Michael Pezzullo used encrypted messages to a Liberal powerbroker to back the former prime minister’s plan to move the embassy from Tel Aviv and brand other top public servants “useless”.
ome Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo undermined Australia’s highest-ranking public servants as they scrambled to manage former prime minister Scott Morrison’s contentious proposal to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Encrypted messages Pezzullo sent to Morrison’s confidant and Liberal Party powerbroker Scott Briggs in November 2018 reveal the senior public servant tried to covertly shape the major foreign policy decision and described the bureaucrats warning against Morrison’s plan as “useless”.
The messages make clear Pezzullo sought to impress upon Briggs that he, as an ostensibly apolitical and independent departmental chief, was the only one committed to advancing the prime minister’s Israel agenda.
Pezzullo also shared his assessment of the Christchurch terror attack and other sensitive material with Briggs, as the Home Affairs chief sought to ingratiate himself with a powerbroker he knew had a direct line to Morrison.
The latest revelations in the Pezzullo scandal will open up a new avenue of inquiry for the Australian Public Service Commissioner’s investigation into the Home Affairs secretary. That inquiry is already probing dozens of other messages Pezzullo sent Briggs over five years.
Read the article by Nick McKenzie and Michael Bachelard in The Age.