The windows at Parliament House have undergone extensive cleaning in recent weeks.
Sunlight is literally permeating the home of Australia's democracy like never before.
Figuratively, though, the government is as opaque as ever — especially the department tasked with running Parliament House.
The Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) can live in the shadows because of laws Anthony Albanese introduced in 2013, when he was the leader of the House of Representatives.
At the time, the parliament was concerned correspondence between politicians and the parliament's library could be released under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, so an exemption was offered to the four parliamentary departments.
It was only meant to be an "interim measure" — pending a broader review — so it's no wonder transparency advocates said they were "startled" when it was revealed this week that the exemption remains on the books more than a decade later.
It leaves the DPS in rare public service air, where the only documents it releases to the public are those the department deems appropriate.
According to its critics, the DPS has largely been overlooked in the reckoning within Parliament House in the years after Brittany Higgins alleged she was raped in a ministerial office.
But when the boss of the department, Rob Stefanic, fronted Senate estimates this week, it was relations closer to home that became the focus.
Stefanic initially told senators he wouldn't answer questions about his private life or what he described as the "elephant in the room" — whether or not he had been in a relationship with his deputy, Cate Saunders.
If there's one thing senators love at estimates, it's highly paid public servants telling them they won't be answering their questions.
The senators — especially One Nation's Malcolm Roberts — were unperturbed. It made for several agonising exchanges, some of which had almost a minute of silence before Stefanic responded.
Loading...Stefanic eventually denied that he and Saunders had a relationship while he was her boss, but refused to answer questions about whether there'd been a relationship at any other time.
It ultimately fell to the new deputy secretary — Jaala Hinchcliffe, who joined the DPS from the national anti-corruption body — to explain why the department paid Saunders more than $315,000 as an incentive to retire payment while she was on secondment at Services Australia.
Liberal Jane Hume told DPS officials that Saunders had been given an "incentive to retire at an unusually young age" before suggesting it was a "highly unusual circumstance".
It was only on Thursday, when the Public Service Commissioner appeared at Senate estimates, that a more fulsome picture emerged.
When does a friendship become a personal relationship?
Stefanic claims to have disclosed a perceived conflict of interest with the now former Australian Public Service Commissioner in August 2022, though no documentation of the declaration was made.
He said the declaration was made amid malicious rumours about him and Saunders, but insists they were not in a relationship. Among the actions considered following the alleged disclosure was the possibility of Saunders working elsewhere.
In April, 2023, that happened: Saunders moved to Services Australia for a six-month secondment in a lower-paid position.
The current Public Service Commissioner, Gordon de Brouwer, told estimates that following a conversation with Stefanic in June, 2023, the DPS boss disclosed a "personal relationship" to parliament's presiding officers — House Speaker Milton Dick and Senate President Sue Lines.
In August that year — four months into a six-month secondment — Saunders entered "incentive to retire negotiations", with Stefanic having delegated his responsibility to carry out the negotiations to the boss of Services Australia.
Saunders ultimately retired from the public service on October 1 with an exit payment paid by the DPS worth more than $315,000.
When pressed by Hume if the process was best practice, de Brouwer said that was an "open issue". He later said if it was him, documentation of declaration would have been kept.
At its core, he said, was a question of "when does a friendship become a close personal relationship" that needed to be declared.
"People can grapple with that and that's part of being human," de Brouwer said.
Further questioning
Senators also quizzed Stefanic about the DPS's culture and accusations of toxicity, which he dismissed as unsubstantiated allegations.
At one point, when Malcolm Roberts raised concerns that security staff had raised with him, the DPS boss said that "staff that tend to approach senators are usually those that have a grievance", prompting quite the raised eyebrows from the senators present.
Independent senator David Pocock said he had been told that the DPS had a culture where "if you speak up, things don't work out that well for you".
Estimates also heard that a staff member in Parliament House had a seizure after the DPS denied requests to adjust lighting in their office.
It also emerged in the hearings that it's not just the DPS that seems reluctant to disclose information, with the prime minister's department, circulating a document with advice on dodging trick questions. The document contradicts the government's official advice to bureaucrats appearing at Senate estimates.
Under questioning, the head of the department that runs the Senate described the document as unhelpful and, if followed, could block the free flow of information.
It's quite the document for a government that vowed it would have transparency at its core. Speaking of which, Albanese's office is showing few signs it will be seeking to make the DPS subject to Freedom of Information this term.
Loading...Immigration minister stares down calls to quit
Hinchcliffe wasn't the only senior woman tasked with mounting a defence of their male colleagues this week.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil's regular appearance on Sunrise has offered a convenient counter point to allegations she's been in witness protection since the High Court up-ended Australia's immigration detention regime.
This week's appearance coincided with calls for Albanese to sack O'Neil's junior minister, Andrew Giles, the man tasked with the immigration portfolio.
Giles has been under fire since it emerged the ministerial decision he issued to placate the New Zealand government, who were fed up with Kiwis who had little connection to the country being deported across the ditch after committing crimes in Australia, prompted an appeals tribunal to reinstate the visas of convicted rapists, drug smugglers and kidnappers.
In once instance, the tribunal allowed a man jailed for choking the mother of one of his children to stay in the country. Weeks later, he allegedly murdered a man in Brisbane.
So it fell to O'Neil, in that Sunrise appearance, to mount his defence. She repeatedly said that Giles was a good minister as she faced a barrage of questions about how "rapists used it [Giles's decision] to stay here".
The Coalition spent two days hammering Giles in Question Time, prompting him to come out swinging in a rare TV interview with the ABC's Afternoon Briefing.
Loading...Giles swung for the fence, insisting he had more work to do, that he was busy cancelling visas and that the government would revise the direction that had allowed those people to stay in the first place.
He also took aim at the opposition leader for decisions he made as immigration and home affairs minister, including allowing criminals and sex offenders to be released into the community — comments that prompted a swift rebuke from Peter Dutton.
Giles ends the week digging in, vowing he will fight on. It hasn't gone unnoticed within the party that as a Left faction heavyweight, Giles receives a certain level of protection from his factional ally and the man who leads the government — Anthony Albanese.
Love is in the air
Over the years, the Parliamentary Press Gallery's annual mid-winter ball has raised millions of dollars for charity but it's also caused no shortage of headaches (and not only those that arise the next morning).
During one of the more memorable years, a guest presciently said: "Gee, Barnaby Joyce and his press secretary seemed to be doing a bit of dancing together".
So it was an interesting choice of words when the Speaker Milton Dick, launching this year's event on Wednesday, remarked: "We need a lot more love in this building."
Loading...His comments related to the theme — love is in the air — but given the building is home to the infamous bonk ban, if anything, there's been a bit too much love in the house on the hill.
The comments came a day after Stefanic appeared at Senate estimates, a moment not lost on Dick.
"The theme is Love is In the Air but not sure anyone has told DPS that," he said, before joking: "Probably too soon".