The Australian War Memorial has refused to pay the legal costs of the former director and present deputy director of the memorial in their Federal Court quest to overturn a report of the Merit Protection and Review Agency. The former director, Brendon Kelson, said he had legal advice saying it would be quite proper for the council of the memorial to fund the challenge because the advice was the MPRA inquiry into harassment at the memorial was procedurally flawed and beyond its jurisdiction and that the inquiry had directly affected the runnning of the memorial. The chair of the council, General Peter Gration, said yesterday that the council had taken advice from the Attorney-General’s Department and after careful consideration had decided it was not appropriate. The effect of the decision is that the Government gets the upper hand because it can use procedure and appeals to run up legal costs until the plaintiffs abandon their case. A recent example was Resources Minister David Bedall saying of a single-judge decision that these were routinely appealed. The deputy director, Dr Michael McKernan, is on a year’s leave working at the ANU. Sources from the council suggest the vote was very close and that some members said it would be a grave injustice not to fund the case. Other bureaucratic sources say the gist of the Attorney-General’s Department’s advice was that legal funding would be proper if the council thought the MPRA inquiry and report had been conducted improperly or beyond jurisdiction and that it would affect the management of the memorial in a way that adversely affected the ability of the memorial to perform its functions. The advice said that if the council thought that it was in the best interests of the memorial for the inquiry’s report to stand it should not fund the challenge. When asked, General Gration said the decision on the legal costs was a matter for the council and the Minister, Veterans’ Affair Minister Con Sciacca, had had no role. General Gration acknowledged that the MPRA inquiry had had an adverse effect on the memorial. Memorial sources say that at times during the inquiry up to eight people were away on stress leave.