Senator Amanda Vanstone’s politicisation of the Christopher Skase case is unbecoming of a justice minister.
In Parliament on Monday she was handed a Dorothy Dix question inviting to compare the actions of the present government with that of Labor to get Mr Skase back to Australia. She said, “”We have had Skase’s passport both cancelled and returned to Australia. In comparison, under Labor Skase was allowed to leave Australia. They failed in their attempt to extradite him back from Spain. They even renewed his passport while he was living in Spain.”
This is an absurd view of Australia’s system of justice and executive administration. The same sort of even-handed bureaucrats were handling the Skase matters before and after the change of government. Indeed, some of the very same people would have handled the matter through the change of government and beyond, no doubt acting as diligently before the change as after it. No warrant had issued for Mr Skase’s arrest at the time of the passport renewal, so legally the renewal could not be refused. As to getting the passport document returned, so what. Presumably the passport number had been circulated to every computer screen of every immigration department in the world and so the passport was of little use to Mr Skase anyway.
External matters and the conduct of Mr Skase himself have dictated the successes and failing in this case, not the political complexion of government of the day. It would be a grim day for Australia when the prosecution of a deportation or corporate-law charged depended on which government were in power.
Senator Vanstone has made the administration of justice in this case a political football, failing to keep the executive and judicial arms separate. The main reason, of course, is that she wants to play on popular disgust. Anyone with a lower public profile facing similar or even more serious charges would not rate a mention.