Dyson Heydon will continue to lead royal commission, Josh Frydenberg says
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Version 0 of 1. Liberal frontbencher Josh Frydenberg said he was confident the royal commission into trade union corruption would continue with Dyson Heydon at the helm, as the deadline approached for a motion for Heydon to disqualify himself due to the appearance of bias. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) will push ahead with an application for Heydon to disqualify himself as commissioner, after it emerged that the former high court justice was billed as the keynote speaker at a Liberal party fundraiser. Heydon will assess the application before making a ruling on Friday. If he decides to stand down, it could throw into doubt the future of the commission itself, which was established in March last year. Frydenberg, the assistant treasurer, is confident that will not happen. “I don’t think he will step aside. I think the inquiry will continue,” Frydenberg told ABC radio on Thursday morning. “The public can see through this partisan political attack by the unions and the Labor party on one of Australia’s most distinguished and eminent jurists.” “Our political opponents, the Labor party, have been seeking to attack the umpire in this royal commission, namely justice Heydon himself, from day one,” he said. On Thursday, the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, repeated the accusation that the commission was a “witch hunt”. “No one asked the NSW division of the Liberal party to invite right-wing former high court judge Dyson Heydon to speak. No one asked Dyson Heydon to agree to speak to a Liberal party fundraiser two months after he became royal commissioner,” he told reporters. “This is a crisis entirely made by Mr Abbott’s desire to politically attack his opponents because he has run out of ideas about running the country ... the captain’s pick made the decision that it was OK for a royal commissioner to attend Liberal party events. It is not on,” Shorten said. The employment minister, Eric Abetz, said he wanted the inquiry to continue regardless of whether Heydon stood aside. “I would be asking my colleagues that we should continue, but of course it would be a matter for the cabinet,” he told Macquarie radio on Thursday. The former New South Wales director of public prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, told ABC TV’s Lateline program on Wednesday night that Heydon was capable of impartiality, even when it came to judging applications on himself. Cowdery said law officers often decided applications on themselves. “This has been the process since the year dot when some challenge is made to the impartiality of a judicial officer or somebody sitting in the position of a commissioner,” he said. Heydon withdrew from giving the Sir Garfield Barwick address, saying he did not realise it had Liberal party links. But Labor said accepting the invite gave the commissioner the appearance of bias. It has delayed a Senate motion calling on the governor general, Peter Cosgrove, to dismiss him. |