There are letters that the public usually never, ever get to read; perhaps for obvious reasons.
Some TT readers will remember a similar letter posted on TT from Simon Copper, then head of the RPDC, to Premier Lennon where he courageously informed him that Gunns IIS on their pulp mill proposal was “critically non-compliant”. This letter too was released after it became clear that bureaucratic bullying had occurred to suppress legitimate, professional advice from leading public servants and even from the chair of the Pulp Mill Assessment Commmission (Retired Justice Wright).

From Richard Herr’s remarks on ABC radio in response to the breaking news that the Tasmanian Commissioner of Police, Mr Jack Johnson was to face the magistrate’s court on two charges of disclosing official secrets, it was apparent that Mr Herr felt that perhaps ‘natural justice’ had not been served by the statements made before the DPP before the Wilkinson Joint Select Committee on Ethical Conduct. Mr Herr’s comments suggested, to me at least, that he believed that it was improper of the DPP to raise matters that subsequently covered in Michael Stedman’s story in the Saturday Mercury of 11 October.
By now most astute TT readers and others in the community would have truly twigged to the numerous reiterations of - as Nostradamus put it - ‘increasingly tendentious and noxious, if not toxic, matters before the JSCEC’. Another way of stating this is to suggest that Tasmania politics has a long history of betraying it’s people.
Anyone who cares to research a retrospective of political bribery & corruption in Tasmania will find that the island state is well splattered with “solids hitting the punkah”. Sir Max Bingham alluded to several past instances of alleged political corruption at a Public Forum on Ethical Conduct sponsored by the Tasmania Law Society in August.
Mr Nicholas Cowdrey, DPP in NSW knows all too well the consequences of being publicly outspoken and occasionally speaking legal truth to powerful politicians in his state. Perhaps we are seeing in Tasmania the great catharsis that has been called for so many generations!
When influential public officials are able ‘act’ ethically and with integrity on behalf of the broader community because the politicians continue to ‘betray the people’, then maybe Tasmania might have changed for the better.

My apologies for a few errors in Para 3:

From Richard Herr’s remarks on ABC radio in response to the breaking news that the Tasmanian Commissioner of Police, Mr Jack Johnson was to face the magistrate’s court on two charges of disclosing official secrets, it was apparent that Mr Herr felt that perhaps ‘natural justice’ had not been served by the statements made by the DPP before the Wilkinson Joint Select Committee on Ethical Conduct. Mr Herr’s comments suggested, to me at least, that he believed that it was improper of the DPP to raise matters that were subsequently covered in Michael Stedman’s story in the Saturday Mercury of 11 October.

I wasn’t at the TLS forum, but I’d love to know if the TimJackson matter was raised.  Uncle Max should know a thing or two about that.

These are just the spectators heads that are rolling. Wait till the real crooks get exposed.

This letter on the seemingly stubby arm of the Tasmanian law is baffling to a layman.

Why is a senior advisor to a minister under contract to a premier neither a contractor, nor a public officer, nor anything else listed in the “Public Interest Disclosure Act 2002”? And isn’t it up to Burch to decide whether to risk legal action by blowing the whistle on alleged illegalities by the Premier and others?

And why was Hornsey entitled to decline to be interviewed in respect to prima facie evidence that she had been involved in what was arguably an attempt by Lennon to intererfere in the ministerial duty of Kons to nominate a magistrate? If Lennon’s claim that he didn’t instruct Hornsey to say anything to Kons is accepted, there would seem to be compelling grounds for some serious charges against her.  Didn’t the circumstancial evidence of Hornsey’s phone call, the Kons shredding, and his lying about it suggest that something more than ” argument, persuasion or lobbying” may have been involved in the relayed message?.  Do the individual elements of an alleged crime now require proof beyond reasonable doubt, rather than on the balance of probabilities?

Didn’t Lennon’s displeasure at Cooper’s treatment of the pulp mill submission raise the possibility of some improper motive in the withdrawal of the magisterial appointment?

There is a fundamental difference between Lennon instructing the Executive Council that he didn’t want to see Cooper appointed, and stopping the nomination from being seen by the Council.

I would be fascinating to know the “strong supporting evidence” of a discussusion between Kons and Hornsey about the alleged deal to appoint Estcourt as Solicitor-General in return for pro bono service to Bryan Green for his TCC trial.  It would be even more interesting to know how “strong supporting evidence” could be negated by the denials of people possessing the credibility of Lennon and Green. 

It probably doesn’t matter. The new appointee as S-G, Leigh Sealy, is reported to have told the joint Parl Committee investigating appointment procedures that the procedures can be circumvented if it permits the politicians to get the person they want.

Nigel Burch should feel relieved that he will not be prosecuted for False Swearing following Kons’ denial that his otherwise very dim recollections of his conversations with Hornsey were anything like those alleged by Burch. From the Bryan Green case, Mr Ellis would appreciate the god-like credibility accorded to pollies in our courts.

John Hayward