The Federal Court of Australia dodged questions about the costs of judges’ gatherings for two years. Photo: LinkedIn.
The Federal Court of Australia spends more than $100,000 a year on food and wine when judges get together for their own swish social functions, but for two years the Federal Parliament has been told nothing was spent because no such events were held.
In a bold and extraordinary case of weasel words and bureaucratic manipulation of the truth, Senate Estimates hearings since 2023 were repeatedly told the court had “not held any functions or official receptions” between 2021 and 2024.
That line was repeated in response to questions being specifically asked about the court spending massive amounts of taxpayers’ money on “lavishly catered” get-togethers.
But while the answer was the same each time, the truth of the matter is that almost half a million dollars was splashed on the judges over a three-year period – with $40,000-plus a pop being spent on catering two-day national judges’ meetings.
There is also an endless stream of welcome and farewell ceremonies for incoming/outgoing judges and movements between the court’s state registries.
And that’s not even including any expenditure details related to the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Divisions 1 and 2) or the National Native Title Tribunal.
Liberal Senator Jane Hume was dogged in her pursuit of a breakdown of the costs of these parties when she asked questions in Estimates in 2023 and 2024.
But she kept getting the reply that no functions had been held and therefore there had been no taxpayer outlay.
The problem for Senator Hume, it turns out, is she was asking the questions of the Attorney-General’s Department (ADG) and the Federal Court supplied answers through that channel.
That, apparently, allowed it to be pedantic over the terminology being used in order to evade the questions.
Enter Greens justice spokesperson David Shoebridge, who decided on a different approach when Estimates last sat late last year.
Senator Shoebridge asked questions directly of the Federal Court and was very prescriptive in his line of inquiry.
Those questions were taken on notice, with answers having just been provided and published on the parliamentary website.
There, in black and white, is a breakdown of party expenses going back to the 2021-22 financial year when it spent $106,236 on functions.
The following year totalled $173,114 for the judges’ catering, with the one after that reaching $145,148.
The reason for different answers being given to different senators to the same question?
Here’s what a spokesperson for the Federal Court of Australia had to say when asked that question by Region.
“In responding to Senator Hume’s question, regarding ‘expenditure on any functions or official receptions etc hosted by the Department or agencies in the portfolio’, the Federal Court of Australia Entity has accurately provided a nil response because the Federal Court of Australia Entity has not hosted any relevant functions,” they said.
“The Federal Court of Australia Entity, as an agency in the ADG portfolio, does not include the Chief Justice, Judges and Registrars of the FCA.
“The FCA Entity also does not include the Chief Justice, Judges and Registrars of the FCFCOA.
“In contrast, Senator Shoebridge specifically asked questions of the Federal Court of Australia (which includes the Chief Justice and judges) regarding the costs of events hosted by the Court, such as judicial welcome and farewell ceremonies, judges and registrar plenaries, and other engagements with the legal profession etc.”
All good then.
One’s an ‘’entity’’ and the other isn’t.
Senators should have known that and directed the questions to the proper people, right?
Of course.
Except that’s not how Senator Shoebridge sees it, and although he’s the one who got the answers, he’s furious about the dodging of Senator Hume’s questions.
“When a senator asks a department a question, it is their job to answer it and inform the public with a genuine answer, not to dance around trying as hard as possible not to respond,” Senator Shoebridge told Region.
“We have seen the Albanese Government become more and more secretive. It has got to the stage where they are in genuine competition with the former Morrison government for the least transparent ever.
“This is a story about judges throwing lavish parties costing $100,000 a year while these same courts are in desperate need of more funding to deal with delays.
“When any senator asks about a court’s entertainment expenses and gets an answer that deliberately hides the expenses of entertaining judges, then you know something is cooked.
“Yet that’s exactly what happened here until my office asked the precise question needed to get the information.
“I know why we didn’t get this information the first few times: it’s because it is embarrassing.
“Embarrassing is not a reason to hide something, it’s a reason to provide the information and then fix the problem.”
Senator Shoebridge has vowed to pursue the matter further when Parliament returns.
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Riotact.
