The Great Ute Scandal has been bubbling along for weeks but I ignored it, partly because scandals are rarely interesting and partly because I couldn’t get to the starting point of working out what wrongdoing was supposed to have taken place (compare for example the Manildra business, which involved large sums of public money and provoked no serious concern). But in the last day or two the stakes have been raised dramatically, based on the alleged email from the PM’s office urging a prompt response to the concerns of a car dealer who contributed a car to Rudd’s campaign.
Whatever the significance of the putative email may have been, Rudd’s outright denial that any such email was sent means that it will be a major crisis for him if the email turns up, and possibly a terminal one if it turns out that the email was suppressed. On the other hand, if it can be proved that the email published by the Telegraph and referred to by Turnbull was in fact a fake, the consequences will be dire for Turnbull at least (I don’t suppose the Tele could lose much credibility). As my recent spam crisis demonstrates, I’m no tech expert, but I would have thought that the headers on an email would make it pretty easy to check whether it had been sent and that erasing all trace of an email would be just about impossible. And it would be grossly irresponsible to publish an alleged email if you received it with the identifying info removed.
Update
The news that the email was a fake confirms that the outcome will be bad for Turnbull, and could be catastrophic. The worst case, but a plausible one on the evidence to hand, is that the email was the product of a fraud cooked up between Liberal staffers and one or more corrupt Treasury officials. Even the best case, that the email was fabricated for some personal reason, and passed to the Liberals along with other leaks about the car scheme, doesn’t look good. I guess, given the twists and turns so far, it’s also necessary to consider the Machiavellian possible of a (highly successful) agent provocateur, luring Turnbull into a trap, as happened (IIRC) with Ralph Willis in 1996.
Further update
It now appears that the worst-case scenario is pretty close to the truth. Grech has apparently been working as a source of leaks to the Liberal party for a long period*. Apart from the obvious disastrous implications for the Liberals, this point also casts doubt on what remains of the case against Swan. If Grech was working for the Libs all along, he could easily have generated a large volume of emails, reports and so on, without any particular pressure from the government
* The term “mole” is commonly used in such cases, but the original idea of a mole was one of an agent in place who did nothing but burrow nto the target organisation, waiting for the time to act.
John Quiggin 
How far can Alice kick Grech?
Kitchenslut – strangely I never thought that way about Lindy.
One reason why this issue could be highly damaging to the government is because the government has staked its economic credibility on the current stimulus measures.
If the government is going to take the country heavily into debt in an attempt to revive the economy, the electorate will surely demand that the money is at least being spent wisely. The merest hint that funds are being misdirected for political purposes would be a major blow to their credibility.
The AFP interview with Godwin Grech will be interesting. He will have to say if he thinks the published email is the one he may have seen. If he says yes, the question arises why he did not send a response, as was invited.
If an official email was sent and the record of it is now deleted then this entails quite a substantial conspiracy. I agree with others that this does not seem likely. Watching how this saga unfolds shall be interesting.
Michelle Grattan is doing her best to backstop for Malcolm’s dirty tricks.
On ABC breakfast radio she exonerated Turnbull saying as he heard of an email he had the right to pursue it.
Problem is – Rudd was also on the ABC saying the Liberals raised the email BEFORE it was published by hack Steve Lewis.
So we need an inquiry into journalists and their deliberate misrepresentations and false politically inspired documents.
The whole thing is insignificant. It would not be worth the bother of attempting to destroy documents. The issue is not that it couldn’t be done, but that it would involve too many people. The interesting issue is not the ute or for that matter the email, but who got suckered into email-gate and how. Will it be the end of Turnbull’s political career? Probable not.
Charles
I think that politicians and others who create or use false documents for political purposes need to be charged, tried and convicted.
We have coercive interrogations for building workers – why not for criminal journalists and parliamentarians.
The damage fraudulent documents can do is far worse than violence on building sites.
This episode is showing Turnbull and the Liberals to be very dangerous to Australian democracy.
Chris
I agree, and the Liberals seem to have a track record. It’s going to be fun watching the whole thing unravel.
Having worked in both State and Commonwealth areas I find it difficult to believe that Grech 1)did not keep a copy of the email 2)didnt advise his superiors about the request or 3)advise PMO about correct protocols for making requests.
Point 3 relates to Depts setting up protocols to deal with such requests so they can track them and check outcomes and timliness.
I simply cant believe that Grech did not keep any record of the request. How many times does he get requests from the PMO ??
It is not difficult to consider that when the real referral from Swan came in their was discussion in Grechs area about Grant being a ‘friend ‘ of the PMs and Swan and the need to deal with as a special case. This would not be unusual and in Grechs memory he would turn this into a request for special attention.
The whole point of an MP referring a mater is to get attention, special or otherwise, but this is quite different from getting a decsion outside guidelines/rules etc
Mind you the whole thing is paltry compared to true issues like AWB
Exactly Gong. Paltry compared to AWB and paltry compared to a now federal police investigation into activities by persons on the board of the RBA – and this investigation called for by the RBA itself (and who appointed those RBA board members? It certainly wasnt Rudd).
Stay tuned for the next one – the termites that undermined systems and favoured private interests made on the back of the public purse, under John Howard’s blind eyes, still coming out of the woodwork. What did happen to the last of Australia’s wool surplus after the privatisation of the wool board? Ended up in a few private hands under who? JH again.
The absolute hypocrisy of Malcolm and his party is ASTONISHING. This is ridiculously paltry accusation and if its the best the Coalition can do – then we have a much better cleaner federal government in power now. Praise be.
Looks like the public servant Grech is about to have his head chopped-off.
Cops are now raiding his home and searching his computer. I wonder if they will find a Liberal Party membership card?
It’s Steve lewis who needs to be raided, and he may be wise to chuck his computer into the lake asap.
I hope the public servant will be exonerated, as it is too easy to blame them for inadvertant involvement in Ministerial staffers silly games.
Typical Coalitionb tactics… according to the ABC the email has been found after a raid on Grech’s home computer and is a “forgery” and was “concocted inside Treasury”. Rog I dont think I could kick Grech far enough. Too slippery.
The AFP need to search Grech’s computer for his liberal connections as well. They are really quite accomplished at forged documents (or getting their lackeys to forge them) arent they?
The double D party (dishonest and denialist).
Alice: The AFP may be way ahead of you.
Yes well its a good thing Crispin – I knew I trusted the dingo more than Grech – its a shame the media doesnt get it right….where exactly are the proper and called for blaring headlines “Malcolm Turnbull needs to explain himself!!”
But instead thanks to Mr Murdoch we will only get…”Malcom Turnbull says he knew nothing about it.”
I’d just find it great fun to see Turnbull damaged. He’s been such a disappointment — having heard so much of his much-vaunted ‘intelligence’, I had briefly and foolishly hoped that we might be in for some more productive tension between government and opposition than usual. But the positively Springborgian levels of idiotic reflexive droning heard from him as leader make me suspect that most of the ‘vaunting’ must have been coming directly from him …
John, in the past public servants working on ie ‘blue tagged files’ would have received their instructions direct from departmental heads. In Godwin’s case I can only assume this has happened.
Michael
We have to wait. I would never have predicted that any senior public servant would be involved in such as scandal. It is simply stunning.
Bad as it is, I still hope it was only a corrupt link-up between Grech and a ex-Turnbull staffer and no more.
Could it all have been a set-up. Grech a patsy to provide a jounalistic hook for Steve Lewis to launch a missile against the Government?
Its a pity for Turnbull that his cronies got their running sheet mixed up.
I will be completely astonished if Malcolm Turnbull survives this. He cannot even get his own story straight on the ABC tonight (almost embarrassing). He had the contents of the email at that Wed ball but according to him he read about it in the paper……..its actually quite tragic…and then admits to being mistaken “someone must have sent it to the Coalition…we get these sort of things all the time”. Grech is no patsy either – the whole thing was a set up that backfired on the Coalition and he was part of it. Its true to character (or lack of it in the Coalition – now run in current times by extremists who do these sort of things). Its the Coalition party that is morally bankrupt and Grech should be fired.
Well – I could almost tend to agree with the Machiavellian plot from deep inside the ranks of the Coalition…but who will step up?
Shame for ordinary Australians who rely on politicians to actually do something and be essentially decent (and to actually govern usefully). Ah.. but its a media world we live in. All that matters to some of them is their short term grip on power (to hell with governing or shock, horror bipartisanship) and if they cant live honestly …they just “whip an image up” in the media. I think there are some senior public servants only too willing to be political as well….. that really needs fixing when forged emails are making it from Treasury to the Coalition faster than to the media. Get the broom and start rebuilding the public sector to be a public, non political sector (and if your party is in opposition – start asking yourselves why you lost the votes, instead of cooking up yet MORE lies).
Having worked in Canberra I have to say I found Grech’s comments on Friday odd. If he got an email from PMC why wouldn’t he keep a copy on file? Why wouldn’t he check who the email came from? Just to cover your own butt it would be the first thing you would do there. I can’t beleive someone could rise to his level (Branch head) without knowing that. His performance at the hearing was very odd.
Turnbull showed very poor judgement running with this before the credibility of the email was checked. Even if true, utegate wasn’t exactly the scandal of the century. For a former trial lawyer, he isn’t great at evidentiary standards.
A lot of journalists who jumped on this bandwagon before all the facts were known have also got egg on their face tonight. “Scoop” Lewis has some explaining to do.
Socrates – my sister has been a public servant for many years and she said exactly the same thing. You would hardly delete an email from the pm’s office without filing a copy would you? You would at least print it out and file it especially alongside your reply. Where was that also?
If the Liberals can decapitate the Iraqi government based on fraud and lies, why should the Australian government be allowed to survive a few years later?
If the Liberals can decapitate one Labor government in 1975 based on fraud and lies, why should the Rudd government be allowed to survive a few years later?
Whether Grech is innocent or guilty, or just a “mule” used to provide some validity to the email fabrication, is now for the AFP to determine.
The leader of the opposition, on the other hand, has dealt himself a mortal wound.
My assessment is based on the timeline of public comments made. The reasoning is this:
a) He spent some time unsubtly hinting that he had an official document which went to the heart of whether the Prime Minister had misled parliament. Malcolm Turnbull chose to state on the record that the Prime Minister is a lier, and that he (ie Turnbull) had the evidence to prove it. This all happened prior to the publication of the content of the evidence (ie the confabulated email, which at this point Turnbull clearly believed existed and was genuine). NOTE: Turnbull’s declaration that the Prime Minister was lying was made outsideof parliament, and is therefore not subject to “Parliamentary Privilege”. Furthermore, Turnbull did not say (at any point that I heard) “alleged email”; Turnbull was treating the email as validated evidence (ie as fact), in other words.
b) Turnbull had the “dialogue” with Andrew Charlton (staff member in the PMO [Prime Minister’s Office]), who at that time (Wed 17th June) had not been publically identified as the supposed author of the email. This establishes that Turnbull knew enough about the content of the email header to identify Charlton as the supposed author of the email. Certainly, Turnbull believed Charlton to be the author at that point in time.
c)Turnbull baldly stated in an interview that the PM was lying, and must therefore resign. There were no qualifications in Turnbull’s statement.
d)The Prime Minister, presumably on the basis of establishing that his PMO staffer, Andrew Charlton, hadn’t in fact written the document in question, passed the matter onto the AFP (Australian Federal Police). At this point, it was appropriate to do that, since the PM and by implication, Andrew Charlton, had been accused of committing criminal offences.
e) The AFP discover a copy of the alleged email, and their IT forensic team determine that it is a confabulated document, and that construction of the confabulation took place within the Treasury.
f) Malcolm Turnbull publically denies having possession of the (forged) email, and publically denies that any Liberal has had possession of the (forged) email.
g) When it is pointed out that Eric Abetz, in the Friday 19th June interview of Godwin Grech, asked questions based upon knowledge of the content of the email, Malcolm Turnbull states in a radio interview that Abetz was reading it from the newspaper article.
h) The newspaper wasn’t published until Sat 20th June; there is no way Eric Abetz was reading it from the newspaper, which implies he had another source.
In summary, it seems to me that Malcolm Turnbull made an on-the-public-record statement that the Prime Minister was lying, and that he must consequently resign. Turnbull’s demand is based upon a fabricated email. Turnbull had not at that stage checked with the alleged author whether they had in fact written it. Eventually it is determined by the AFP to be a fabrication, just as the Prime Minister had consistently said on numerous occasions.
Malcolm demanded that the PM resign on the basis of Turnbull’s claim that the PM was lying. The sole evidence he supposedly had was the fabricated email. Therefore we have Turnbull apparently committing the offence of [insert favourite legal term here] slandering a public officer of the crown. Reciprocally, it is Malcolm Turnbull who should resign on that basis himself.
I won’t swear on a stack of Keith Martin Almanacs that I have the timeline perfectly correct, but I’m fairly sure it is. I’m merely presenting an argument as to why Malcolm Turnbull should, by his own moral construct, resign. Afterall, he has demanded as much from the Prime Minister.
Any comments, flames, etc?
Neither Rudd nor Turnbull is “a public officer of the crown” (if either were, he would and should be automatically removed from Parliament). Those are and should be out of the kitchen and protected from facing this sort of heat. Rudd, however, is a Minister with further duties and obligations, which Turnbull is not; part of what he is there for is to be in the kitchen and face the heat, taking it off those others, so the mere fact that he gets heat is no objection. The test Turnbull has to meet is a good faith one (with rather low standards, because of all the issues behind parliamentary privilege – basically, there should be no “chilling effect” hindering parliamentarians from carrying out due scrutiny etc.), while Rudd has to meet at least one further test, of competence. So far, neither has been shown to have failed – but there isn’t a symmetry here.
I agree with the bit about Grech’s strange behaviour. Getting an email from the PMO asking for a favour for an individual is the type of thing you would immediately copy and file and respond to by asking for explicit authority. Not to mention covering your back by making sure your superiors, including your own MO, knew about it. It is simply beyond belief that you would just delete the thing – that would risk you being made the scapegoat.
Quite separately, though, Swan was stupid for getting involved in individual cases for a program that he must know has dodgy criteria and justification. This is not State politics, where such things are accepted. Even if it’s true that Grant was not the only case it is not a good look at all – I think he’s only been saved by the fake email affair.
One offence is creating a false document.
A second offence is unauthorised release of material to journalists or whoever.
The false email, if created in public service time using public service equipment, cannot legally be distributed outside the public service unless this is part of official duties.
Grech and his associates (maybe ex staffer Peter Lindwell) are in d e e p sh*t.
Where documents are shown to be deliberate fakes for political purposes, journalists and media businesses need to be searched as well.
Thank you Alice for taking the bait and confirming my assessment of your psychological hubris! Confirmation bias would seem to be rampant with you unless you believe you have been blessed with divine (new age?) guidance? Do you keep KPI’s on your personality assessments?
I have my own values however find myself ever stunned by the kind of partisan group-think tribalism which insists in stereotyping everything but which always fails to put me in a pigeon-hole they can understand or need. You, Alice are typical of this! Evil must equal Liberal …. ooooh aint they soooo bad!!! While we / I am sooooo GOOOOOOD!!
Personally I will continue to defer to my fave philosopher Billy Connolly “seek the company of people trying to understand the question, avoid the company of people claiming to know the answer”. I will be avoiding insufferable bores such as yourself Alice!
Without having looked back through the entire thread there does in entirely technical terms seem to be something odd here? Early on there was some discussion about the practicality of fabricating emails (which I posted didn’t seem to be too difficult for some).
The consensus was that any genuine email could be traced on the Tresury servers and would be near impossible to delete except for an absolute IT guru. At the end of last week the official line was that they could find no evidence of any email after extensive searches. Now we are told that the AFP have found one written within Tresury and then forwarded to Grech’s home address? Question: Why didn’t the internal IT searches last week find that?
I have learnt too much in recent years on the vagaries of life and the encroaching psychological difficulties associated with our maturing age to yet crucify Godwin Grech.
KS, I was a bit puzzled by the email issue, but I offer the following. If Grech had access to a computer other than his own, and sent an email to his home address, with a spoofed source, before wiping it, a search for an email from the PM’s office to Grech would probably not show up.
As a general warning, can everyone please avoid personal attacks.
Thanks P.M. Lawrence #26, I stand corrected concerning my error in #25 referring to the PM as a “public officer of the Crown”.
One question I’ve got: what categories do various PMO staffers fall into? I seem to recall that our previous government’s PM tinkered a bit regarding that, so as to provide good insulation between PM and said staff. In the old days a stuff-up by someone in the minister’s office was accepted as the responsibility of the minister – by convention I assume. The previous PM and ministers didn’t accept that, IIRC.
The point about this email is that even without out it, the evidence against the government was significant. The fact that details relating to one application were being sent to Wayne Swan’s home fax is most unusual and suspicious.
All the email has served to do is create a distraction from the other evidence, and Turnbull has ended up making himself the issue by taking the bait.
The case against Turnbull seems exaggerated. Given that the email appears to have been created inside the department, it is not unreasonable for others to assume it was genuine.
Suits me just fine Kitchenslut – stick your cheap (like name and nature) insults.
Oh and no liberals arent all bad Kitchenslut but the moderates in the party have been drowned out by extremists (I would suggest at least ten years growing that way now). I have nothing aganist a decent liberal government but they lost the plot and half or more of Australia’s votes by hitting people over the head with workchoices, and doing stuff like denying climate change (ie being backward not progressive), stripping the public sector and foolishly thinking the market and private sector solves all problems. Thats not what they used to be like (More “conservative”) and any party can go to an extreme and they did it (and they play politics and spin and junk emails and the media, not policy).
I dont hate the liberals Kitchenslut – thats what you dont get. I feel sorry for all those people who have been fooled into thinking the liberals stand for ethics and values.
And now that I’ve put more thought into it, P. M. Lawrence, I take your point that since Turnbull is not a minister, he can – shall we say – be economical with the truth in parliament and while it might tarnish his reputation, it is not necessarily the head on the chopping block offence that fairness should demand. For Kevin Rudd however, as a minister, for him to mislead or lie in parliament is to hear that axe dropping…but since he hasn’t (TTBIMK), he remains whole for now.
Therefore only Swannie is at (smallish) risk of being toppled, so it seems.
Oh, and possibly one public servant is on toilet scrubbing duties for the next X years, assuming his (tenuous) hold on his job doesn’t slip him by.
@jquiggin
In the intelligence community these issues of provenance go back to at least the Zimmerman Telegram era. The issue there was that British Intelligence had obtained a copy through their channels, but could not use it directly to influence the USA. That is, they couldn’t simply hand over a secondary copy, as it would have been dubious from its source and would also have damaged Britain by showing how much Britain had penetrated areas in the USA that were under diplomatic protection. As I recall, Britain was able to track down a copy that had reached Mexico and was less well covered diplomatically, and was able to lead the USA to that without exposing British methods. I believe but cannot confirm that they used forged documents as part of laying the trail leading there.
The provenance issue has created a related disinformation technique that goes back about that far: when something improper or damaging is about to come out, create and release your own forged evidence of the genuine facts (or of an exaggeration of them), then discredit it. People will often jump to the conclusion that spurious evidence proves the allegations were spurious, and that the forgery came from the other side since it appears to damage the first lot (without realising that the discrediting of the forgery was part of the scheme). In fact, all it shows is “insufficient evidence either way”. It is at least possible that these emails were of this nature.
As I stated, this is actually an old and well established trick, so reminding people that it is in the repertoire isn’t simple ultra-paranoid conspiracy mongering. Asserting that this is what actually occurred rather than keeping an open mind either way pending more evidence – that would be going too far.
All Turnbull has done is regurgitated Swans bile.
Swan is the treasurer and treasury is his department. As treasury is the source of the presumed fake email, Swan should be made to answer for it. While he is at it he can answer other questions about some of KRudd’s used car salesmen mates
Good to see you keeping the side up, Tony, but I’d save it for the next leader if I were you.
John, whilst much has been said about ‘utegate’ and the ‘fake email’ my nose tells Godwin may not be the only public servant in Treasury caught up in the whole affair. And whilst Turnbull may have been wrong, by raising the stakes the Australian public are now a bit wiser as to what is going on within Treasury.
“save it for the next leader ”
Funny you should mention that, as it seems KRudd and his used car salesmen mates are starting to exhibit the traits of a one term wonder.
Tony G,
That is an absolutely fascinating, some would say loony , take on the email – that the fraudulent email, composed to attack Swan and Rudd, is actually Swans’ responsibility.
PMLawrence is covering for the Liberals.
Who released their own forged evidence and then discredited it????????
What on earth is this about?????????
If allegations need evidence then clearly – if the evidence is spurious then QED the allegations are spurious.
What bizarre track is Lawrence trying to follow ??????????
What scheme was it, by who, that had intended to discredit the forgery ????????
When was this intention formed ????????????
When and what was this Lawrence called “something improper or damaging is about to come out” ???????????????
When was this, what was this ??????????????????
It appears Grech was Malcolm’s mole in the public service and Malcolm knew when he received official information by this back channel – he was receiving illegal information.
Turnbull must now be charged with corruption, pure and simple.
I agree Michael with your comment “my nose tells Godwin may not be the only public servant in Treasury caught up in the whole affair.”
I fully agree…the email was “created in Treasury…sent to Grech’s home computer and then deleted from Treasury records. Either Grech is a patsy and they waited till he had a flexi day (and many public servants divert their emails) or he knew. It smells of politicised public servants and political public servants should be sacked. The public service should be apolitical.
They probably did find the email, but as it led in another more interesting direction, they did not publicly announce it.
They just said no email to or from PMO’s office.
Then followed the trail to Grech’s hideout.
Well I wished the AFP traced that email from Treasury to Grech’s home computer…..and then from Grech’s computer to somehow being in Macolm Turbull’s hands before the media’s hands?. I have had enough of garbage accusations and media BS from either side about the other….can they just do the damn job of leading the damn country without the CR…….P?
Oh dear! The Alice and Chris reality blog conspiracy show *yawn*
I suspect at the time those most compulsively captivated are at their their peak in any event like this, that it’s passed and most of society has moved on already!? In fact …. they have moved on because of it?
However isn’t obsessive compulsive behaviour interesting from whatever source and that is what we have here in the participants and the commentary!?
Yeah Kitchenslut – what do you have to offer this discussion? Enlighten us!
Kitchenslut just has the a bad case of bad loser syndrome. Doesnt like to see her favourite party exposed for what they do. Take the rose coloured glasses off Kitchenslut. It could be any party that acts like a bunch of dorks (and it just so happens this time it was the libs -same as that fake letterbox drop they spammed as being from the ALP) and they could and should be called on it (or is that too much for you to bear? Better go back to the kitchen and think about it).
Sorry Kslut, but the rest of the world disagrees with you.
The ABC news (Chris Uhlmann) has provided an update, viz:
So the Liberals have been running a political agent inside the Government “for some time”.
This ain’t UteGate any more – it’s Watergate.