Wow who was the reporter who was the Legal Expert on the Emergency management Legislation and the telecommunications interception Act federally? She also used the religion word Recant when asking Questions about commissioner crisp.
Ok lets pick apart the Question. The Question was (my words) Why shouldn't Andrew Crisp be stood down because he has a duty to brief the Minister under Section 32 of the Emergency Services Act 2013 and given he recanted his testimony to the Inquiry into Victoria's response
to covid 19. The transcript of which can be found here. https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/paec/inquiries/article/4554 The reporter also said under Section 29 the Commissioner could be stood down,Suspended or removed. She then asked Why Andrews doesn't have him removed. The Press conference link is here........
58 mins in (approx). So lets look at some facts.
1/ The only person under the Act who can remove Crisp is The Governor in Council. The Section says. 29Suspension and removal from office
The Governor in Council may suspend or remove the Emergency Management Commissioner from office on any of the following grounds—
(a)misconduct;
(b)neglect of duty;
(c)inability to perform the duties of the office;
(d)any other ground on which the Governor in Council is satisfied that the Emergency Management Commissioner is unfit to hold office.
The reporter incorrectly stated three abilities Stood down, Suspended or removed. In fact it's only two abilities Which are Suspended or removed.
2/ Section 32 of the Act does indeed provide for the Emergency Services commissioner to
(e)ensure that the Minister is provided with timely and up to date information in relation to—
(i)the actual or imminent occurrence of events which may lead to major emergencies; and
(ii)the response to major emergencies;
Under (i) above the Emergency/State of disaster had already been declared and so this wasn't leading upto, it was "in the middle of". In response to the second part (ii) The decision taken to "dump" Hotel Quarantine (a level 2 Emergency in the ACT and for which the DHHS was lead
Agency, so a different Minister than the one Crisp had to report to) was decided (by national Cabinet) on the morning of 27 March 2020 and announced at 1pm in Victoria. They had about 36 hours (which is in the Evidence given to the Inquiry by Andrew Crisp). to set this up. During
that 36 hours Crisp was responsible for setting it up. Section 32 also states a shed load (not legal terms) of responsibilities that Andrew crisp as Commissioner has. He was fulfilling those responsibilities to actually respond to the events of Hotel Quarantine. How can you brief
Minister on the response when you are actually in the middle of working through the necessary logistics of the response. Here is a link to the Act to read for yourselves. http://classic.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/download.cgi/au/legis/vic/consol_act/ema2013190
So the Bush lawyer Journalist who asked the Question was basically asking @DanielAndrewsMP a nonsensical Question in order to embarrass him politically. They skewed the facts of what the act actually says and the circumstances under which Andrew Crisp was fulfilling his duties.
For what it's worth I don't know Andrew Crisp but I think he's doing an awesome job. On the other hand journalism in Australia, especially at the Premiers daily press conference has reached an all time low. Her argument wouldn't pass any legal test thrown at it. It was pathetic.
You can follow @vogrady2132.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: