Senator the Hon Bridget McKenzie Department of Health briefing of 23 February 2017 (MS17 000325) to your predecessor Mr Hunt misled him. The briefing was about ASADA’s investigation of the Essendon Football Club in 2013. • Paragraph two the briefing states: The Department was not a party to the original investigation. • Paragraph five the briefing states: The Department has had no direct role in the Essendon investigation. Both statements are false. As I will show below, there was direct and ongoing departmental and ministerial involvement in ASADA’s investigation of the Essendon Football Club in 2013. Any ministerial or departmental involvement in an investigation is contrary to section 24 of the ASADA Act. To breach the Act is serious but then to deny the breach to a senior cabinet minister is reprehensible and a clear contravention of the Public Service Act. Section 13 (1) (The APS Code of Conduct) states: An APS employee must behave honestly and with integrity in connection with APS employment. It is dishonest and demonstrates a complete lack of integrity to mislead a senior cabinet minister. Moreover, doing so undermines our system of government. Ministers have to be able to trust the advice they get from the public service. Perhaps the author of the brief thought he or she would get away with it. After all, the department did everything it could to prevent the document being released under FOI. The evidence that the then Sports Minister and the department were intimately involved in ASADA’s investigation of the Essendon Football Club is contained in the transcripts of the Federal Court case No. VID 327 of 2014 & No. VID 328 of 2014. The testimony given under oath by Ms Aurora Andruska, the CEO of ASADA, in 2013 clearly and explicitly demonstrates Mr Hunt was misled by the Department of Health in brief MS17 000325. Ms Andruska, as the ASADA CEO, was best placed to know who was involved in the Essendon investigation. At pages 144, 162, 170, 195 and 196 of the transcript, she makes it clear Ms Kate Lundy, the then Sports Minister and Mr Richard Eccles, the senior sports bureaucrat at the time, were directly involved in the investigation. • Page 144: Ms Andruska agrees that Mr Eccles had a persisting involvement in relation to the investigation. MR YOUNG: Yes. Now, that as a meeting with the Australian Crime Commission, was it not?---Yes. And also in attendance was a Mr Richard Eccles from the Department of Regional Australia, Local Government for the Arts and Sport?---Yes. Yes. Now, Mr Eccles is someone who had a persisting involvement in relation to the investigation that unfolded, was he not?---Yes. • Page 162: MR YOUNG: So what was Mr Eccles doing then?---I guess that’s a question for Mr Eccles. What I--- Did you invite him?---I do not recall. • Page 170: MR YOUNG: And Mr Eccles participated in this conversation, did he not?---Yes. • Page 195: Ms Andruska stating that the then Minister, Kate Lundy, contrary to the ASADA Act, was interfering in the investigation: MR YOUNG: Ms Andruska, you’ve made a note that Minister Lundy needs something, and your note says “Deal with AFL. Support staff sacked. Points off. Players –“ Thus, we have the ASADA CEO at the time testifying under oath that Mr Richard Eccles the senior sports bureaucrat had a persisting involvement in relation to the investigation. How then can the department brief the minister that The Department was not a party to the original investigation. Both can’t be right. It makes sense to believe the person who testified under oath rather than the person who expected the brief to the Minister to remain confidential. Minister, something needs to be done. Clearly the Department of Health misled its Minister in February 2017. There is a pattern of misinformation and cover up in relation to ASADA’s investigation of the Essendon Football Club. Your predecessors have decided to look the other way hoping the whole sorry miscarriage of justice will fade into history. From previous experience with the federal bureaucracy in relation to ASADA’s investigation I am confident you too will be advised to do nothing. However, now that it is obvious the bureaucrats in charge of sport can’t be trusted, I would urge you to establish an independent inquiry to find out what actually happened and what is the truth. At the very least the department needs to explain why it misled Mr Hunt. Yours sincerely Allan Hird Justice for the 34 renews its call for a Senate or Independent inquiry into anti-doping with wide ranging terms of reference which allow all sporting bodies, all athletes, and all interested parties to make representations. It’s in the national interest. Support an independent inquiry to sort this mess out.