By Raf Priest
In a recent Conflicts of Law class, convenor Kieran Pender took an interesting tangent - of which he is often prone to do. Mostly, these tangents involve his upcoming Euro Summer holiday (don’t worry Kieran this is not a complaint, I love the course and I love hearing about your planned european getaway).This tangent, however, was on the idea that you can be held in contempt of Parliament.
I’m sure from all of the hours spent studying the law student classics - Suits, Legally Blonde, Liar Liar, Rake etc - most readers of this article (if there are any) would have some idea of what contempt of Court is. For those who are not, it is “conduct interfering with, or tending to interfere with the proper administration of Justice”. Contempt of court can also include words or conduct that “show disregard for the authority of the court”. But have you ever heard of contempt of Parliament? I certainly hadn’t until Kieran’s tangent sent me on my own wild tangent that spawned an idea; Can I write an article that has me held in contempt of Parliament? In essence, this article is a law student’s Jackass
But before I get to the interesting part of this article, to be in contempt of the Commonwealth Parliament you have to commit conduct
‘intended or likely to amount, to an improper interference with the free exercise by a House or committee of its authority or functions, or with the free performance by a member of the member’s duties as a member’[1]
So largely very similar to contempt of court. It is conduct that will or is intended to interfere with either the functions of the House of Parliament or its Members. Examples of this could be disorderly conduct in Parliament (think what SALT wishes they could do if they actually left campus for once), forging or falsifying documents presented to Parliament and bribery of members.
But most importantly for this article there are two types of conduct that we should take note of; ‘intimidation of members’ and a ‘soundbite hungry Senator’.
Wait. What did you say?
Intimidation of a member. Well, in 1955 a newspaper owner (Ray Fitzpatrick) and a journalist (Frank Browne) were both jailed for two months for suggesting in an article that a Member of the House of Representatives (Charles Morgan) had been involved in ‘immigration rackets’[2]. This article was said to have put the Member in a position to be unable to speak his mind without fear in Parliament[3].
No. Not that. A soundbite hungry Senator? What does that even mean?
Oh you aren’t interested in obscure cases of Parliamentary episodes from the 50s?[4]
No. Literally no one has ever asked that. NERD!
We want to know how a ‘soundbite hungry Senator’ is contempt of Senate?
Ah I see, so glad you asked so politely. In case you didn’t see the news recently, Senator Nick McKim of the Greens Party threatened the outgoing Woolworths CEO, Brad Banducci, with six months jail time for contempt of the Senate.
But what was the charge? Was it enjoying a succulent Chinese meal in our seat of Government? Was it storming off in the middle of an interview while cosplaying as a shelf stocker? No, it was nothing quite as interesting as that. The charge was being unable to answer a question in the Senate Committee on Supermarket Prices.
But surely this question raised real issues of substance to the committee proceedings – questions that went to the heart of the cost of living crisis that this dirty, sleazy, grimey, capitalist-in-chief was deliberately avoiding in order to hide the evil neo-liberal empire’s secrets from ‘Comrade’ McKim? No, again nothing as interesting as that. The question in question was, simply, “what is Woolworths Return on Equity (ROE)?”.
ROE is a financial metric that, as I am reliably informed by some random accounting and finance student I cornered, is only sometimes used and really not that important in the grand scheme of things. So, all of this McCarthyite outrage and a threat not invoked since the 50s was to get a soundbite of a dirty capitalist being unable to answer the question, just to be posted to the favourite medium of all Greens Party Hacks, Twitter (or X for the Law/Fin Elon fanboys).
So what I meant when I said that “a twitter hungry senator” could be contempt of Senate was that you can be charged, or at the very least threatened, with contempt of Senate if you are faced with a Senator more interested in getting a soundbite to post to his economically challenged party faithful instead of engaging in thoughtful examination of an issue that has real and meaningful consequences to Australia.
What could have ‘Supreme Chairman of the 47th Oblast’ McKim asked Banducci instead? What about, “Is the Productivity Commission's assessment of the Supermarket Industry Accurate? Is there a competitive fringe with Coles?”. Maybe even, given Banducci’s record on answering questions, a simpler one: “Does inflation affect the cost of groceries?”. Or literally anything else that probably would have been worthwhile to the debate on the cost of living crisis.
So, now comes the fun part. There was a reason that I brought up the intimidation of a member at the start of this article. Let’s see if I can get myself to be held in contempt of Parliament! I present my open letter of contempt:
Dear ‘General Secretary Beloved Leader Generalismo Secretary of the Masses’ McKim,
I write to you to express to your excellency my learned opinion that your recent Senate antics demeans the sanctity of democracy in this country. Your strange concoction of populism, Socialist Alternative level issue analysis and social media McCarthyism undermines the important function of Parliamentary inquiries.
You, and the Parliamentarians to your far left and right, threaten to turn our democratic institutions into a Trumpian-esque theatre that neither addresses the real political issues of our time nor adds to any meaningful political debate.
As such I challenge you to a debate, in the great classical style of Aristotelian debate, on the footsteps of Parliament. Present your Issue. Provide your proof. Pathos, Ethos, Logos. Not only do I dare you; I bet you won't. You're way too scared.
Though a first year commerce law student might be able to answer questions about ROE, can you debate with a fourth year law student whose ego was forged in the fires of the ANU Law Library, an entirely mis-placed self-assurance and an arrogance that would challenge Napoleon? I’ll wait to find out.
Yours truly
That’s all folks. Stay tuned for the next episode. Which could very well be coming to you from a cold damp cell in the Goulburn supermax prison.
Endnotes
Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 (Cth), s4.
Andrew Moore, ‘Fitzpatrick and Browne after 60 years’ (Conference paper, Senate Occasional Lecture Series, Parliament of Australia, Canberra, 29 May 2015).
Ibid.
I highly recommend having more of a read here https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/senate/powers_practice_n_procedures/pops/pop64/c01
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