The Department of Home Affairs refuses to produce documents on Australia’s asylum deal with Nauru, rejecting MWM‘s FOI request. What’s the scam?

The scam is, signed documents existed days before the FOI refusal stated they did not, as revealed during tense exchange in the Senate yesterday.

Senator David Shoebridge grilled the department over its refusal to release either the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or the trust deed outlining how hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds will be controlled.

The FOI request lodged by MWM sought the MOU and the trust deed. Home Affairs responded that the trust deed “does not exist” and released an entirely blacked-out MOU, citing national security and international relations exemptions.

Shoebridge pointed out that the department refused to release the trust deed on 29 October on the basis that “no discrete document exists”, even though Home Affairs had signed a trust document with Nauru eight days earlier, on 21 October.

Head of Immigration Clare Sharp attempted to draw a distinction between a “trust deed” and what she called a “trust MOU”.

“Senator, the document signed on 21 October was an MOU. It wasn’t a trust deed …  it was an MOU for the arrangement of the trust,” said Sharp. 

Shoebridge pressed the department, asking, “Is that how the department answers MOUs, playing semantics to avoid production of this document? You had signed a trust MOU which establishes a trust eight days before, not only refusing to provide the document, but telling MWM that you refused part two of the request as no discreet document exists.”

Later, Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Stephanie Foster, aka. ‘Winky’, insisted the wording referenced the date of receipt, not the date of decision.”

Shoebridge then asked the Department, “Will you produce to this committee the document that you now describe as a trust MOU?” Foster responded that the Department,

would take the question on notice and “check it for sensitivity”.

Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. We all know what happens from here…

From Tampa to Nauru. Billion-dollar refugee deal to be scrutinised at last.

This post was originally published on Michael West.