Taxpayers are paying this minister’s legal fees but we don’t know what it’s about

Assistant Treasurer and Housing Minister Michael Sukkar is using taxpayer funds to defend a defamation action. But we don’t know who is suing him, and why. 

In Senate estimates last night, Labor’s Murray Watt pointed to documents tabled in Parliament in late August revealing Attorney-General Michaelia Cash had approved taxpayer funding for Sukkar’s legal bills to fight a defamation claim made two weeks earlier. Under the relevant regulations, the attorney-general can approve taxpayer funding for a minister’s legal bills only where the litigation arose in relation to ministerial duties.

The document approves payment by the Commonwealth of the costs of legal representation, any damages awarded and any reasonable amount payable at settlement. In other words, anything. 

But when asked by Watt who was suing Sukkar, Cash said she didn’t recall the identity of the plaintiff or what the litigation was about. She said she’d take those questions on notice.

“It may not be appropriate to provide that form of information so I’ll take on notice what we can provide to you,” Cash said. 

Michael Johnson, the relevant official from her department, said he’d take on notice questions about what comments Sukkar made, but said Cash’s decision was made consistent with the regulations. Sukkar’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Sukkar was embroiled in controversy last year over reports he benefited from branch-stacking in the Victorian Liberals. An investigation by the Finance Department cleared him.

Labor’s shadow attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, says the public needed to know they weren’t footing the bills for “personal legal fights and party political squabbles”.

“If public funds are being used to defend a defamation action against Mr Sukkar, the public has a right to know why he is being sued and by whom,” he said. “Senator Cash must explain why she is satisfied that the action relates to the performance of Mr Sukkar’s ministerial duties.”

There have been a few notable recent cases of the Coalition using government funds to defend legal action. In May, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries Jonathon Duniam used taxpayers’ money to defend a defamation claim made against him by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Duniam had been forced to apologise to Hanson-Young after comments he made attacking her on a Sky News after dark segment about environmental protesters earlier this year, a case which tested the outer limits of the regulation’s requirement that the litigation falls within ministerial duties.

And Cash charged taxpayers $434,000 over several years in relation to legal proceedings arising from the Australian Federal Police raids on the offices of the Australian Workers’ Union in 2017. As well, former defence minister Linda Reynolds billed taxpayers over legal advice relating to a police investigation into her staffer Brittany Higgins’ alleged rape. 

The revelations about the lawsuit against Sukkar also come days after Defence Minister Peter Dutton — who is suing refugee activist Shane Bazzi for defamation — suggested politicians should have a special taxpayer fund to help them sue people for defamation.