The dominant union representing thousands of public servants in the Department of Home Affairs has declared the position of the agency’s current secretary, Mike Pezzullo, as untenable into the future.
As the hardline border security chief was told to step down from his role on Monday, pending the outcome of a referral to the Australian Public Service Commission, the Community and Public Sector Union moved quickly to slam the door shut on any prospect of Pezzullo returning to his role, or likely the public service.
Pezzullo’s downfall was precipitated by the revelation of thousands of backchannel WeChat and Signal messages to Liberal party power broker Scott Briggs, who was one of the key instigators of a failed push to outsource visa processing for visitors to Australia.
The CPSU has been at loggerheads with Pezzullo since his appointment as head of Home Affairs, not only over outsourcing push but also the rancorous merging of former Customs and Immigration agencies that attempted to dilute workplace conditions under the machinery of government changes.
The CPSU’s position is politically important because the union is affiliated with Labor’s left faction, of which prime minister Anthony Albanese and minister for finance and the public service Katy Gallagher are members, and sends a clear signal that interventionist politically operative senior public servants need to be expunged.
The giant failed outsourcing visa scheme, which imploded in 2020, would have resulted in thousands of APS job losses and around $1 billion worth of work being handed to a new monopoly provider.
The proposed deal that was never struck attracted bids from two consortia.
One was Australian Visa Processing, with which Briggs was associated, and comprised of Ellerston Capital, PwC, Qantas Ventures and NAB.
The other bidder was made up of Accenture, Australia Post and Pacific Blue Capital, which many regarded as a stalking horse because of the involvement of the government-owned postal enterprise.
While the CPSU pulled up short of demanding Pezzullo be immediately sacked, it certainly wants him gone.
“Mike Pezzullo’s position as Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs is clearly untenable, CPSU national secretary Mellissa Donnelly said.
“APS values require all APS employees to be impartial and apolitical. After the revelations about the Secretary of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, it is hard to see how those values have been upheld.”
With the former Department of Immigration previously becoming the test case for the sacking of public servants making political comments on social media undermining the government of the day, even under a pseudonym, the public service union was quick to point to the standards set.
“APS employees can face disciplinary action for sharing political content on social media, so it is astounding to learn that one of our country’s most senior public servants has been sharing a political hitlist with a known Liberal Party operative,” Donnelly said.
The CPSU chief said the revelations of the back-channel machinations raised questions “regarding the former Coalition Government’s failed attempt to privatise Australia’s visa system. Scott Briggs was heavily involved, leading the bid for the $1 billion visa processing tender.”
“CPSU members fought tooth and nail to stop the privatisation from the moment it was first proposed in the 2016-2017 Budget, up until it was scrapped in 2020.”
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) similarly attacked Pezzullo over his hardline stance against the media over the years.
“Under Mr Pezzullo’s watch over most of the past decade, there has been a deliberate strategy to prevent legitimate public interest journalism and to stifle the right to know,” said MEAA Media Federal President Karen Percy.
“In that time, we’ve seen fierce pushback on scrutiny of government actions. We hit a low point with the infamous Australian Federal Police raids in June 2019 of the home of a News Corp journalist and of the ABC offices in Sydney.”
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Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo stands down over Liberal texts
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