic security agencies – including Australian Border Force, ASIO, AFP and AUSTRAC – under one umbrella. The immigration minister at the time, Peter Dutton, was naturally supportive of the idea as he was given the mammoth portfolio. But other cabinet ministers, particularly then-attorney-general George Brandis, who was losing ASIO and AFP - fought against it on the basis it was giving Dutton and Pezzullo too much power.
But many in government were supportive of the model, which was broadly based on the United Kingdom’s Home Office. They said having the attorney-general as the person who signed off on warrants for ASIO, while also being the minister responsible for their day-to-day operations, was never appropriate.
But Albanese has completely reversed this – having moved the AFP and AUSTRAC back to the AG’s Department two years ago and now moving ASIO as well.
It puts Dreyfus in the position of being politically accountable for the enforcement outcomes of ASIO, while also being responsible for signing off on its warrants to spy on Australians.
Asked by Capital Brief on Sunday whether he was slowly dismantling the rationale for Home Affairs, Albanese warned against “making assumptions” about the reason why the super portfolio was created.
The PM clearly thinks that the creation of Home Affairs devalued the immigration compliance functions of the former immigration department, and is going about reversing it - but it begs the question why the department is keeping its name. Aside from its cybersecurity and emergency management functions, Home Affairs now looks more like the former Immigration Department.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said on Sunday: “Labor has completed the destruction of the Home Affairs portfolio as they always secretly wanted to - but never bothered to tell the electorate”.
Albanese also announced other moves which put some of his better performers in key roles, particularly switching Agriculture Minister Murray Watt to employment and workplace relations and O’Neil to housing and homelessness. Housing Minister Julie Collins, who will take on agriculture and small business, was not seen to be getting the message out enough on the government’s policies – such as the Help to Buy scheme and $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund – in the face of attacks by the Greens and the Coalition on housing affordability.
While at times overseeing chaotic messaging in the home affairs role, O’Neil is still widely seen as one of the government’s more engaging performers – making her a potentially strong foil to counter Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather. Insiders say O’Neil’s instinct to go on the attack will suit the housing portfolio well, as opposed to home affairs which required greater circumspection.
“Clare of course is a great communicator. She will lead the delivery of … the range of programs all aimed at delivering further supply,” Albanese said.
Jenny McAllister, who missed out on a ministry at the eleventh-hour after winning government, has also been rewarded with the cities and emergency management portfolio. Albanese explicitly linked McAllister’s old role – assistant climate change and energy minister – to her new one, given an uptick in natural disasters driven by climate change.
Giles has finally moved after months of opposition pressure over the NYZQ case, taking the skills and training portfolio vacated by O’Connor. Skills and training will be represented in cabinet by Watt.
Pat Conroy – who was already a member of the National Security Committee and a key ally of Albanese in the NSW Left faction – will fill the other cabinet vacancy and sit alongside Defence Minister Richard Marles.
“AUKUS … [is] critical,” Albanese said.
“I've made the decision that this area is such an important area of delivery that it is worthy of two cabinet ministers.”
Albanese has also rebuffed pressure to move rival Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek into a more prominent role.
He raised eyebrows by moving Plibersek from education, which she’d held throughout opposition, to the politically-toxic environment portfolio. The role is considered a poisoned chalice in Labor, with the progressive Plibersek forced to approve a number of coal and gas projects.
But with polls tightening, there was speculation Albanese might move Plibersek – one of his strongest and most popular performers – to the fore.
It’s a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
