Doubtless, Malcolm Turnbull takes comfort in knowing the latest controversy engulfing his accident prone Attorney-General turns on impenetrable legal intricacies.
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George Brandis drops Joe Hockey in it
The Attorney-General denies acting against the Commonwealth's interest or knowing of a secret deal allegedly struck with the West Australian government.
That complexity helps explain why the opposition has struggled to pin George Brandis down.
Driving its umbrage is last Friday's report in The West Australian alleging that, as first law officer, Brandis had instructed the then solicitor-general Justin Gleeson not to run a particular (and highly persuasive) constitutional argument in Bell Group-related High Court proceedings, because it would scupper Canberra's financial accommodation of the conservative West Australian government
![Attorney-General George Brandis and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.](/web/20161201143122im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/z/n/i/h/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gszqum.png/1480414095147.jpg)
Gleeson ran the argument anyway, while acting for the Australian Taxation Office. Constitutionally, it was a slam-dunk and was emphatically vindicated by a 7-0 decision of the full bench.
Vindicated but hardly celebrated.
The West Australian's story provides the missing piece of a puzzle: an apparent explanation as to why the relationship between Brandis and Gleeson broke down so irretrievably. And a plausible motive for Brandis' provocative decision to curtail Gleeson's professional autonomy.
That move by Brandis culminated in Gleeson's resignation last month. Until now, it was unclear just why relations between the two men had spiralled down so sharply.
In his legalistic explanation to the Senate on Monday, Brandis appeared to lay out exhaustively his actions. This included rejecting the suggestion he was motivated by a deal hatched previously between the then federal treasurer Joe Hockey and his West Australian counterpart to forfeit Commonwealth tax revenue owed by the Bell Group.
The ATO was seeking the recovery of about $300 million in unpaid taxes.
What was not definitive in the Attorney-General's statement was whether he had at any point instructed Gleeson to withhold an argument in the High Court to protect this interest. Brandis claims legal privilege as to the pair's specific communications, and Turnbull responds to all questions by pointing to the pseudo-exhaustive Brandis statement.
This is crisis management 101.
So, in the absence of Brandis waiving any legal privilege, the responsibility for integrity assurance moves to Turnbull. To wit: what steps he may have taken to assure himself that his minister had not implicitly or explicitly instructed the solicitor-general to betray the Commonwealth interest in favour of a state.
As it happens, this was asked of Turnbull on Tuesday. "The Attorney, as he just noted, has addressed all of these matters in his statement in the Senate, which you said was lengthy but I'm sure it was nonetheless captivating," he responded.
Of course it is conceivable that Turnbull had already obtained direct details of what transpired between Gleeson and Brandis regarding the Bell Group litigation, in which case he should reveal the fact of those queries at least, if not the actual details themselves.
The alternative is that he neither knows the details nor cares, and is content with the Attorney-General's assurances, assurances that skirted the central matter of his precise instructions to the solicitor-general.