Global articles on espionage, spying, bugs, and other interesting topics.

Release of secret report into police bugging scandal blocked by Premier's department

“The government’s cover-up is continuing”: David Shoebridge. Photo: Simon Alekna

The release of a secret report into a police bugging scandal has been blocked by Premier Mike Baird’s department, leading to warnings the dispute may end up before the Supreme Court.

The Strike Force Emblems report examines allegations of illegal bugging by the NSW police’s Special Crime and Internal Affairs (SCIA) and the NSW Crime Commission between 1999 and 2001, but has never been made public.

Its contents are sensitive as the current Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, and a current deputy commissioner, Catherine Burn, worked at SCIA and one of the detectives being bugged was Nick Kaldas, now also a deputy commissioner.

Last month, the NSW upper house passed a resolution seeking release of the Emblems report to a parliamentary inquiry into Ombudsman Bruce Barbour’s two-year investigation of the bugging scandal.

Although the government opposed the motion, it passed with the support of Labor, the Greens and the Shooters and Fishers Party.

But the Premier’s department wrote to the Crown Solicitor asking if it was “arguable” that under parliamentary rules the report can be released only with the permission of NSW Governor David Hurley, as it concerns “the administration of justice”.

On Friday, the Crown Solicitor tabled legal advice agreeing with this view, because the report contains references to court proceedings and perjury. In response, the Premier’s department has declined to release it to the Parliament.

A motion requesting the Governor’s permission is not possible before the upper house inquiry because Parliament has risen until after the March 2015 election.

Greens MP David Shoebridge, a member of the parliamentary inquiry set to examine the Ombudsman’s inquiry into the Emblems report, said the decision showed “the government’s cover-up is continuing”.

“They appear to be willing to make any argument to prevent the release of what is obviously a highly damaging report,” he said.

Mr Shoebridge said he would refer the decision to the Parliament’s independent arbiter, Keith Mason, QC.

“But clearly there are substantial issues of legal principle here that may have to be determined by the Supreme Court,” he said.